The Deora was the work of two brothers, Mike and Larry Alexander, who won the Detroit Autorama Ridler Award many times over, and they wanted to do something in the mid-60s with the slew of cabover pickups hitting the market. Starting with a stock 1965 Dodge A100 Cabover (which the project designer Harry Bentley Bradley considered the ugliest of the competition) provided by Chrysler, they unitized the body, chopped and channeled and massaged and smoothed the trucklet down to something they liked. Then there was the problem of the door. Instead of doors on the side, they went with a huge two piece front hatch adapted from a Ford station wagon to provide the entry point. After all was said and done, they dusted it with a metallic yellow-green paint, took it to the '67 Detroit Autorama and the rest is history.

Now the creation instantly recognizable to any hot-rod history buff is heading to the RM auction block Saturday, September 26; Expected haul in the neighborhood of $350,000-$550,000. But really, what's money when you're driving around something this unique? And yes, that is a rip-snorting 115 HP slant six with an Offy intake under the... um... hood? (Thanks for the tip Matt) [RM Auctions]

Photo credit RM Auctions

It is verboten to fire your engine before the official end of the show is announced, but when the okay is given, all hell breaks loose. There is nothing quite like the sound of thousands of horsepower erupting inside a cavernous building of concrete and steel. Show officials open up the back door of the building and onlookers line the path to watch as a parade of spectacular steel streams by. If you want to make time for next year's Detroit Autorama, shoot for the last day, it's worth the wait.

And thus we conclude this year's coverage of the 2009 Detroit Autorama. It's a great show and brings out some of the most skilled and nicest folks in the business. If you ever get a chance, make the trip. Below we've put all of our coverage into a convenient list so you can pass it around to all your grease-monkey friends.

Roadchamp Coupe Does Justice To Knockoffs	1924 Dodge Modified, Skinny-Tired Dirt-Racing Awesome	1933 Ford Cabriolet, A Noble Great Eight Contender	Lord Humongous Rides Again! Six-Wheeled Death Machine Recreated
You Want Crazy? Pro Comp 1930 Ford Coupe	A Tale Of Two KITTs	Troy Trepanier's "Notorious" Will Steal Your Girlfriend	E.J. Potter's Bloody Mary To Dodge Tomahawk: Eat It!
Voodoo Curse: 40-Year-Old Inline-Six Gets A T3 Turbo	2009 Detroit Autorama: Deucenberg Wins Ridler Award!	2009 Detroit Autorama: Dan Webb's Golden Submarine Debuts!	1929 Ford Zephster Sports Breathtaking Lincoln V12, Tricks Up Sleeve
Cadillac VSR Hot Rod Concept	The Deucenberg A Ridler Contender For Sure	2009 Detroit Autorama: Vannin' Is Back!

Maybe it's the knockoffs on gold wheels against the green paint, perhaps the Packard aping grille, maybe it's the big boy's only torsion bar front suspension, or perhaps the Ford 351 GT-40 engine backed by a Tremec TKO 500, but the Roadchamp Coupe makes us a little hot under the collar. This one wasn't eligible for the Ridler, as it has been shown before, but this is a wolf in sheep's clothing, as long as the sheep is wearing a tailored three piece suit and knows how to clean up a mob fight. Clean, purposeful and handsome, if we had to pick from the upstairs roadsters, this is the one we'd take home. It has a brass hammer mounted in the trunk if that helps you understand how awesome this car is.

It looks like an old-timey dirt tracker. Heck, it very well might be, but it also might be a recreation or homage to some long lost hot rod. We don't care, this thing looks like a grown up go-cart and that means a ball of laughs. The skinny tires guarantee riotous handling and the spartan interior means you can wash it out with a hose when you go blasting through an empty soybean field. The best part? An exposed drive shaft painted like a barber pole. That's genius.

The Cabriolet borrows bits from several '30s era Ford products, the body is from the 1933 model while that nose came from a 1938 Ford truck — looks right at home if you ask us. The body has been massaged ever so gently for a cleaner look, and we're loving the sheetmetal detail at the bottom of the bonnet, pinned to the chassis with shiny rivets. Motivation comes via a clean 354 Hemi V8 mated to a 700R transmission. Again, this is one of those clean, simple hot rods evocative of the original era of hot rodding. Keep it simple, make it cool, and make sure it's fast. If we'd have been on the voting committee it would have been a hard choice between this car and Duecenberg.

Based on an '84 Ford F-150, this blood-and-guts custom faithfully recreates everyone's favorite post-apocalyptic survival vehicle down to the tiny bits. The added third axle isn't driven - and the nitrous isn't hooked up to anything - but we're completely sold on this monster. For what this machine lacks in mechanical ability it makes up for in spades with a working loudspeaker and realistic prisoners.

Stashed in the corner of this year's Autorama 2009, it's mightyness loomed over every custom built so dearly. The sheetmetal body work on the death chariot looks like it's been sectioned with a hacksaw and buzzed together with an arc welder; we wouldn't want it any other way. Where are you going to find a nice, powerful Miller TIG in the middle of the wasteland? Nowhere.

When we questioned the positionable Lord Humongous cardboard collector cutout, he only replied,

Just walk away. I will give you safe passage in the Wasteland. Just walk away and there will be an end to the horror. I await your answer. You have one full day to decide.

Wait, is he talking about Detroit?

A 528 Hemi built by Keith Black wasn't enough, owner Bruce Harvey needed more. Add a 1471 supercharger and not one, but two Holly 1050 Dominators and you've got a recipe for disaster significant entertainment. How much horsepower? We were told "adequate." How proper. This must be kind of thing old time speed freaks are given when they reach that unlimited class drag strip in the sky.

We pause from the blazing awesomeness of Autorama to bring you this JaloPSA: You can build two awesome cars name KITT, but without a good show to support them, any Knight Rider franchise will die.

If only we'd have featured this public service announcement before NBC sent the latest iteration of the Knight Rider franchise into the seething hell of terrible scripts and even worse acting, we might all be enjoying a sentient car-based action show today. Sadly, such is not the case. The two KITTs posed together in some creepy post-mortem celebration of the show, here at Autorama where on multiple occasions, feathered mullet frocked onlookers squealed with delight upon seeing that monster Mustang. No such response for the venerable old F-body.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

So let's get this out of the way: 572 cubic inch Procharged crate motor, 4L80E transmission, a 3.50 rear gear with a Detroit Locker, MSD ignition, 3" Flowmaster exhaust, Baer 14" brakes, and a RacePac Data Logger dash. This car will chew you up and not even bother spitting you out. It will do drag pulls so hard you children will feel it. Opec rejoices when this car visits a drag strip. All other Nova's feel inferior in the presence of Notorious. It's black, it's badass, and it makes us weak in the knees. Screw environmental stewardship, we'd rather be Notorious.

Just bask in the majesty of this lunatic machine. It doesn't even have a geared transmission, it has the crankshaft running a manure spreader sprocket tied to a combine sprocket driving a reduction gear to the rear dive chain. You sit on the fender, flip the toggle switch fire this baby up and hope the ironic Whizzer sourced fuel tank doesn't run out of juice before you're run is over. This is batshit insane on a level rarely seen these days. Just look at that twitchy castor angle on the front wheel, Michigan Madman indeed.

Tillrock's custom has been dubbed the "Voodoo Curse" as he's a member of the Chicago area hot-rod club the Voodoo Kings, but it took more than Voodoo to put this baby together. He started out with a '32 Chevy body and chopped the hell out of it, added the fins from a '57 Buick , the dash of a '57 Oldsmobile, and the steering wheel of a '59 Cadillac — he even hacked in the tailgate of an old Chevy pickup. But that's all stuff a normal, sane hot rod might have.

Take a peek at the engine bay and you're brain starts to boil as it tries to comprehend what it's seeing. Ed fabricated a custom intake and exhaust manifold for a previously junkyard bound Chevy 230 c.i. inline six to accommodate a monstrous 70mm Garrett T3 turbocharger. This thing breaths so heavy, only one half of that carburetor is hooked up. Here's the cherry on top — it's running on stock internals! To make matters even more insane, he's got that chrome smoke stack hooked up to propane and an ignition, this baby breaths fire. Ed say's he'd only got about 1,300 miles on the car and it'll do 85 MPH no problem, but at that point you can tell it's got bias ply tires on it.

Cool as we might think it is, don't take our word for it. Hot-rodding legend Gene Winfield liked it so much he gave it the 2009 Gene Winfield Coolest Custom Award. Pretty amazing considering the car isn't even finished yet!

The Ridler award, given out every year at the Detroit Autorama, is one of custom hot rodding's biggest awards. In addition to the fame and the engraved trophy comes $10,000 cash, a General Motors crate motor and an embroidered jacket you get to show off to all your shop rat buddies.

The rule, other than it being the bestest rod at Autorama is the car must be in it's very first showing anywhere, so if you've got something awesome, you have to sit on it until the Autorama.

The Duecenberg was built by Alan Johnson Johnson's Hot Rod Shop in Gadsden, Alabama and is owned by Doug Cooper of Oyster Bay Cove, New York, who counts nine '32 Fords in his stable. The car is based on a 1932 Ford B400, but let's just say things aren't exactly original. It's got a cloth roof over a lift-off aluminum frame, carefully customized body work all around, some classy Dayton Wheels and believe it or not that's a 405 HP GM LS6 under the hood.

Webb has taken home a Ridler award in the past, but this machine is on a whole different level than other cars here. The Submarine liberally borrows inspiration from the 1917-era streamliner built under engineering legend Harry Miller. This new car features a hand formed and unpainted all-steel body so perfect the application of paint would just ruin it, mounted on a hand built and jig-drilled lightweight frame. Motivation comes from a 2.0 liter Ford Zetec four cylinder with significant upgrades. stopping comes from eccentric mounted disc brakes borrowed from a Buell Motorcycle. Take time to look at the interior where the torque tube passes between the drivers legs and steering, shifting, and pedal controls are all hand formed. The exhaust passes in wrapped pipes down the drive's left side and exits through a single tip at the point of the teardrop body work.

You could stand and look at this car all day.

The siamesed exhaust ports on the passer by leads most to believe it's just another V8, but such is not the case. A V12 thumps in the heart of this beast and clever details abound. Cool parts: The elegant sweep of the exhaust pipes, the Mobile Pegasus, hand pin striping, and a torque tube mounted up with a multilink suspension modeled after lakes speedsters, a fuel indicator made by drilling a hole in the cap, welding a red-painted allen key to a pushrod stuck into a fuel float, hood ornament as shifter knob. The one detail we really like is the steering. Take a look at that head on image and think about what's missing. Take your time.

There's no drag link between the wheels. Woody didn't want extra parts hanging off the front. He wanted everything to be moving forward as much as possible, so he dug through history and discovered a Ford tractor steering box with two output shafts which counter rotate, for a push-pull effect, no drag link necessary. How cool is that?

The VSR Concept wears familiar Cadillac styling stretched over a low slung tube framed hot rod chassis. Power comes from a 6.0-liter V8 which develops 400 HP. Why not a Cadilac CTS-V matching 568 HP? No idea. What it lacks in CTS-V power it more than makes up for in the "Holy crap that thing is awesome I want it" category. It's spartan, it's low slung, and it's open wheels. This is why we'd be terrible GM executives. The whole fleet would be open wheeled Caddy's and El Caminos.

A trend we're noticing as we walk the floor with the suspected Ridler contenders is more reverence paid towards traditional hot rodding. There are certainly smoothed and chopped trailer queens still, it comes with the territory, but work on this 1932 Ford B400 is impressive. The car gets a complete reshape, with the intent of creating something which would fit in with the best luxury cars of the era, but a bit more compact. There's a beautifully detailed engine underhood and it even retains the finned drum brake as opposed to big obnoxious discs. The interior even stays true to concept with analog gauges, a wooden shifter handle on a long shifter, and stylish but old-looking seating. If this is the direction high-dollar hot rodding is going we'll be pretty happy.

The art and culture of Vannin' has of late been relegated to the trash heap of irrelevant artforms by the larger customization world. Screw that, vans are back ,and taking up quite a healthy section of floor space at this year's Autorama. We've got the Star Dreamer with the cool blue themes, built in TV's and a crushed velvet bed out back — not to mention a stylin' galactic themed mural down the side and gull wing side door. Down the row check out the plain-jane looking blue Chevy with the fender flares, yeah, that one has a supercharger magically wedged up under the hood — the intake is routed in from the cowl, how cool is that?

Down the way there's a nice white Dodge with a fully stylized interior and an exposed stroker 347 taking up space between the front seat passengers. There's Over the top paint? Yeah right next door on a wild, rainbow flamed GMC. Then there's a super clean Dodge with a 340 and a clever adaptation of the hockey stick stripe boasting it's cubic-inch credentials. You heard it here first, Vannin' is on the way back. Stay tuned for more unwavering awesomeness from the halls of Cobo.

2008 Ridler Award Winner
• Ferrambo Wins 2008 Ridler Award At Detroit Autorama

The Ridler Contenders
• 1932 Ford "Willet Special" Has Suprise Powerplant
•
1955 Chrysler 2 Door Hard Top Wagon
• 1941 Willys Coupe
• 1967 GMC Pick Up
• 1956 Chevrolet Handyman Wagon
• 1946 Chevrolet Custom Pickup
• 1940 Ford Coupe

The unwashed, and yet, cooler masses
• Crosley-Davidson Has A Harley V-Twin
• ViperVette Scratches Your Project Car Itch
• "Rock Bottom" Is Biggest Hot Rod At Autorama
• Golden Submarine See Progress, Body Panels
• '32 Ford Hot Rod, Now in Creamsicle Flavor
• We Like To Call This The Puppy Crusher
• Street Legal Cheetah Replicas To Hunt Cobras
• Return Of The Bubble Tops: Atomic Punk
• Freakshow, The Custom Camino From Hello Kitty Hell
• Return of the Bubble Tops: Vampyre
• Newstalgia Wheels' Steampunk Chopper
• The Larson Engineering Special
• Plymouth Rat Rod With Machine Gun Intake
• 2008 Builder Of The Year: Gene Winfield

Novel ideas don't end there. The car has been sort of a test bed for go-faster ideas seeing all kinds of changes and updates over the years. When it was originally built, it pucked the trend of a front mounted solid axle with trailing arms and instead went with a swing axle design allowing for the low stance. Since anybody who's studied chassis physics will tell you a swing axle sucks for driving dynamics, the car was again upgraded with a double wishbone and coilover setup which it still retains. Motiviation comes via a compact V6 V8 which we could not discern but was equipped with some cool parts. The open headers have a cutout valve operated by a cable which runs down the center of the exhaust pipe and can be operated from the cabin. Speaking of cabin, even though it's a cool looking ride, the driver space looks like a special kind of hell. Looking at one of the mods in particular, the big scoops behind the front suspension leading into the footwell, we're assuming that in addition to being cramped, the footwells were hotter than the fires of hades. Yikes but awesome.

Matching old and new is sometimes a delicate art. You don't want to be too retro, and you don't want to be too modern, go one way or the other and a thing just gets kitschy. This bike feels like it hit the mark just right. Based on a 1964 Harley Davidson, the bike has a custom frame with a single sided swing arm, an exposed primary, and what we're assuming are very loud wrapped pipes. This is no ordinary bike though as it has some very clever elements to it. The rear brake is a giant drum from an old Mercury wedged inside of a drag slick. The bike rides on an air suspension and the front Radir spindle mount wheel and vintage tire are suspended by way of an airbag bellows hooked up to a push-pull cable from the flap of a 747. All of that is hooked up to a standard springer suspension lever - very cool. The bike has a faux gas light hooked up to the side of the tank with a regular incandescent bulb inside to light the way. A split tank and wicker foot rests round things out. Even though we're sure this is a deathtrap in the wet, it's a really cool bike, and we may be swiping some of these ideas for our next build up.

In any case, the Vampyre is rife with snazzy design details. The low profile gives it a speedy feel, sculpted head rests visible under the canopy, thin line white walls on Torque Thrust 2's, the tiller is the bottom third of a steering wheel, welded onto rods, dipped in white rubber and bolted to the yoke. Cool. Bet this car gets some looks while cruising around in Kansas.

Yes, we know, it doesn't look like any 1964C-10 we've ever seen either, that's because it's sporting a '61 Chrysler nose and a '57 Chrysler tail along with an incredibly schizophrenic paint scheme. But still, we circle back to this brutal dichotomy of total dominating badassity spitting in the face of convention. Sitting amidst this sea of flat black and rusty hot rods is a cotton candy monster waiting to eat your lunch, but it is nigh on invisible due to its fluffy persona. If Clint Eastwood dressed up like a lady and drove this car around, the world would end, of this we are certain.

The grille alone is a piece of art, not to mention the delightful hand crafted exhaust manifolds, all the custom body work, the spectacular chrome capped fins and the immaculate flawless white interior. The classic white walled MT's mounted on old school 5 spoke Cragars really finishes this masterpiece off. We'd like to know why this car wasn't up for the Ridler Award.

The doors have been welded shut to keep things stiff, so to get in, the roof is actually hinged forward so you can just step right in - cool!. The rear suspension is pretty spectacular, its a solid axle kept in place with a stout panhard setup, a wagon style arched spring to provide compliance, and a set of very, very old oil piston dampers to quiet the chassis. We're eager to see what this thing looks like when it's all done, and we hear there are others from the same shop that are even more twisted and diabolical.

We're really feeling this hot rod - it's simple, to the point, and cool looking. How can you go wrong with a clean execution on a car that is so often overdone. Its got a cross drilled solid front axle, trailing arms, great big drum brakes, two seats and a shifter - the helmeted skull on the shifter isn't hurting either. We'll take one.

Our COTD is 13oostedwagn, who produced this comment, in response to Autorama's 1932 Ford bearing a Viper V10 and laying down 0-60 in—dear Lord—4 sec:

She's my lil' deuce coupe You don't know what she...AHH MY FLESH IS BURNING!!!

Yuk, yuk, yuk...

The slick body work is completely flawless and really impressive in person, especially that one piece grille. Now that the shape is beginning to come together, it's much easier to imagine the finished product and just how much it will resemble the original. Hopefully it will be wrapped up by the next Autorama, so we can see just how fast this Zetec powered bullet will be.

The first clue are those wheels, they stick out like an oh so sore thumb. Actually, half the problem is they don't stick out at all, they're practically lost in those wheel wells. Second and perhaps most impressive is the virtually intact digital dashboard so missed in modern vehicles. We almost thought that interior was certifiable there for a moment. We could go on and on about the specatacularness of the conversion, but we think we'll let the car speak for itself in the letter to the viewer that's posted in the gallery. Ah downstairs, the perfect mouthwash for the Ridler nominees.

Even though it's a fiberglass body, the execution is well played. The one off grille is flanked by custom headlights, and the custom "W" engraved hood stand are all pretty neat pieces. The interior is as red as an Arizona sunset and all of those wheels are deep enough to get lost in. Overall a very nice interpretation of the Willys form.

[MIRG]