Henry’s ROD SHOP OPENING DAY 2020

WOW, what a turn out for an open day this was!

After everyone being caged up for so long and not out cruising, it was certainly obvious that people couldn’t wait to get out and get behind the wheel of their toys again! Owners Ray and Mark Thompson have been around hot rods for way too many years to mention. The new premises in Marshall Road, Katikati is an awesome set up from mechanical to panel beating, then onto the finished painted product for anyone wanting a build done to any stage. The front of the building has more than full sized murals of their own builds, including a 36 Ford Tudor and a couple of Coupes, just to let you know as soon as you arrive that this is a Hot Rod shop! There is not just hot rod builds either, tucked amongst the builds were several muscle cars from both America and Australia. You don’t see that very often! With such a beautiful sunny day in the BOP, cars and people were arriving bright and early to get amongst it. The rear car park was full in no time with clubs arriving in mass making for a very cool display! The front car park area filled up not long after with more clubs that had turned it into a full-on cruise day, doing a tiki tour around the countryside before arriving. Local band “Blaze” were in fine form entertaining the crowd banging out some cool ole rock n roll tracks from years gone by, along with the local Fire Brigade cooking up sausages to feed the masses. The celebrations were in hand with a custom printed cake for the opening to celebrate the day which was soon cut and handed about after a quick prize giving to cars chosen by Ray and Mark as worthy. It certainly was an awesome day out that quickly turned from an opening into a full-on car show. It was fantastic to see a heap of cool cars out cruising again and the buzz amongst the crowd reviving the faith that the car scene could never be held back for long! There is certainly a lot of knowledge and experience tucked away in these cool sheds with another shed currently being built to house more projects for finishing!