Reporter-Herald Staff Writer
If you go
What: Goodguys 18th Colorado Nationals
When: Sept. 11-13
Where: The Ranch, 5280 Arena Circle
More info: Event showcases more than 2,000 hot rods, customs, classics, muscle cars and truck trucks. Event also includes three days of Goodguys AutoCross racing competition, automotive
swap meet, AutoTrader Classics Cars for sale corral, entertainment, children’s activities, model and
pedal car show. The K&N Filters All American Sunday will be Sept. 13 open to all years
American made and powered vehicles. Participants will be eligible for awards and can run the Goodguys AutoCross course. All American Sunday registration opens Sunday at 7 a.m.
On the web: Visit www.good-guys.com/ for details and schedule information.
Other experiences at Goodguys
Dodge Rocks! Tour: The Dodge brand will offer an opportunity all three days to see the new model vehicles in the 2015 Dodge brand lineup. Visitors can take a test drive in the 2015 Dodge Charger R/T, Dodge Challenger Scat Pack, Dodge Dart SXT, Dodge Durango R/T and Dodge Journey Crossroad.
Johnson Big Taste Grill National Tour: The grill is 20 feet tall, 65 feet long and six feet in diameter with a 6,000-pound lid opened with a hydraulic system. The onboard refrigerator can hold a half ton of brats and the grill can cook up to 750 brats at a time. The grill will be onsite all weekend cooking Johnsonville brats and sausages for purchase. “The money raised goes towards a charity,” coordinator Betsy Bennett says. “For this show, it will go to the American Cancer Society in this area. They do a lot of good with that giant piece of machinery. They are taking their brand and doing something charitable with it wherever they go.”
Back in the day, cars said something about your history and your background, according to Al Herder.
“We grew up in an era where your car defined you and your style,” Herder said.
In their 47 years of marriage, Herder and his wife Judy have owned more than 70 cars, because she’s a car lover — a “car chick” — as much as he is.
“We love cars,” Herder said simply. “We don’t have a motor home, a camper, a boat; our hobby is our cars.”
Al and Judy, are bringing three classic cars to the Goodguys Colorado Nationals car show this weekend at The Ranch.
The Goodguys event moved from June to September this year because organizers felt that September was a better event month, out of the busy car season but still with great weather. When the event originally started 18 years ago at the Pikes Peak International Raceway in Fountain, it was always in September, according to Betsy Bennett, one of the coordinators of the Goodguys event. Ten years ago, the event moved to The Ranch on a new date.
“We have the same event footprint,” she said. “Autocross all three days, vendor exhibits, the swap meets, Nitro Thunderfest; there are a lot of different things to see and do.”
She said that there are many car shows that take place throughout the year in the Northern Colorado area, but she hopes the Goodguys National experience brings another flavor and different features to the area.
Each one of the cars that Al and Judy Herder will bring has sentimental value for the pair.
1970 Plymouth HemiCuda Convertible
In the late 1970s the pair did a search for a nice car to collect. They found a 1971 Barracuda convertible that was in pieces. The couple had it repainted and worked on it over time. Their children remember getting ice cream in that car and playing Beach Boys music on the cassette deck. They sold the car to start a business and then later, when they could afford cars again, they purchased a 1970 ‘Cuda convertible. It was bright pink, and they drove the car around for 10 years before deciding to do their first show car restoration. Over five years, Al and Judy restored the Cuda and had it repainted a vibrant plum color.
“You don’t write the check all at once,” Al said. “It takes about five years.”
They entered the car for the first time in the Goodguys Colorado Nationals in 2012 and won a “Mopar Muscle Pick” award.
1952 Ford F2 Pickup
Judy’s father’s first pickup was a 1952 Ford F2 that he had repainted in the late 1970s. He sold it in 1983 and moved on to other pickups, but Judy remembers talking about his pickup and wishing they had it again. Then one day about two years ago, a man in Denver who had been one of the pickup’s owners called the Herders to say that he had seen the pickup featured in Hemmings Motor News, where people can post listings for classic cars they are selling. Judy called the owner in Delaware and described the unique features her dad had installed into the car, such as welding a steel plate in the bed of the pickup after a wooden board rotted.
“When he fixed something in the pickup, he did it right,” Al said with a laugh. “We negotiated for it and bought it. It is an absolute time capsule. It is exactly the way it was 30 years ago.”
The Herders consider the vehicle a “survivor” of the times.
“When she got in it, she looked at it and had tears in her eyes and said it smells like him,” Herder said fondly.
He said the car gets a lot of attention at shows because many people have a car in their history that they wish they could get back.
1959 Dodge Coronet
When Al was in high school, he bought a 1959 Dodge from the back aisle of a Ford dealer for $75.
Last year, he found a Craigslist ad for a 1959 Dodge with the same body at an auction in Missouri. He won the bid over the phone and drove to Missouri to bring the car back on a trailer.
“It had been in a garage for like 30 years,” he said. “It’s another survivor. It had the original paint and interior. It has about 66,000 miles on it.
He and Judy had to get a new brake system, fuel system and exhaust system put in the car.
“It’s another survivor,” he said. “The version I drove in high school.”
He said that his parents were born here, his kids were born here.
“We’ve always been here. We talked to a lot of people that remember Judy’s dad’s truck at the car shows,” Al said. “It brings a lot of people together to talk about their memories and what they remember about cars. It’s a camaraderie among us car people.”
Jessica Benes: 970-669-5050 ext. 530, jbenes@reporter-herald.com, Twitter.com/jessicabenes.
Goodguys 18th Colorado Nationals brings classic cars to Loveland
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