The Houston Autorama held its 61st annual show in Houston after taking its 60th year off due to COVID-19. Since the 1980s, the show has always been over Thanksgiving and has been at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Downtown Houston for about the last 15 years. The Brown Convention Center is an enclosed and air-conditioned venue. The show is open to the public for a $20.00 admission fee and in the four days of the show about 20,000 spectators (maybe more) come through the venue.
I have participated in this show for about thirty years but typically I have shown Corvettes, Shelbys, Mustangs, Ferraris, an NSX and a Ford GT. The show is usually heavily weighted toward American Cars in the sense that the vast majority are the muscle cars that are so popular. Because of our location in Houston, Texas there are also a lot of custom trucks of every definition and a neat assortment of rat rods and lowriders. Some years there is also a reasonably sized grouping of motorcycles. A car has to be approved to display at the show.
The International Show Car Association (ISCA) is the sponsoring body for the show and this show is one of a series of similar shows across the country. The cars are judged against a rigorous judging sheet by ISCA judges who select the 1st Place Car in each class. The public has no role in the voting. The Jaguar, in a stock restored condition, would be in class 7130 which is Foreign Sports - Restored. Our car won first against a field filed with Jaguar, Austin Healey, Nissan, Toyota and Porsche. Second Place was a beautiful Healey 100-M with a fresh restoration. The other Jaguars were a reasonable distance from mine.
There are around 450 total cars entered in the show. For all of the cars in a group like "restored" they also are also potentially awarded four specialty awards like paint, interior, wheels, and engine. Our Jaguar won two specialty awards for interior and engine which is certainly a tribute to Classic Showcase because all I have done to the car is knock the dust off. I am very proud of the award because there were a number of beautiful Corvettes, Mustangs and Camaros all of which were in the same "restored" grouping. Quite frankly, there was a 1966 Plymouth Belvedere that was seriously beautiful so I was especially excited with the Interior and Engine trophies.
The major focus of this show today is for custom show cars so the big customs are eligible for the Riddler Award. Chip Foose was the celebrity guest and one of his cars was there. I have never seen a restored car receive the Riddler Award but it is possible provided the car has never been shown in the Autorama before. I will say that the cars that typically get the Riddler Award have fancy show floors and electronic displays and I show the Jaguar on a basic show floor with old fashioned pictures. I did spend about $2500 to have special stands fabricated and chrome plated so I could remove the wheels but I have to stop somewhere.