Virginia Street in downtown Reno is one of the main cruising strips for Hot August Nights. But each day of the event, traffic is redirected elsewhere and the road becomes a huge car show, with hundreds of vintage hot rods, muscle cars, street rods, and trucks, posed in the sun for what seems like a mile up the main drag.
Today was our first day at Hot August Nights 2014, and even though we thought we were getting an early start at 8 am, by the time we hit the street, the car show was already in full swing. Right outside our hotel, a beautiful candy apple red custom Ford pickup glinted in the low-sitting sun, just down from a mean-looking flamed red ’65 Plymouth Belvedere. Across the street an early-‘50s Chevrolet custom wearing a Cadillac bumper sat in front of a same-vintage Olds, which had a fantastic patina to its original blue paint.
Not long after that, we cranked up the Viper and headed across town to the Reno-Sparks Convention Center for Barrett-Jackson’s Hot August Nights auction, which sprawls through several of the building’s huge air-conditioned halls. Foot traffic was solid and just about every seat was filled as the cars started rolling across the block, and from what I could gather from the lots I watched cross the block, prices looked pretty healthy – a restomod red ’70 Chevelle with a 350 did $17,500 on the block, right after a ’30 Ford Model A Rumble Seat Coupe sold at $39,000, commissions not included.
Next stop for us is Sparks this evening, where we’ll be checking out this year’s drags at the Nugget, as well as the nightly cruise through town. Stay tuned for more!