Back To Press ReleaseChryslers Invade Santa Fe Springs for the 1st Annual Hotchkis Mopar Open House
Date: 2009-07-21Every year, we invite a car club or a group of enthusiasts to visit Hotchkis HQ, have lunch, show off their cars and talk tech. It’s a fun, casual way to learn more about our customers share information about suspension setup and performance driving. On July 18th, we invited the Southern California Chrysler community to an open house at the shop, and four five fantastic local car clubs showed up in force. Our typical open house turned into a full-blown car show, complete with famous rides, a rock star, burnouts, over 80 cars and even a Hemi-powered air raid siren. It doesn’t get much wilder than that.
Even though the show was scheduled to start at 10:00am, a representative from the So Cal LX Club showed up at 7:00am in a slammed Dodge Magnum and staked out two dozen parking spots right next to our building. Over the course of the next three hours, Chargers, Magnums and Chrysler 300s rolled in one at a time, and by the time the event kicked off So Cal LX was by far the largest group in attendance.
The prizes for most organized club and most impressive entrance goes to the members of the So Cal Challenger Club, who have been planning their arrival on ChallengerTalk.com for nearly a month. This is a relatively new club with a stellar group of members with an incredible amount of passion about their late-model Mopar muscle cars. Led by company president Red Dog, the SCCC crew staged at a restaurant around the corner, then made a grand entrance at precisely 10am with a parade of 17 glistening Challengers and two Chargers. The cars looked better than they probably did on the showroom floor, club members wore matching uniforms and by 10:15 they had banners and club-branded EZ Ups setup in their own section of the show.
The classic Mopar community was represented by three fantastic car clubs from three corners of Southern California. About two dozen Darts, Challengers, Chargers, Road Runners and other ‘60s and early ’70s Mopars rolled into the Hotchkis lot by 10:15 from the far reaches of the city, thanks to help from the presidents of the Inland Valley Mopar Club and the South Bay Mopar Club.
Chrysler Performance West – based out of the San Fernando Valley – showed up in force with a variety of cool Chryslers ranging from a road race early ‘Cuda to several B-Body street cars and Steve Strope’s original “family car,” the Chrysler Newport known as “BIG.” Steve Wall from CPW came to the show armed with a bevy of tech questions and notes, and he was instrumental in getting the word out to the Chrysler community with a full array of forum posts, club announcements and more.
By 11:15 the sun was blasting down on 84 incredible Chryslers surrounding our shop, a new record for Hotchkis open house attendance. Everyone needed a break from the heat, so we retreated into the Hotchkis R&D Center, where John Hotchkis kicked off a tech talk by explaining the basic premise behind suspension design, alignment and high-performance handling. John then handed the mic over to Chief Engineer Aaron Ogawa, who explained how the different Hotchkis Mopar Total Vehicle Systems (TVS) work and why they offer such incredible handling improvements. Finally Brand Manager Mark Rossetti fielded product-specific questions about our latest parts and systems for classic A, B and E-Body cars as well as LX platform modern Mopar muscle.
As the tech talk wrapped up, John Hotchkis hopped back on the mic to make to special introductions. First he brought out rock star and Chrysler uber-fan Kenny Wayne Shepherd, who spoke about his love for all things Chrsyler, from his latest acquisition – a brand new Challenger SRT8 – to high profile cars like his ’69 Charger “Xtreme Lee” that features Hotchkis suspension. As Kenny wound things down and signed autographs, custom car builder and world-renown designer Steve Strope came out to say hello and talk about some of his more well-known rides, particularly “Hammer,” Eric Reed’s incredible ’70 Road Runner that happened to be parked about 20 feet away in the Hotchkis parking lot. As it turned out the TLC Rides television episode featuring Hammer happened to be on the night before the show, so builder, owner and vehicle all got plenty of attention.
After the tech talk everyone gathered under the Hotchkis rig’s oversize awning for lunch, and we held a small raffle to thank everyone for coming. Prizes included T-Shirts, billet hood pins, a billet battery hold down, a billet Mopar license plate graciously donated by an Inland Mopar Club member, a wine and cheese basket and a set of Hotchkis Sport Sway Bars that were won by Jim Diess of Anaheim, California for his 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8. The highlight of the raffle were a dozen highly collectible Pure Vision edition Hot Wheels, designed by Steve Strope, which he autographed on site for the winners.
As the raffle and the show wound to a close, Danny French from the American Military Museum in El Monte, California, fired up one of the most unique Hemi-powered contraptions we’ve ever seen. The 1952 Chrysler Air Raid Siren is essentially a 331 Fireball Hemi on a test cell bolted to a turbine blowing into a massive megaphone. The U.S. Government commissioned Chrysler Corp. to build these mammoth sirens to warn the populace of an incoming missile attack, and at full speed (4,600 rpm) each siren is capable of cranking out 170dB, enough to be heard over 10 miles away. The air velocity escaping the horn is over 400mph! Witnessing this incredible piece of history in action was a fantastic way to wrap up the day.
John Hotchkis and the entire staff at Hotchkis Performance want to thank everyone who made the trip out to the shop for our first all-Mopar open house. We had a wonderful time looking at all the killer cars, talking tech and handling, getting feedback from the Chrysler community on current and future products and more. We particularly want to thank our friends Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Steve Strope and Eric Reed for their time and effort. Stay tuned to this space for announcements about the next Hotchkis Open House, as well as Hotchkis Driving Days and other fun events we have planned for the next few months!
