This year marked the 75th anniversary of the Grand National Roadster Show and the 21st year that the event has been held at the LA County Fairgrounds in Pomona, California.

The 11 contenders for the America’s Most Beautiful Roadster award this year included some stunners, but Russ Meyer’s 1936 fenderless Ford roadster was the favourite from the get-go.

The fenderless ’36 is the second car built for Ross Meyer by the team at Rad Rides by Troy. The first was ’36 five-window coupe dubbed ‘First Love’ and yep, the coup was young Ross’s very first car, purchased at age eight for just $25! The coupe took out the Ridler Award at the Detroit Autorama in 2007.

Ross then challenged Troy Trepanier and his team to build a ’36 roadster as fenderless roadster highboy. No mean feat, given the fat-fendered ’36 looks awkward with the guards unbolted.

While Ross sent a ’36 roadster body to the team as a starting point, the crew led by Adam Banks (who also drew up the incredible artwork above) opted to create a new body in steel from scratch, using the original body to create the dies needed to get the body reveals and beltlines accurate. You can check out the build in detail here.

And while there is plenty of ’36 design DNA in the roadster, the body has many differences when compared to a stocker, with the firewall pushed back eight inches, the grill shorter by four inches, inch-shorter doors and the rear eight inches shorter.

The 113in chassis was built in house, with torsion bar front suspension matched to 1940 Ford spindles and Ridetech shocks. Out back is a Winters quick-change diff, held up by a transverse torsion bar set up. Highly detailed radius rods were scratch built for both ends. All of which were tucked in as tightly as possible into the chassis for maximum smoothness.

The engine is a work of art on its own, a 1957 312 Y-block, with an old-school VS57 McCulloch supercharger fitted with modern Paxton internals with three hidden EFI throttle bodies. Behind the Y-block is a Ford 4R70W AOD auto.

The interior is a work of art in itself, with a one-off aluminium dash housing a ’50 Buick instrument panel. The steering column and tiller are also scratch-built.

We can’t do this incredible car justice with the time we have, so check out the ’36 build in detail here.

Our pick of the show was Cody Walls’s ‘Ardun Killer’ ’32 coupe. The coupe is heavily channelled, but not chopped in true East Coast style. Cody took out the Blackie Gejeian Award for the build, which was inspired by early 60s show rods.

Like Cody’s ’59 Chev wagon build, the coupe is powered by a stunningly-detailed Chev six, this one equipped with a Wayne 12-port cross-flow head.

Massive props are also due to Piero De Luca for his stunning recreation of Tweedy Pie, the T Model roadster built by Bob Johnson and made famous by Big Daddy Ed Roth. The Revell model kit of the car sold over 11 million units!

Tweedy Pie was on show next to Piero’s stunning Live Wire Model A coupe.