Photos by Scott Schwartz
The Mopar Nationals in Columbus, Ohio is One of the Largest in the Country!
The Mopar Nationals is the event for enthusiasts of everything Mopar. For three days, the 37th edition of this event drew crowds from the Dodge, Chrysler, Plymouth, and AMC badges to take over the National Trail Raceway in Hebron, Ohio. This gathering was segmented into a car show, racing, and gigantic swap meet with loads of hard-to-find parts. There were thousands of cars there to represent the history of the Mopar group, and we got a look at some of the best representatives of all of the encompassed badges.
At the event, there were close to 2,000 vendors, and over 2,600 entered cars. The vendors and cars on display combined drew in a crowd of over 43,000 die-hard fans of Mopar cars and parts. While high-performance late models were welcome, there seemed to be quite the influx of classics and muscle cars this year, maybe it was just meant to be since it’s the 50th anniversary of the 1967 model, and Plymouth GTX since it was introduced in 1967.
The level of quality seen in the car show was somewhat elevated over the ‘typical’ crowd, which may have to do with the fact that there wasn’t a people’s choice component. All of the judges were top experts on the vehicles, especially when it came to the original classes. There were, however, classes that welcomed unique builds and highly modified Mopars; these classes were judged on creativity and quality. The event coordinators offered a non-judged area for those who wanted to display their car outside of the show.
Drag racing took place where Mopar owners were able to compete in various classes for the top honors in each. Class eliminations took place on Saturday and Sunday, and also featured exhibition fun runs for wheel standers to Pro Mods. Some of the entrants also got the chance to see if they could make it into the 100 mph club during the event, and of course, there was a killer burnout contest. Check out the results below for the car show, racing, and other competitions.
Here are the scenes from the competitive events and show:
While we normally stick with the classic side of the muscle car niche, we did want to share a few sights from the modern group, so we’ll leave you with a couple of the newer Mopars there in representation below, and we hope to see you there next year!
Shawn Henry is a Texas native who has spent the majority of his career building and selling F-Bodies and Corvettes. Now studying journalism, he is taking a new direction with his love of performance vehicles.
