Something special bloomed at McKee Botanical Garden last Saturday, as nestled in amongst the 18-acre botanical garden’s waterlilies, orchids, native and tropical plants were vibrant vehicles at the eighth annual Motor Car Exhibition – Rods and Customs.
“One day I was walking through McKee with the executive director, Christine Hobart, and made an offhand comment about how the garden would be a beautiful place to display cars,” recalled committee chair, John Schumann. “Next thing I know, I’m the head of the Motor Car Exhibition.”
Schumann, known for his own personal car collection and avid interest in automobiles, was the perfect fit for such an ambitious undertaking. Now in its eighth year, the show has gone from zero to 60 with more than 3,400 visitors attending the single-day event.
The theme for the event changes each year, with prior years focused on extinct cars, collector favorites, Fords and corvettes. This time it was pre-selected hot rods, mod rods, street rods, retro rods and motorcycles.
“We were very excited about this year’s show, which featured 43 rods and customs,” said Hobart. “The car show committee worked extremely hard selecting the very best vehicles represented in this artistic category.”
Schumann, thrilled with the show, said, “We have a great variety of cars on which people have spent a lot of time customizing.”
Visitors enjoyed taking a walk down memory lane, past such autos as Mercury sedans, Camaros, Packards and Challengers that had been buffed to a high sheen and highly modified for appearance and speed. More than few shook their heads over cars they once owned and let slip away.
The engines in these “hot rods” weren’t the only pieces of art at McKee, which currently has on display its Nature Connects: Art with LEGO Bricks Exhibition. After checking out the cars, visitors strolled through the garden, taking in the 13 nature sculptures by LEGO artist Sean Kenney. The figures were, built using more than 300,000 LEGO pieces to depict unique depictions of nature, including a monarch butterfly, praying mantis, white triumphator lily, ducks, coral snake and, of course, a gardener. The exhibit will be on display through May 7 and includes a LEGO Brick Build Station for a hands-on experience.
For more information, visit McKeeGarden.org.