If you had to judge at a car show, how would you go about it?

Logically, breaking the car down into different areas – suspension, motor, wheels, and paint – seems like a great place to start. But once you have your matrix, do you start at 10 and deduct for missing items, or start from zero and work up? And from there, how much weight do you apply to execution?

If one car has suspension, motor, and engine work for show, but another has it all for go, how do you determine the victor without leaning into your own preferences?

Complicating matters further is authenticity. Should points be deducted for replica parts? Does a car with fewer real components stack up better than a vehicle with more off-brand, or home-made modifications?

If one vehicle arrived on a trailer and one drove, which is ‘better’? When reviewing dyno sheets, which is more valid – chassis dyno numbers or those from a hub dyno?

The judging rabbit hole goes deep, and the task itself can be entirely thankless. Judging is a job taken on by the confident, or the stupid.

Or a bit of both.

I’m sure we’ve all been to an event where someone has lost their cool because they didn’t win an award they thought they were owed. Watching people do this is hilarious, unsportsmanlike, confusing and embarrassing. Yes, that previous sentence is best read in Jackie Chilies’ voice.

My least preferred method of judging is going through a list and ticking boxes, as this can land awards into the hands of those who know the system. Thankfully, Stance East doesn’t use that format for their event, making the job less formulaic.

Don’t get me wrong, if you want to build a car to win at shows, you should do that. Often those cars end up rather impressive, but they just don’t always align with my own personal tastes, which you might know are far from logical and entirely inconsistent.

We all like what we like. But, I always encourage everyone to take a look at the things they don’t like as well.

I know many of you don’t like stance, but often if a slammed car has its hood open (or missing) there’s something worth looking at between the strut towers.

Colin, the owner of this base model Mk6 Jetta made sure that its VR6 engine swap looked as factory as possible. Visually, it uses a Porsche Cayenne intake manifold and engine cover. It’s easier to do this swap if you don’t use these components, but it really steps things up a notch when you do. From a technical standpoint, Colin also merged several factory harnesses and moved a few pins around so that everything looked just as it would if the factory produced it.

At the 2023 Stance East Summer Slam Jam, I was tasked with choosing the winners for three awards: Best Crew (note: most of their cars were shown in the main post); Best Female Driven; and Best of Show. Each special award came with a unique hand-made trophy.

As I mentally struggled to narrow things down, the Summer Slam Jam’s organizers also allowed me to provide a bit of input on some of the other categories.

For example, I spent a lot of time looking over the details of this carbon-clad EK9 Honda Civic Type R. The B16B was dressed to the nines with ARC and Spoon Sports accessories.

Rather deservedly, it ended up taking home a best-of-class award.

This VW Jetta drove away with the ‘Most Unique Vehicle’ award.

A slammed Mk1 wouldn’t be most people’s pick for a camping rig, but according the owner it works fairly well all things considered. This is also the kind of quirkiness I’ve come to expect of Volkswagen owners; you never really know what accessory they are going to toss up on the roof next. The car had a cool story too: It was neglected for several years before the current owner scooped it up while on a used parts hunt.

Considering it was years out of service the body is in decent shape, and adding the rare Kamei air dam and side skirts has provided great period-correct touches. The wheels? Those are mid-’90s Saturn ‘gear tooth’ factory alloys.

But what makes this particular Jetta that much more uncommon is that it’s a factory turbo-diesel car. Given they didn’t make much power at all, finding a Jetta with this motor still intact is pretty uncommon, at least here in North America.

The award I really didn’t want to fumble was that of ‘Best Female Driven’. Gender awards can be a bit tough, as there’s nothing that makes car modification that much different from female to male. Cars don’t know or care about the gender of the person spinning the wrenches. However, female-centric awards encourage inclusivity in a hobby that’s largely male-dominated.

Still, I set out to find a cool car with a cool story that also happened to be owned by a female, and this ’85 Cutlass was the one for three simple reasons.

Reason one, it was powered by a 454ci V8 bored out to 508ci. Second, that motor was topped with a 6-71 supercharger and backed by a Turbo 350 transmission and a Ford 9-inch rear end. The car was also equipped with all the vintage speed tuning modifications that were true of its era, including limiting chains, a custom split bench for a ratchet shifter, and a radiator cap with its own temp gauge.

But reason three, and what really made the Cutlass special, was that it was originally built 20 years ago by the owner Grace’s father. It was sold a few times in the local car community before it became at risk of being sold outside of Nova Scotia or parted out. The car re-entered the original family about a week before the show, mostly unchanged by the various owners through the years.

It was at this time Grace was offered a challenge: “Get the car running and it’s yours”. She rose to that challenge and had the car running in less than a week. This included sourcing a new blower, installing high-speed bearings in it, and then bolting it to the V8.

After crushing that, Grace field-tested her work with a 500km round trip to the event.

If that’s not a cool story, I’m not sure I know what is.

Last but certainly not least we have my ‘Best of Show’ pick. I’ve made no secret of the fact I’m a fan of minitrucks. I love traditionally-styled examples, but I’m even more a fan of their current evolution.

As both the platforms and owners have become older, it’s not uncommon to see trucks receiving makeovers that align them more with muscle car restomods than anything else.

This allows the builds to transcend the era in which they originated, providing longevity to a subculture some people still like to call dead.

On the exterior, this truck skipped loud paint and excessive shaving of handles, mirrors and body lines. A simple dark green paint job has been laid down and accented with pin-striping and custom badging. And instead of billet wheels, a tasteful set of five-spokes has been used in a gunmetal/brushed finish.

The inside is almost unrecognizable when compared to a factory interior.

Throw in a unique round headlight conversion and it’s a well thought out and cohesive build. One that just so happens to also lay body thanks to a custom stock floor body-drop chassis.

Thankfully, after announcing the winners I was able to leave the venue unscathed, so I must have done a half-decent job. Of course, the true test will be if I’m invited back next year. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Dave Thomas
Instagram: stanceiseverythingcom