Pigeon Forge Rod Run 2015 “Just Out Cruising”

For three days each spring, more than 2,000 hot rods, muscle cars, and custom builds line the Pigeon Forge Parkway – but the events roots trace back to a hotel parking lot in 1983, and further still to the moonshine runners who first needed fast cars on these mountain roads. Here is how a 75-car gathering became one of the Southeasts biggest rod runs.

The Pigeon Forge Rod Run has been going on for over 30 years.. In this video we put together some of the cool cars cruising around.. This is a show that you have to get to.. A weekend you won’t forget.. Check it out!!

Every spring and fall, the Parkway through Pigeon Forge fills with the low rumble of flathead V8s and the flash of chrome that has not seen daylight in decades – but the event did not start on a four-lane tourist strip at all. It began in the shadow of the Great Smoky Mountains, in a hotel parking lot, with a car club that just wanted somewhere to show off. What started as a handful of enthusiasts trading stories over open hoods would eventually swell into one of the largest hot rod gatherings in the Southeast. The surprising part is not how big the Rod Run became – it is where the towns fast-car culture actually came from, and it has nothing to do with racing stripes.

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A Car Club, a Hotel Parking Lot, and 75 Cars

In 1983, the event moved from Gatlinburg to the parking lot of the old Grand Hotel in Pigeon Forge under the name the Grand Run, and organizers who had hoped for maybe 300 or 400 cars that first year instead watched roughly 1,000 show up — an opening turnout that proved this thing was already bigger than anyone had planned for. The event had actually grown out of an earlier unofficial gathering that began in nearby Gatlinburg in the 1970s, hosted by a Maryville car club called Shades of the Past. The Grand Run and Shades of the Past ran together under that Grand Hotel banner for a few more years before splitting in 1986 into two separate shows — the Grand Run staying put at the Grand Hotel, and Shades of the Past moving to a venue of its own. The gathering kept growing from there, eventually needing far bigger grounds to hold everyone.

The Moonshine Runners Who Started It All

Long before rod runs and car shows, the twisting roads around Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg had their own reason for fast cars. Bootleggers hauling moonshine out of the Smoky Mountain hollows needed vehicles quick enough to outrun the law on the way to speakeasies in Nashville and Atlanta, since Prohibition-era transport of alcohol was illegal under the Volstead Act. That need for speed on mountain roads is often credited as one of the cultural roots that eventually fed into the Souths broader hot rod scene. It is a detail that gives the modern Rod Run – with its 2,000-plus classic cars, muscle cars, and custom builds lining the Parkway each spring – a little more historical weight than a typical car show.

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