NHRA News: First look: Auto Club's Rose Parade float (12/09/2000)

First look: Auto Club's Rose Parade float

12/09/2000

NHRA.com has the first-ever sneak peek photographs of the Automobile Club of Southern California's float for this year's annual New Year's Day Tournament of Roses Parade. The float, titled "A Century of Setting the Pace," features a 55-foot-long Funny Car based on the NHRA Funny Car campaigned by Auto Club-sponsored driver Gary Densham.

Local television station KTLA will air a pre-parade feature Jan. 1 that will include an interview with Densham and show his car. The Rose Parade is viewed by more than a million spectators along the parade route and by an estimated 350 million on television.

Densham and his NEC-backed Funny Car were on hand recently as the float was taken for a test drive, and parked 10-foot long flopper alongside the huge float to give you a perspective on the size of this monster vehicle. Densham also got to meet the driver of the float and also its designer, Michelle Lofthouse, who spent dozens of hours studying Densham's car to make sure she got all the details right.

The car's body -- covered with strawflower, blue statice, crushed sweet rice, carnation petals, and of course, roses -- will periodically open as the massive vehicle rumbles down Pasadena's Colorado Boulevard, revealing a engine made of silver leaf and eucalyptus leaf and a driver in covered with clover seed and lentil. Smoke machines will billow smoke out of the rear tires, which are comprised of black Japanese seaweed, onion seed and silver leaf. An actual recording of a Funny Car will be used for the sound system.

The float, which features a total of 380,000 flowers, is being created by award-winning float builders Phoenix Decorating to match this year's Tournament of Roses theme, "Fabric of America." Last year's Auto Club float was awarded the Grand Marshal's Trophy for most creative design.

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