Vi stötte på Pekka Mannermaa aka Pekka Wizzzard på en av träffarna i Sverige. Det visade sig att han hade en del att berätta om Do-Dads Offbeat Weekend i Finland i början av Juli. Det byggs ju, som vi alla vet, en jävla massa trevligt over the österpöl, så here goes…

Do-Dads Offbeat Weekend has been in the last 10 years the premium hot rod and custom –meeting in Finland.  What makes it different from the some other kustom culture meetings is the family oriented activities during the weekend. Many of the participants and  the  organizers bring the whole family, including dogs, to Do-Dads, so being together with a selection of vehicles built before -62 is what gives the character to this meeting. There’s maybe not that many bands playing in the evening but people enjoy the good serving and top quality organization of the meeting. The vehicle age limit is sometimes a bit vague since word custom is more important than the age, and for some reason lowriders as custom vehicles have a soft spot in their hearts. Responsible of Do-Dads organization are the members of Helsinki based custom car club Tomahawk Town, Pekka Wizzzard and Esa Mikkonen as the head organizers.

Custom cars have a long history in Finland and Do-Dads has been a release date for many of the coolest customs in the country and seems like the amount of them keeps staying strong. The street rod scene is much smaller though, street rods as we see them in Sweden or Scandinavia are scarce but old style hot rods have a strong hold on the scene, many of them are based on model A:s. Under the 10 years of existence Do-Dads has collected a nice amount of these vehicles and quite a few Swedish friends as well. This year the place was about 10 miles from Helsingfors, Raseborg and the turnout was a bil smaller than normally, around 100 cars. This was also the last of the Do-Dads meetings, Esa And Pekka has been very busy with their other activities and they feel that there is not enough time to keep up the pace.  But no worries, the scene is active and no doubt new meetings are already under the planning stage.

Text & photo:
Pekka Mannermaa
www.wiz-art.org