SALT LAKE CITY — This weekend, there were lots of cool cars and hot rods inside what organizers called the largest indoor car show in the state. It was the 50th anniversary of Autorama, and this year we got to take a closer look at some of the cars kids from Bingham High School CTE program helped get ready to show as a part of it.
A 1950 Chevy Belair hardtop was just one of the six different cars on display in the section dedicated to Bingham High School and its Career and Technical Education program.
“It’s just a huge area of anything you can create. If you can create it, that’s what CTE does,” said Travis Lucero, the collision and repair instructor for the CTE program at Bingham High.
Lucero has been working on cars to show in this event with students coming through his program for nearly the past two decades.
“They’ve always been really supportive of bringing up the next generation in industry and really the passion of car building, and we’re just really excited to be out here and be a part of it,” he said.
In this year’s sampling, Lucero had some classic cars on display — but they also chose to put out two of their pedal cars that used to race and compete as a part of Autorama, as well as a custom drift trike that his students made on their own.
“They hand fabricate and build all of it,” he said.
Aaron Metcalf is the automotive instructor at Bingham High and was proud to talk about the 1928 Ford Model A that his kids are working on, and that was on display on the floor Saturday.
“We are building a traditional Ford hot rod with the Auto 3 students. You know, it’s an older type of a hot rod and they’re of a younger generation, so we’re teaching them something old and new stuff too — fuel injection and all that type of stuff,” Metcalf said.
He said these are critical skills that his students can take right into a career.
“We’ve got woodworkers, welders, painters in the district, and we’re certified. We’re an ACC-certified shop. There’s a lot of people who say, ‘I don’t remember stuff from high school,’ but they’re not gonna forget working on this. No way!” Metcalf said.
Isaac Harrell agrees. He now volunteers with the program and spends his weekends trying to help the kids who have found a passion for working on a number of these cars.
“It feels like a real collaborative effort and makes me really proud to be a Bingham High graduate,” he said.
Harrell works outside of the industry now, but loved being able to find his passion in this area while he was in school, encouraging others to use that time to try new things and possibly find a skill they didn’t even know they had.
“School’s an excellent time to find what you like and what you’re good at,” he said.
Some of the cars shown at this year’s Autorama from Bingham took top honors, and program directors say they’ll be back again next year for more.
