2015 Rip City Riders Car Show (AKA "Shopping for Cars I Can't Have")

For those of you who don't know, in addition to making props and costumes and my one weekend a month in the Navy Reserve, I spend a bunch of time volunteering as an adult leader with the local Sea Scout ship.  Sea Scouts, for the uninitiated, are essentially the nautical branch of the Boy Scouts of America.  A co-ed program that teaches young adults all about teamwork, leadership, responsibility, and all sorts of valuable things while aboard ship.  It's a great program.

It's also an expensive program with a lot of high-maintenance equipment involved.  In order to cover the cost of running the ship and keeping everything in safe working order (without having to resort to constant bake sales and whatnot) the unit does much of its fundraising by running the parking concession at the local fair.  We've gotten pretty good at it over the years and our problem-free management of the lot means that the kids get invited to run things every time there's a special event at the local fairgrounds.  

A couple of weekends ago, the Rip City Riders motorcycle club hosted their annual car show at the Petaluma Fairgrounds.  After a quick rush to get everything set up, we had all of the entrances to the lot manned and started selling parking spaces for the day.  Before too long it was pretty clear that the situation was well in hand, being taken care of by stony-faced professionals like these:


Since it seemed like everybody had things under control, I took a few minutes to walk through the car show to see if there was anything on display that I couldn't possibly live without.  There were all sorts of interesting vehicles on display with seemingly no real rhyme or reason.  One of the first things that really caught my eye was this MG:


It was also pretty cool to see a replica of the General Lee from Dukes of Hazzard:


Further down the row of 70's muscle cars that didn't do anything for me was this mechanical monstrosity:


It was a bit much.  I figure if you're just looking for attention, this guy's got the right idea:


If shiny is more appealing, this Studebaker was pretty cool:


I really loved the bodywork on this guy:


It seems like every car show I go to has at least a few of these:


I don't really see a lot of these gassers around anymore, but this one was fun:


I really love the color choice on this Vette:


My uncle used to have one of these kicking around in his shop for at least a couple of years, so I have always had a soft spot for it:


There were a few other less, interesting things to see in the show, so after walking around a bit I was almost ready to commit and say that my favorite would probably have been this one:


Except somebody showed up with a tank:


Tank always wins.

Late Entry: New Car

I should've posted this story forever ago, but I guess it took a recent retelling to remind me of exactly how hilarious it actually was.

First, a bit of background...

In 2005 I left active duty in the US Navy, sold my modest home in New England at a ridiculous profit and set out across the country with enough money in hand to take a year off.  In short order I ended up back home in California, living a life of relative ease and occasionally contemplating a return to the ranks of responsible adults.

For me, too much free time and too much money in the bank proved to be a very dangerous combination.  Somewhere along the way I decided that my reliable respectable little car was boring to look at.

So I did a bit of research, spent way too much money, converted part of an old barn into a spray booth, and added some chrome:


In fact, I chromed all of it:


All of it:


Here I am snapping a poorly-focused self-portrait in one of the front fenders:


Despite the fact that everyone I mentioned it to told me that changing a car from its factory color would decrease the value, I was thrilled to be the only guy I knew of who had an all-chrome Miata:


All of it:


Over the next couple of years I continued to make additional modifications.  I replaced the stock tan carpet with black, replaced the original tan vinyl seats with black and blue leather, replaced the interior panels and glove compartment with diamond plate aluminum, and swapped out the shift knob for a jet fighter joystick from a video game.  By the time I was done, everything about this vehicle suggested it was the plaything of an overgrown child and I loved it.*

Still, like anything else, the chrome Miata began to lose its luster.  Seven years after I'd turned this humble little sports car into some sort of sci-fi ghetto escape pod, I finally started having enough mechanical problems that my monthly repair bills were starting to be higher than potential payments on a new car.  At this point, I'd finally fallen out of love with this car that had served me faithfully for a solid decade.

At some point I made up my mind to stop fixing things, but still resolved to drive one of the most obnoxious bits of bling on the road until it could drive no more.  No longer proud of my uniquely silver creation, I stopped washing it, gave up vacuuming out the interior, and just let it go.  Since I took my dogs in the passenger seat everywhere I went, drifts of shedded hair had started to pile up.  Before long, the once black interior was completely layered over with discarded white husky fluff and the dashboard had an arc wiped clean of dust wherever Bain could reach when he leaned his head forward to look out the windshield.*

Here's how it looked most days:



Toward the end of its life I had gotten into the habit of carrying a shovel in the trunk.  If it broke down, I wouldn't call a tow truck.  No.  I'd just dig a hole, push it in, cover it up, and call a cab.

In the Spring of 2012 I finally came to an impasse.  I was due to renew the registration on the car and I couldn't get it to pass the required smog test.  The main bearings were shot, the timing was horribly off, and even if I did fix the smog-related issues, there were still countless little problems that would cost more to fix than the car could ever be worth.  It was time to have the old beast put down.

So the registration expired and I had until the end of the month before I'd start getting pulled over for having expired tags on the license plate.  Having done the tiniest bit of research, I decided I wanted my car.  Just new.  As long as I was upgrading, I'd graduate from a rag top to a powered retractable hardtop.  This way I could fold the roof up and tuck it in the trunk with a push of a button.  It's as close as I'll get to having a James Bond car until I finish building the ejection seat.

So on the second to last day of the month (because I'm a very capable procrastinator) I woke up and started car shopping on an internet.  I found the exact car I wanted on a used car lot just twenty minutes down the road.  It was just two years old with low miles, a manual transmission, and a powered hard top!  I even liked the color. 

Just to be sure, I called the dealership and was thrilled to learn that it was still available.  "Hide it in the back of the lot," says I, "I'm on my way and it will be mine."

Then I realized I was still wearing the clothes I woke up in* and smelled ripe enough to make showering a priority.  After a thorough scrubbing I noticed that I was still trying to shake a pretty nasty cough that had haunted me for days.  I took an expectorant to free up all of the lung-butter I'd been choking on and hopefully make breathing easier.  This tidbit will matter shortly.

Grabbing a cup of coffee, I set out on what should have been a twenty minute ride down the freeway to drop my shiny old jalopy off on death row and drive off into the sunset with the new hotness.  Little did I know, some jackass had jackknifed a truck and trailer at the county line and traffic had slowed to a speed that can only be described as "dear-God-what-the-HELL!?!"

Creeping along at a quarter of a snail's pace, my cough started acting up.  The fury of a thousand slimy wasps was broiling up and down my respiratory tract and I was hawking up golf ball sized lumps of ick every couple of minutes.  At one point, it got so bad that I nearly choked on an especially stubborn pile of phlegm and gagged a bit.  I nearly threw up.  I could taste it.

After hacking a bit more and spitting the nearly fatal booger-blob onto the freeway, I took a sip of coffee to flush out the near-vomit taste.  When I tried to swallow the coffee it touched off whatever little nerve had made me nearly gag-vomit and without any warning whatsoever I puked.  I mean I really puked.

The only way to describe it was "spectacular."  I'd been looking upward for some reason when it happened, so the streak of vomit (comprised almost entirely of coffee and recycled snot) started inside the ragtop just above the rear view mirror, then it continued across the mirror, down the middle of the windshield, the dashboard, the stereo, the stick shift, the center console, and into one of the cup holders.*

I opened up the windows to blow out the smell, sipped a bit more coffee to flush out the taste, and marveled at the state of the car.  In the passenger seat I had a dirty towel that I used to use to dry off the dogs' paws when they were muddy, so I used it to wipe off the bulk of the vomit.  After a few swipes, it did little more than smear.

After almost two hours worth of my twenty-minute drive down the road, I arrived at the dealership smelling of coffee-vomit.  I walked in, shook hands with the salesman I spoke to on the phone, and saw the car I was looking for pull right up to the front door. 

Clearly they were waiting for me.

Then I saw someone who was not a salesman get out of the driver's seat.  It turns out they were just coming back from a test drive.

Bummer.

According to my salesman, the car would sell to whoever signed the pricing agreement first.  Leery of a scam, I took the car for the fastest test-drive ever and came back to the office to sign the agreement. 

My salesman went to his desk and printed out the form, but in the time it took him to walk over to the printer, the other buyer had already signed with the other salesman.

"Not to worry," says my guy, "we've got lots of other cars here."

So I gave him my shopping list: 3rd Generation Mazda MX5, manual transmission, powered hardtop.

"We've got a 2001," he replies, "with a hardtop and a manual transmission!"

"Which is not a third gen," says I.

"Oh," says he, looking through their database, "we've got a 2010 with a hardtop."

"Is it a manual transmission?" I query.

"No..."

"Then it's not a 'sports car,'" I tell him, "just a small car.  I'm not very particular, but the few particulars I have are not negotiable."

"Well when were you planning on buying a car?" he asks.

"About an hour ago," says I, "my tags will expire tomorrow.  My cursory internet shoppings found me six cars that meet my criteria in San Jose.  If you can't get me something here right now, I'll be driving there next."

Meanwhile, the other buyer had handed the keys for his trade-in to one of the salesmen so they could give it a once-over.  The deal had seemed like it was running smoothly, but suddenly the mood on that side of the showroom turned dark.  My salesman excused himself to "make a few phone calls and see what he could find," but ended up hovering around that side of the room to overhear the conversation.

Suddenly the other buyer got up, shook his head emphatically, and left the room.

My salesman came back and told me that my car was indeed suddenly available again.

I couldn't help but ask what was suddenly wrong with it.

He explained that the other buyer had decided not to make the purchase because the car had no spare tire.  Why no spare tire?  With the powered retractable hardtop mechanism there's no space in the trunk for a spare tire.  Instead, the car comes standard with run-flat tires.  So even if someone shoots a hole in the tire, you can keep right on driving.  The new car was becoming more and more James Bond by the minute!

Sold.

"The only other question," says he, "is 'do you have a car you'd like to trade in?'"

"Sure do," says I, knowing full well what these poor bastards were in for.

So he calls someone over and I hand them the keys.

"Which one is it?" he asks.

"The shiny one."

"They're all pretty shiny..."

"Trust me," I grinned, "you won't miss it."

Ten minutes later he told me that if they offered an award for the most unique trade-in of the year award, I'd have won it.  Hands down.

So what was it worth?  They offered me three hundred dollars for it. I figure the snot-puke and dog hair probably cancelled out whatever value was added by the custom paintjob and snazzy jet fighter shift knob.

I laughed and signed it over, thankful that at least I wouldn't have to clean it out myself.

Ten minutes later I was back on the road in this beauty:


Which still fit both dogs comfortably:


Here's the best part: about a week after I'd made the trade-in, I got a call from the salesman.  He told me that his roommate had actually purchased my old car from the dealership and repowered it.  To this day every once in a blue moon I'll be zipping along down the highway and some guy will pass me in an all-chrome Miata and I'll think to myself, "Holy shit!  Some other idiot chromed a Miata."

Then I'll notice the license plate numbers and realize:  No.  I'm still the only one...


*Whatever you're picturing in your head, this was worse.

Custom-Pierced Tire

The other day I borrowed a truck from my dad so I could run around and pick up some materials I needed.  At the end of the day I returned it and he noticed that I'd picked up a nail in the right rear tire.  I don't know how I managed it, but it looked like so:


He tells me it looks cool enough that he's just going to leave it there.

Rose's Rat Rod Glam Photoshoot

The other day Richard Small of Richard Small Photography contacted my sister Rose to pose for a set of glamor shots with a rat rod down at Infineon Raceway.  Looking at his website he's done a lot of great work, so she was looking forward to it.

Here's one of the splendid results:

And another that focuses a bit more on the car:

More pictures after the jump. Enjoy.

My Father's Latest Acquisition: The Wierdest Jeep You've Ever Seen

The other day I stopped by Dad's workshop and found this thing:



"What is it," you ask?  Well, sometime in the mid-1950's, Jeep designers, possibly under the influence of CIA-sponsored LSD experiments, decided that the fun and functional Jeeps that we'd all come to know and love were inadequate for hauling cargo.  Determined to solve this problem, they rearranged the little 4-wheel drive vehicle into a cabover pickup, putting the driver and passenger on either side of the engine.  This freed up a bit more space to put things in the bed and they called it a "forward control Jeep"


Here's a couple more pictures:






They only made them for a few years because the design didn't really catch on. Apparently consumers didn't like the fact that, when you hit the brakes going downhill without a load in the bed, the whole thing was likely to tip forward and stand on its nose (or even flip over completely). Even the installation of massive iron weights under the rear bumper wasn't enough to make them popular.


This one will need a lot of work:



But I think it's just wierd enough to make me want one. Count on me borrowing this thing for all of my hauling needs around town whenever he gets it up and running.


Meanwhile, I'm trying to give him ideas for a winning paintjob. Any suggestions?

.

Dad's Dodge Paintjob

Back in 2007 my father was going through a phase where he was buying a new project vehicle every month or so.  In February he picked up this a light blue 1949 Dodge pickup truck.

BEFORE:



DURING:






AFTER:




The black parts and the bed still need to be painted, but it's presentable and practical now, so the rest will probably wait a few years.

Calvin Klein in Downtown Petaluma...

...along with Doc Brown and Marty McFly.

So there I was, walking along Petaluma Boulevard, when I came across this:


I don't know all of the details to look for on Doctor Brown's DeLorean time machine, but it really seems like they nailed it:


The interior was fully decked out as well.  I couldn't get a good shot of it with the glare on the windshield, but if you look carefully you can see the flux capacitor strobing away between the seats inside:


It turns out you can rent the car if you go to their website at www.bttf.com and they usually tour it around raising funds for Parkinson's Disease research.  You can read more about that at www.teamfox.org. 

I won't bother renting it though.  I didn't find any guarantee that it would go back in time after getting up to 88mph.

I'd also like to point out that, for the movie to be right, we have to be driving flying cars in five years.

My Car Keeps Getting New Last Legs

This does not bode well:


All it was was a ruptured hose, but replacing the hose really felt like putting a band-aid on terminal cancer.

Dad's Newest Old Truck

The other day my father sold his fully-functional, reasonably reliable 1936 Ford pickup truck (which I kinda liked borrowing when I needed to move cargo) so that he could buy this:


This is a rolling shell.  It has no engine, no transmission, no seats. In fact, there's nothing inside the body at all. So why, you ask, would he get rid of a working truck in exchange for less than half the parts to make another truck?

This is a 1933 International pickup.  1933 is significant because it was the first year that International made pickups.  This first year they couldn't afford to re-tool their factory to make pickups, so they ended up contracting Willy's (who had fallen on hard times) to build the trucks for them.  That year they built 17,000 trucks.  The following year, in their own factories, International made 75,000.

Being mostly used as farm trucks, these vehicles saw a lot of use and abuse right away.  As a result, the sheet metal parts of the bodies rapidly deteriorated.  Now, seventy-seven years later, most of them are so mangled or rusted that it's almost impossible to find one of these old trucks with a body worth salvaging.

So I suppose this old shell was probably worth about the same as the working (but much more common) Ford that he sold to pay for it.

Still, even as good a shape as it's in, the years have taken their toll.  Some time in the 1970's someone modified it to build a street rod.  Since then the wooden parts of the cab have rotted through in places as well as splitting or shrinking in other places.  There's a lot of wood in there too:


The other main selling point is that this truck was modified. That means that he doesn't have to feel guilty about chopping it up and making it into a rat rod roadster or the like.
 .

COBRAS!

Sometimes you wake up to interesting things going on.


Yesterday morning I got up and ambled over to the Marina Bean, my normal morning coffee haunt, and one of the other marina tenants pointed out "a lot of noisy stuff over in the parking lot."


When I looked I found something like thirty Shelby Cobra replicas (and a Shelby 500GT and something called a "Lister") parked in the lot:


Even though they were all kits and replicas, these cars were all gorgeous:












But even in this crowd of beauties, there were a few that stood out.  The first one I spotted (indeed, you could see it from space) was this green one:

The owners said they'd bought it from the original builder with that color and, because it had been featured in a magazine, decided they should keep it that way.  I like it, but I'm sure they get a lot of grief wherever they go.


The next unique one I spotted was this one painted in black primer with satin silver racing stripes:

Unfortunately, this owner is planning on changing the color.  He's not finished building it, but he was so eager to get out and go driving that he didn't want to wait for the finish.  His plan is to paint it blue with white racing stripes, bringing it neatly into conformity with the rest of the ranks of replica owners.  Bummer.

Finally, there was this gem made by Kirkham Motorsports:

Kirkam is a replica company that bought out a Polish MiG factory after the cold war and re-tooled it so they could make sports cars instead of fighter jets.  If you check out their website, you'll find tons of droolworthy photos of shiny aluminium parts being made into shiny aluminium cars and then polished to a mirror shine.  You can also get them in a burnished or brushed finish, all for the bargain price of around $105,000 US dollars.

Knowing this meant I was able to ask the owner the most annoying question possible:

ME: Nice car!
OWNER: [smugly] Thanks.
ME: So what color are you going to paint it?
OWNER: [grumbling] I'm NOT going to paint it.
ME: Yeah, I know, I just figured you probably needed to hear that question one more time.  I've spent enough time poring over the Kirkham Motorsports website to know that it'd be a crime to paint one of these.
OWNER: [almost mockingly] Are you going to get one?
ME: I'd like to, but I've got one or two other, slightly more practical, cars I need to get first.
OWNER: Practical?  This is practical. [points to the roll bar] That part is for hauling lumber.

Since I can't count how many times I've hauled lumber in my tiny convertible, I couldn't tell if he was joking.

Not long after that conversation, the whole crowd fired up their engines and started rolling out:

Sadly, my tiny little camera mic didn't do justice to the deep bass throaty grumble of all of those horses chomping at the bit while they waited for the light to change.

Still, it was a fun way to start the day: