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.

Brief Stop at Billetproof

This past weekend was my monthly dose of naval reserve time.  On Saturday afternoon, I bolted as soon as we were cut loose in order to catch the tail end of Billetproof Northern California, billed as "The world's least important car show."


I caught just about the same amount of last years Billetproof as well.  It's held at the fairgrounds in Antioch, California and the criteria for entry are very specific:

• 1964 and prior TRADITIONAL style rods and customs ONLY
• No visible billet anything! Especially wheels!
• No digital gauges
• No IFS on fenderless cars
• No trailer queens
• No mag wheels made after the 60's
• No high tech styled, pastel heart beat graphic, tweed interior, fenderless IFS sporting hot rods
• Traditional looking choppers and bobbers ONLY! (No modern West Coast Choppers, OCC style bikes) 

So basically, if you're looking to check out hot rods and rat rods made they way they used to be made by a group of purists, this is the place to be.


By the time I got there, cars were already starting to trickle out.  Still, there were quie a few eye-catchers.  I only had my little point-and-click camera, but I managed to get a few good pics all the same:



This one I saw last year, but I still like it.  I guess I'm a sucker for bare metal finishes:



I walked around the whole show and was amazed at some of the very bold color decisions a few of the owners had made:



There were tons of beautifully painted cars and trucks, but I really loved the pinstriping on this one:



Here's a closeup shot:



At the opposite end of the spectrum there were a few really interesting rat rods:


The rat rods are interesting to look at, but the real fun is found in the details.  Like the cigar-smoking Tiki god in the grill of this one:



There were plenty of other creations rolling around too, like this monster truck styled Radio Flyer:



Or this vintage scooter with sidecar:


Almost as much fun as the cars was the crowd.  The people who show up at these things are always intriguing.  Take for example this guy who has found the ultimate solution to male-pattern baldness:


There were plenty of women walking around in pinup couture all glammed up and posing for pictures.  The best looking one by far was this young lady:


The best-looking car by far was this chopped and lowered Rolls Royce:


After I'd been there for almost two hours, I caught this shot of Dad loading his Simplex Servi-Cycles into the back of his rat rod:


So I missed most of it, but hopefully I got to see the best of it.

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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.

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.
 .

Fred Stokes Ranch Car Show

Last weekend, the Redwood Empire Classic Chevy Club in Santa Rosa sponsored a car show up at Fred Stokes Ranch. Any car built prior to 1970 was eligible for entry into the show and the cost was $5 per person to walk in or $10 per car to drive in. Since, it was just as cheap to ride right through the front gate and park in the middle of the show than it was to park miles away and hike to the event, my friend Matt and I went along with my father and sister Rose and we went up in a pair of Dad's 1930's vintage International pickups. As we rolled up, it was pretty clear we were in the right place:


Fred Stokes' ranch is an interesting showpiece in itself. This is the second time I've been up there, but I didn't have my camera last time. Here's a shot of the entrance to his workshop:
The left-hand end of the building houses what is likely the largest collection of unopened, antique oil cans in the world. Inside the rest of the building there's several automotive works in progress and enough frame and body parts to make half a dozen more.

The rest of the ranch has all sorts of neat features planted all around, including this antique, pre-fabricated filling station:


So that was the venue, now more about the cars. There was a wide variet of perfect restorations, vintage hotrods, gassers, and fascinatingly modified rat rods. So without further ado, here's a handful of pics of really shiny cars:

This Chevy pickup was parked right inside the entrance. My mother drives around town in a very similar truck most days:

I'm not sure why this one caught my eye, but it's got lots of louvres:

Next to it was this gorgeous Chevrolet Sedan Delivery:

Among the shiny cars was this nice, red Mustang:

And this Oldsmobile:

On the subject of Oldsmobiles, someone showed up with a stretched limousine version:

Speaking of modified:

I'm not sure why, but for some reason this Hudson really grabbed me:

There was also this nice, black Ford pickup:

With all sorts of shiny:

But as Ford pickups go, I still prefer the 1949-1951 versions:

I really liked the yellow one:

I got another look at it as it was leaving:

There were some fun rat rods there too:

I really liked this super-tacky one:

But my favorite from the whole show was this monstrosity:


I even liked the details:


Those were the best of the pics I took, but here's a slideshow from photobucket user "Vet65te":

Not a bad show.

Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend

Last weekend my father brought his rat rod to the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend car show. While his automotive abomination is truly one-of-a-kind, there was probably no better place where it would fit in and, as long as the rest of us weren't busy, the whole family went along.

I guess a car show is just as good a reason for a rare family trip as any. When I say a rare family trip, I mean it. On the way out, my sister Rose and I were talking it over and this is the first time that the family has taken a trip together (that didn't involve staying at one of our homes) in nearly twenty years. The last time was a trip to Disneyland when I was twelve or thirteen.

There were a lot of last-minute things to be done to get ready for the show. My own contribution was some number of months in conception and just a few hours in execution. In the end, I produced this little gremlin to hang under the hood vent on the rat rod:



I'm quite proud of it.


Anyway, once I was done with that it was time to saddle up and head to Las Vegas via Long Beach. Two nights later it was time for...

DAY One: Rolling In
The trip to Vegas was properly kicked off when someone noticed the first man in the street with no pants:

The event itself was taking place off the strip at the Orleans. After we pulled up, it was time to buy tickets and then head over to the gate to see everything rolling in. The cars could most easily be broken down into two groups: shiny and not-shiny. Here's some pics:

Shiny cars



Not shiny cars


DAY Two and Three: The Car Show

Day two was Friday and owners were allowed to drive their cars in and out of the show lot all day, so there really wasn't much of a crowd. Instead, it was a great opportunity to take pictures of a lot of the show without people in the way. I'm not about to go through the trouble of sorting out which pictures were from which days though, so here's both days munged into one.

When I found my folks hanging out at the car, it turns out they'd bought me a very apt t-shirt:

Fun.

Anyway, there were plenty of cars (painted and unpainted) as well as no shortage of painters, pinstripers, and pinup models. Without further ado, here's a metric butt-ton of pictures...

Painted cars






I liked the orange paintjob above. Having messed around with a bit of paint spraying, I can imagine how tough it must've been for the artist to maintain consistency from one panel to the next while keeping the shading symmetrical from one side to the other. Well done.



I had to snap a picture of this Nash Metropolitan. Dad's got one at home in yellow and white:






The pics above were the ones I though were standouts. There were other interesting paintjobs, but the most prevalent color scheme was flat black, red wheels, whitewall tires and pinstripes. This theme worked its way onto almost everything:

There were also all sorts of interesting unpainted vehicles:



In case you were wondering, yes, the cover for the air intake is Maximus' helmet from the movie "Gladiator" with the spikes replaced with bullets:


I didn't get an overall photo of this next rod because I was so overwhelmed by the intricacy and execution of the metalwork details:


The owner used pierced metal to great effect:


Even on the interior:


And the whole thing is finished off perfectly with two bullet holes in the rear:


Of course, the details were the absolute best parts of most of these cars. Here were a few things that really caught my eye:








If the Victorian brothel interior above isn't outlandish enough for you, here's one upholstered with Muppet:





For quite some time now I've really been taken with the 1949-1951 Ford F1 Fat-Fender Pickups. There was no shortage of examples at the show:





Still, my favorite vehicle in the whole show had to be this Chevy:


What really caught my attention was the jewelled finish on the fenders and bumpers with the candy-coat grey flamejob:

There were a few entertaining bits under the hood:


And to top it all off, Jerry-can speakers and a bomb casing for a fuel tank:


In addition to the cars, there were also scores of pinup models on display. It was hard to go more than twenty feet in any direction without stumbling into a crowd of professional and amateur photographers snapping away. I went ahead and shot a few. Here they are in no particular order:












Also wandering around were a handful of artists who were toting paint carts around and peddling their skills all over the place:


For me the most interesting ones to watch were the pinstriping guys. My hand shakes like crazy whenever I've tried pinstriping, but these guys make it look embarassingly easy:


For a modest fee, these guys were pinstriping whatever you'd ask them to. One photographer even got his camera done:

There were also plenty of vendors selling everything from t-shirts to fender skirts and more. At some point in the midst of all of this, Ana stopped in at one of the booths to get her hair done retro-style:


Meanwhile, Rose was wandering around doing her best to get photographed (watch for her in your favorite custom car magazines):



For my part, this was the nicest picture I took of her:


Another bit of entertainment was the handful of hotrod strollers and kid's wagons wandering around:



But the coolest was the kid cruising around on the Suped-up Igloo cooler:


DAY Three: Easter Sunday

Sunday there wasn't much to be seen. Everyone was pretty much just packing up and heading out. Still, it was pretty obvious that a good time was had by all:

The end