At the Ranch.
Monday, August 30, 2010
David Lord
At the San Miguel car show, we went by David Lords shop, like a place in the 40s, dirt floors, and all. He had some of his work outside.
Chopper in the rafters.
This old drag racer guy in my town has some 40+ vintage bikes. He keeps choppers in his rafters as wall art. Jelous...
Jimmy Rader
Jimmy Rader has his custom bike build at the Atascadero car show, its pretty wild, notice the early wood spoke wheels.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
'46 Spartan
So i found an add in Seattle Craigslist for this Spartan. It is a 1946 travel trailer made by Spartan Aircraft Corporation. After a few tries i got the owner on the phone and after a but of conversation, he gave it to me for next to nothing. All ive got to do is go pick it up.
The inside is gutted out but once we get it all redone, im going to do it in a real solid western theme. '40s traveling cowboy band style trailer. Ill keep ya posted on the progress.
The inside is gutted out but once we get it all redone, im going to do it in a real solid western theme. '40s traveling cowboy band style trailer. Ill keep ya posted on the progress.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Monday, August 23, 2010
CAR SHOW, HONKEY TONK, 25 CENT BEERS.... FRIDAY
This one should be pretty good, if the right people show up for it. Cruse night Friday followed up with Chuck Mead of BR549 fame at 9pm. Saturday car show. And all at The Ranch honky tonk in San Miguel. So if your close, bring out your car and support this event. Lets bring the old Paso feeling back...
Thursday, August 19, 2010
'57 Gasser
So i was talking with my bud smokie, and he said he knows a guy with this old gasser for sale... interesting i said, so now i need to sell stuff so i can buy it, anyone interested in any of my crap?
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Ol' Skool Rodz...
So i went on down to 7-11 to grab a few little crumb donuts before work started, well i was already late but thats erronious. So im sitting there pondering the donut to dollar ratio... You see, do i want to hostess brand, that i know will taste the same as they always do, or do i want the cheaper 7-11 brand new donuts... Do i fall victim to their marketing schemes, and the new idea to incorporate everything in house! soon ill be buying jack in the box brand shampoo... just then out of the corner of my eye, i caught the old skool rodz magazine headline with Santa Maria car show coverage. After grabbing my hostess crumb donuts, i flipped through and to my suprise, there was Peter and Scott's Chrysler and my '34 Chevy... Damn it feels good to be a gangster.
Murphy's Law
If anything could go wrong on this trip it did, but the 55 made it to Jackpot Garage with a little elbow grease and some good luck.
Monday, August 16, 2010
January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977
This day in 1977, rock 'n roll music as the world knew it, died. Goodnight sweet prince.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
In town
My family went out to Santa Margarita for dinner at the Range last night. As i pulled up i spotted this truck, parked infront of the Merc Deli. What a great little truck. Notice the plaque says, "Repeal the 18th Ammendment for the public".
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
A little more... Chapter 3
It was dark, I’d say around 10 to 10:30, had to be a Friday as well...
I walked out to my car, after enough rust sanding I imagine I could of made the bismark look brand new. Anyways, I walked to my car and went for a schlitz, the original mind you, not the malt liquor crap they sell in vons, but the original red and gold cans. Like I was saying I walked to my car, and as I stood there outside the garage I heard a boisterous brap! brap! as a black roadster came screeching into the parking lot...
Now in this certain instance, I was introduced with an amazing example of the connection between car and man, and the sometimes obvious connection they have to each other. That is to say, where as one often reflects each other, you know what I mean? like the people in the dog park and their dog looks just like them... Well cars are the same, to an extent... Usually at a car show its hard because now adays so many people build cars for the show and for what they think others would like, seldom in this group of "enthusiests" is it a build that comes from their own creativity or their own background and love for the vehicle... that sickness is what birthed the booming market of billet, i mean come on, they want a vicky because their dad had one, or they learned to drive on one, well great go get it, but you didnt learn to drive on a model a with a digital dash and bullet hole stickers on the decklid... Anyways, outside the attention whoring builders who build to please the masses, there are cultures of people who do it the old fashioned way (hambers)...
For instance, my grandfather built his 34 Ford 3 window out of the parts he could afford and what he could do with his own hands, and thats the way the car stayed long into his life, until he had to part with it. When you see photos of that car its hard to tell where grandpa ended and the car started, they had the same personality, almost the same physical features, it was a true and honest reflection of him. Well im way off point here, but I was trying to say that most people who build hot rods, with the exception of the ones who build them just for shows and the soccer moms, are very much invested into their cars and it is obvious. Actually, the best example is my friends Peter and Scott. When you see there car in a parking lot late on Thursday evening, or in front of McCarthys Irish Pub, and of the 10 people standing around their chopped 47 Buick fastback, you know its theirs... not because their boasting the pink but because of the striking resemblance.
My apologies, im easily distracted... So this roadster comes hauling ass into the parking lot likes hes getting paid for it, tires smoking like a broke down coupe de ville, headers hot as a 2 dollar pistol. If I remember correctly it’s a slammed, jet black 27 t roadster, as low as he could get it. Now the driver who I’ve never met, sat like a big plump moon right on the top of a horizon of his decklid... I mean he was a big fella and he sat high, so to best explain it; as tall as the car was, from ground to door top, he sat from door top to the top of his beanie. Now, at the risk of sounding rude, which is not at all my aim here, he looked like the commercial from the super bowl a few years back where Mr Potatohead is driving the convertible miata or whatever and bellowing out of the top of the car, head way over the windshield, and Mrs Potatohead loses her lips, it looked alot like that. Only the roadster was way cooler then the red sports car.
Anyways, as it pulled up the big fella hopped out and went inside the garage to talk to my compadres Scott and Peter.
Before long they all three emerged and told me they had something they had to show me. Now these guys are my mates, and they are seldom not smiling and even more seldom not welding, so to see them cut from their work, and straight face, I knew they wanted to show me something important. As we walked to (I found out to be named Josh) the roadster I felt almost in trouble, a little weary, everything was tense around me but quite... I mean small talk was happening but it was small talk that was obviously dancing around the "object" that had to be shown and for that reason it made the dull words into a silence. Words were heard but not listened too. As I stood there, Josh was in no hurry, as he slowly opened his trunk and rustled around a while.
I think the fact that his big frame blocked anyone from seeing into the trunk added a mystery to the "object"...
Josh pulled from his trunk a black backpack and walked back over to the well lit garage and bent down on the ground and began to open it. He pulled out a pulley, a few springs, and metal "c" shaped brace of some kind, and gently laid it on the floor like in a movie where the surgeon slowly prepares his medical table with all his blades and saws... At last he pulled out a large round object and handed it to me, as I turned it over and brushed off the dust, it read, McCulloch Supercharger... I was speechless. Dumbfounded. Gobsmacked. I could barely hear him saying something about the 57 t bird it came off of, and how it works like new, and all the parts are there... though he was 2 feet away from me... All I could hear was Charlie Brown parent noises, just dull sounds over my own thoughts. If I could equate it to music, their voice was elevator music, and my thoughts were slash's guitar solo in November Rain...
Anyways I fumbled for some cash in my pocket, paid josh the few hundred bucks he wanted to get out of hawk to some big mean bastard who felt he deserved interest on something or other, I didn’t care, I had my super charger... and man was it cool! I half heartedly expected to look up and see the old knight from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade lookign at me saying, "You have chosen.........wisely"
I walked out to my car, after enough rust sanding I imagine I could of made the bismark look brand new. Anyways, I walked to my car and went for a schlitz, the original mind you, not the malt liquor crap they sell in vons, but the original red and gold cans. Like I was saying I walked to my car, and as I stood there outside the garage I heard a boisterous brap! brap! as a black roadster came screeching into the parking lot...
Now in this certain instance, I was introduced with an amazing example of the connection between car and man, and the sometimes obvious connection they have to each other. That is to say, where as one often reflects each other, you know what I mean? like the people in the dog park and their dog looks just like them... Well cars are the same, to an extent... Usually at a car show its hard because now adays so many people build cars for the show and for what they think others would like, seldom in this group of "enthusiests" is it a build that comes from their own creativity or their own background and love for the vehicle... that sickness is what birthed the booming market of billet, i mean come on, they want a vicky because their dad had one, or they learned to drive on one, well great go get it, but you didnt learn to drive on a model a with a digital dash and bullet hole stickers on the decklid... Anyways, outside the attention whoring builders who build to please the masses, there are cultures of people who do it the old fashioned way (hambers)...
For instance, my grandfather built his 34 Ford 3 window out of the parts he could afford and what he could do with his own hands, and thats the way the car stayed long into his life, until he had to part with it. When you see photos of that car its hard to tell where grandpa ended and the car started, they had the same personality, almost the same physical features, it was a true and honest reflection of him. Well im way off point here, but I was trying to say that most people who build hot rods, with the exception of the ones who build them just for shows and the soccer moms, are very much invested into their cars and it is obvious. Actually, the best example is my friends Peter and Scott. When you see there car in a parking lot late on Thursday evening, or in front of McCarthys Irish Pub, and of the 10 people standing around their chopped 47 Buick fastback, you know its theirs... not because their boasting the pink but because of the striking resemblance.
My apologies, im easily distracted... So this roadster comes hauling ass into the parking lot likes hes getting paid for it, tires smoking like a broke down coupe de ville, headers hot as a 2 dollar pistol. If I remember correctly it’s a slammed, jet black 27 t roadster, as low as he could get it. Now the driver who I’ve never met, sat like a big plump moon right on the top of a horizon of his decklid... I mean he was a big fella and he sat high, so to best explain it; as tall as the car was, from ground to door top, he sat from door top to the top of his beanie. Now, at the risk of sounding rude, which is not at all my aim here, he looked like the commercial from the super bowl a few years back where Mr Potatohead is driving the convertible miata or whatever and bellowing out of the top of the car, head way over the windshield, and Mrs Potatohead loses her lips, it looked alot like that. Only the roadster was way cooler then the red sports car.
Anyways, as it pulled up the big fella hopped out and went inside the garage to talk to my compadres Scott and Peter.
Before long they all three emerged and told me they had something they had to show me. Now these guys are my mates, and they are seldom not smiling and even more seldom not welding, so to see them cut from their work, and straight face, I knew they wanted to show me something important. As we walked to (I found out to be named Josh) the roadster I felt almost in trouble, a little weary, everything was tense around me but quite... I mean small talk was happening but it was small talk that was obviously dancing around the "object" that had to be shown and for that reason it made the dull words into a silence. Words were heard but not listened too. As I stood there, Josh was in no hurry, as he slowly opened his trunk and rustled around a while.
I think the fact that his big frame blocked anyone from seeing into the trunk added a mystery to the "object"...
Josh pulled from his trunk a black backpack and walked back over to the well lit garage and bent down on the ground and began to open it. He pulled out a pulley, a few springs, and metal "c" shaped brace of some kind, and gently laid it on the floor like in a movie where the surgeon slowly prepares his medical table with all his blades and saws... At last he pulled out a large round object and handed it to me, as I turned it over and brushed off the dust, it read, McCulloch Supercharger... I was speechless. Dumbfounded. Gobsmacked. I could barely hear him saying something about the 57 t bird it came off of, and how it works like new, and all the parts are there... though he was 2 feet away from me... All I could hear was Charlie Brown parent noises, just dull sounds over my own thoughts. If I could equate it to music, their voice was elevator music, and my thoughts were slash's guitar solo in November Rain...
Anyways I fumbled for some cash in my pocket, paid josh the few hundred bucks he wanted to get out of hawk to some big mean bastard who felt he deserved interest on something or other, I didn’t care, I had my super charger... and man was it cool! I half heartedly expected to look up and see the old knight from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade lookign at me saying, "You have chosen.........wisely"
Chapter II
Part II, i would read part I for this to make sense...
So here I stand, in the garage, looking at the Captain. Actually through a slip of the tongue by one of my kommrades, the car has been affectionately named, "The Baron of Bad News". Priceless...
The work began with the simple, grinding of the surface with paint cookies... Now it is worth mentioning here that its at this stage that you see the vibrant steel of the body underneath the years of rust as it begins to shine through. To finish a section of the car and find beautiful American steel from 1934 hand crafted to this point, I mean steel older then my father, just perfect in great shape and a lot of it, is a feeling that is almost spiritual. Not to get sappy but when the simple work you can do reaps something that shines like fine jewelry, you see the importance of pride and time and patience in the things I do. Building a car can really be like your first real love, it’s a event that consumes your mind with all the complexities and shadings of real love out in the world. The scents stay with you, the touch of the car, and even the pain is the most rewarding hurt you’ll ever feel. I challenge anyone who would say that building a car isnt these things.
So piece by piece the Baron began to clean up, like changing his clothes or taking a good bath. The age began to disappear. As my friends and I sat there, we contemplated what this car would want his new life to entail. What would he pick, if he could, for himself. I feel some cars are gorgeous in their original condition, some are perfect restored. Some cars are unbelievable as a custom, and some are just meant to be hot rods. But I know that not all cars can be anything, if you do, its like forcing yourself on a beautiful woman who may be saying she wants it, but you can tell its only her attempts to forget someone else before you... its just un natural and you feel bad for them and dirty for being there and a part of it.
Thinking, waiting, thinking, and more thinking, and listening for what was right... and then he spoke, and I mean the Baron, he said to me in a mental telepathic way, I mean he flat out told me; now I also think this came at this point because perhaps he had to trust me, and with those hours of sanding and cleaning, he felt that he could be honest with me, and he said, "I want to run fast again"...
Now that was all I needed, the flood gates opened, I knew what I had to do and what he was entrusting me with... This car was meant to be a Bonneville style racer. It was as if he had missed that part of his life and knew we could get there together. I knew this was something that had to be done tasteful for his age, it should be a true period correct hot rod to the 50's... Almost to not ruin the dream this car has himself! It was like he knew what it was to be a racer in the 50's and 60's and he didn’t have what it took back then and he was held out, now he knows he can do it and hes entrusting me to bring him there. And wow, what a responsibility for me, I mean this one friend of mines' dreams entrusted totally to me, I had to do it right, the first time.
So for the first leap... the chop was begun, and it had to be handled carefully and period correct to what the baron wanted...
So here I stand, in the garage, looking at the Captain. Actually through a slip of the tongue by one of my kommrades, the car has been affectionately named, "The Baron of Bad News". Priceless...
The work began with the simple, grinding of the surface with paint cookies... Now it is worth mentioning here that its at this stage that you see the vibrant steel of the body underneath the years of rust as it begins to shine through. To finish a section of the car and find beautiful American steel from 1934 hand crafted to this point, I mean steel older then my father, just perfect in great shape and a lot of it, is a feeling that is almost spiritual. Not to get sappy but when the simple work you can do reaps something that shines like fine jewelry, you see the importance of pride and time and patience in the things I do. Building a car can really be like your first real love, it’s a event that consumes your mind with all the complexities and shadings of real love out in the world. The scents stay with you, the touch of the car, and even the pain is the most rewarding hurt you’ll ever feel. I challenge anyone who would say that building a car isnt these things.
So piece by piece the Baron began to clean up, like changing his clothes or taking a good bath. The age began to disappear. As my friends and I sat there, we contemplated what this car would want his new life to entail. What would he pick, if he could, for himself. I feel some cars are gorgeous in their original condition, some are perfect restored. Some cars are unbelievable as a custom, and some are just meant to be hot rods. But I know that not all cars can be anything, if you do, its like forcing yourself on a beautiful woman who may be saying she wants it, but you can tell its only her attempts to forget someone else before you... its just un natural and you feel bad for them and dirty for being there and a part of it.
Thinking, waiting, thinking, and more thinking, and listening for what was right... and then he spoke, and I mean the Baron, he said to me in a mental telepathic way, I mean he flat out told me; now I also think this came at this point because perhaps he had to trust me, and with those hours of sanding and cleaning, he felt that he could be honest with me, and he said, "I want to run fast again"...
Now that was all I needed, the flood gates opened, I knew what I had to do and what he was entrusting me with... This car was meant to be a Bonneville style racer. It was as if he had missed that part of his life and knew we could get there together. I knew this was something that had to be done tasteful for his age, it should be a true period correct hot rod to the 50's... Almost to not ruin the dream this car has himself! It was like he knew what it was to be a racer in the 50's and 60's and he didn’t have what it took back then and he was held out, now he knows he can do it and hes entrusting me to bring him there. And wow, what a responsibility for me, I mean this one friend of mines' dreams entrusted totally to me, I had to do it right, the first time.
So for the first leap... the chop was begun, and it had to be handled carefully and period correct to what the baron wanted...
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