That a lot to fit into a Saturday morning. I joined a new car club that offers shared tools and workspace. For a monthly fee you get access to the “shop”. On my first day I learned to use the plasma cutter and mig welder. Cool!
This little motor was sitting in the corner waiting for some blessed frame on which to unleash its inner demons!
I found a 49 nash listed on our local craigslist. I thought it might make a cool looking lowrider rod. So i did a search for nash rat rod. That lead me to the photo below, which lead me to a bunch of cool photos. Here is the link.
Here he is getting it done back in the day. No bolt ons, No Ebay. Make it all yourself. I don’t know enough about George Barris to write a real article, so ill let you do some research and learn on your own. What I do know is that he was THE “King of the Kustomizers”. In his career of hot rod fabrication, Barris built some of the most famous rides of all time. The General Lee, Bat Mobile and Munsters Coach. You can check them out at his website. http://www.barris.com/
Wouldn’t it be great to go to hot rod school and spend some time learning how they did it back before everything was bolted on. I’m really envious of the these guys and how ambitious and fearless they were. They would cut, weld and torch anything without hesitation. Very cool.
I have a little fox body stang that Im tinkering on. Im lucky to work at a large auto dealership and have lots of great contacts with mechanics and other “car” guys. One of our Lexus mechanics drives a fox that is the same color as mine. I needed a hood and he had a spare after upgrading his to a cowl style. So for a 12 pack I not only scored a hood that is the same color but also has the same amount of sun fade, you would never know that it wasn’t the original hood. I needed to replace mine, it was crunched when the PO ran into someone or something. It didn’t look too bad before, but it didn’t sit well and bounced, and had a snarled look to it. So here is the camera phone shot of the new/old hood installed in the parking lot at work.
I will need to get the front mount inter cooler set up in place now. I had cut a hole in the old hood to help the top mount IC breath. This hood still has the insulation in place and I dont think much fresh air finds its way to that IC. I have the classic set up for the 2.3 turbo ford stuff ready to go. Ranger Radiator and Volvo IC… I just need a few dry days and some free time.
I turned 16 in 1985, so I missed out on a lot of great cars of the 70’s ( I did own 76 gran prix for awhile). When I say great, thats a relative statment. Sure the quality wasn’t that good, but they had a unique attitude in the 70’s. I still prefer the muscle of the 60’s and there was lots of cool vans from that era as well. Check out this ad from dodge – they are helping you customize your ride straight from the factory, port windows, high-back bucket seats and polyglas tires. It’s a groovy, culture centered advertisement that lets you know where to go for the street van attitude. If the vans a rockin, its from the 70’s!
I stumbled on this site after poking around on the garage site.
Billetproof – “World’s Least Important Car Show”
Take time to check out the show poster art, great stuff.
Whats 3 inches wide and is shipped wrapped in saran wrap?
My new 3″ exhaust form stinger – this should make the stang sound a little better.
