Hot rods are one of those things that are supposed to be an individual expression, which is why people get a little vexed when they see row on row of identikit rods at shows.  Building a stand out '32 Ford or Model T now days is going to be harder as they have such a long history of being rodded with such a diversity of modification.  One of the best ways to make sure your modified car stands out is to choose a different base model, choose something with the right basic shape, but enough individuality to make is stand out.  Don't choose a '34 Ford, choose a 1933 Hupmobile Model K.
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Once again we find ourselves looking to Sweden, this time the car came to our attention via the excellent Street & Strip magazine.  Luckily for us names and car models don't require us to know Swedish and the internet is a handy tool for finding stuff.  The car has been built by Nordlund racing and is reputed to be the world’s fastest Hupmobile.  Sitting on its original chassis the guys at Nordlund have dropped in a 454 Cubic Inch Chevy engine with a blower strapped onto it which, as far as our rather basic Swedish tells us, kicks out around 650 bhp.  The car is fully stripped down with a rather solid looking roll cage fitted to the interior, the dashboard is more functional than pretty.

Looking at the pictures you'll immediately notice the rat styling on the car, this is genuine patina from having been sat in a field before Mikael Nordlund picked it up and decided to go racing in it.  The rear wings have grown a bit wider with new metal being welded in, the grill has gone and the front arches have gained large holes, we're assuming for heat dissipation, or maybe they were just rust that had been cut away.  The Hupmobile's roofline gives it a natural rake and an almost chopped look which suits hot rods, being four door however it does sit as quite a long car.

For all its rat look and obvious leftfield nature Nordlund Drag Racing have built a very capable, serious, drag car out of the Model K, as you can see in the video below.

Once again the Swedish provide us with a high powered interesting approach to hot rods and customs, keep up the good work.

 

 

Posted on: April 2, 2010 02:31

Time for another RSM Linklog I believe, again we've built a mountain of cool links recently, so without further introduction we'll get into things...
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The Carrera Pan America is one of the greatest motorsports events in the world.  This blog celebrates that fact along with photographs of current events from a team that put together a documentary video of 2007 event.  As it says on the blog title "An ongoing look at the people, places and machines of the worlds most demanding open road race" excellent stuff and worth checking regularly. http://lacarrera2007.blogspot.com/

From road races to hot rods, such is the spread of our interest, and this time we get to go to Italy for a change to check out The Custom Sickles Diaries, a site dedicated to hot rod and custom motorbike culture, it is picture and link heavy (just how we like our foreign language sites).  This blog is the best of two worlds, firstly it picks up some excellent cars and photos from around the world, secondly it give us a glimpse into the world of Italian hot rodding.  A great double delight. http://customsicklesdiaries.blogspot.com/

Flying out of Italy and heading to one of our favourite spots for the last few links, the land of the rising sun.  The L-power website is a bit of a motley assortment of links and pictures from the "old car" show in Japan.  A good browse around the site following links and checking out the magazine scans and show panoramas can knock out a good hour or so and find some really interesting cars.  The associated BBS has some of the panorama photos in very large formats.  Both pages are worth a bit of your time if you are feeling adventurous.

Staying with Japan, we found the following via the excellent Riverside blog.  They recently did a bit more digging around a Japanese modifying group called Liberty Walk, it seems that not only do they like to modify Ferraris and Lamborghinis, but they also do pretty good work on shakotan and bosozoku inspired cars, you can check out the Riverside entry about them here.

We'll be sticking with Liberty Walk for our youTube video, from their youTube Channel we found this rather delightful clip.

 

 

Posted on: October 15, 2009 06:51

Most of us are familiar with the name Von Dutch, even if it is through the bastardisation of his name into a clothing brand. Many of us will also know the names of Ed Roth, John D’Agostino and Al Teague. Offerings of all of these and many other famous car builders were present during the Icons of Speed and Style Auction at the Peterson Museum, Los Angeles, September 26th. This huge collection of vehicles and memorabilia was under the ownership of just one lucky guy.
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Over the years, he had cherry-picked some of the most stunning and sought-after customs, hot rods, and race cars ever built, but a growing family and a recession-hit industry played a big part in his decision to auction the collection off.

Having never been to an auction of this type before, my only experiences were from watching the Barratt-Jackson auctions on television, but suffice to say this was a very civilised affair, with none of the ‘whoopin and a-hollerin’ that I was expecting. In fact, the whole auction was pretty intimate with perhaps no more than 200 people in attendance and far fewer actually placing bids.

Whether it was a result of the recession, or the over expectations of the auction organisers, few of any of the lots reached near their estimated values once the hammer had dropped, indeed there were ‘bargains’ to be had. A 75% finished Ed Roth ‘Tree Viper’ original trike went for just US$3300 (£2062), and the stunning ‘La Jolla’ (pronounced La Hoya) 1951 Chevrolet Custom Coupe built by Harry Bradley only fetched US$24,750 (£15,470). Even the attendance of an original 1969 ‘General Lee’ Charger, used in the television series and signed by George Barris and John Schneider (Bo Luke) sold for a ‘meagre’ US$27,500 or just over £17k. When you look at the value some people put on General Lee replicas, with the heritage of this car, it seemed an absolute steal.

There were many famous faces in attendance, notably D’Agostino and Teague, as well as Larry Alexander, one half of the Alexander Brothers, famous for building the Dodge Deora concept truck which had been heralded as the star of the show, with even the estimated auction price being kept under wraps. Many whispers throughout the auction hall predicted that bidding would top US$750,000, however the Deora failed to claim the top spot with the hammer falling at US$324,500 (£202,820). The king of the auction went to the ‘Little Red Wagon’, the 1965 Dodge A100 wheeler-stander, which almost doubled its estimate with a final bid of US$550,000 (£343,750).

In total, the 80 vehicles and many memorabilia lots raised almost $7million for the owner, with many of the new owners getting the chance to talk with the original builders and drivers of the cars at the event. It was a genuinely inspiring occasion to be in the presence of such an eclectic collection. My personal favourite was D’Agostino’s Firestar 1961 Ford Thunderbird, which again fetched a very reasonable price of US$31,900, or around £20k. Given the huge sums of money that are passed around in America for Rods and Customs, it really does seem a lot of car for the cash.

Needless to say, my relatively empty wallet stayed firmly in my pocket, but at least I came away with a collection of photos and memories from a great day.  You can see the photos on the RSM Flickr stream.

 

Posted on: October 7, 2009 03:16

Following on from our California Scrapyard feature is the second of those USA photosets taken in 2007 now uploaded to the RSM Flickr account. Wendover is the town on the border (literally) of Utah and Nevada which just so happens to be closest to Bonneville Salt Flats. It's proximity to Bonneville means that it's where the majority of Speed Week fans and racers eat, drink and sleep. It means that hotel, motel and casino car parks are full of hot rods, push trucks, trailers and salt and everywhere you go there's gearheads; the supermarkets and restaurants inevitably contain groups of guys wearing colourful team shirts and discussing their day out on the flats.

The photoset on Flickr is the result of a midnight prowl around the town on the night I arrived.

Find the pics here.

Posted on: October 1, 2009 00:07

Image © 2008 THE LOCAL HERO

Things continue to move forward round here, but we're keeping on top of things with the blog entries.  We've build up a crazy backlog of linklog items, so we should probably get a few more out there for you to enjoy.
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First up we have the Local Style blog from Japan.  One of the things we've found with the Japanese scene on the internet is that there are groups of people that are tightly interlinked, but don't link so often outside of their group, so occasionally we find one link into a blog or web page only to discover that it opens up a whole new raft of cool websites and people.  Local Style is one of those links, it is a window into the custom, low rider and chopper scenes in Japan.  The blog documents their meet ups, ride outs, work on cars and, as usual for a Japanese blog, their dietary habits.  Obviously there is a lot of clicking around to be done on the site to find what you are looking for, but we particularly liked this entry on a photo shoot for Bombs and this fantastically evocative photo series from a ride out somewhere.  Really shows you how they are living their scene.


On the flip side we head to the states for a glimpse at some more modern cars, Speed Sport Life is a crisp looking blog that deals with sports cars and racing.  Of particular note to us is Racer Boy's section in which the eponymous Racer Boy gives us details on various forms of car related sport from drag racing to autocross, the writing is fun and makes you really want to get out there and take part in something, even if it is just slot car racing!


There are millions of car photos on Flickr, we see a lot of them!  However finding sets that really capture us for a while takes some doing.  Even more difficult is finding photostreams that bring us in beyond their car content, the ostentatiously named Lawrence Peregrine-Trousers' photostream really dragged me in.  The photos are of cars and things, a lot are scans from photographs and have a real evocative feel to them, from pictures of a decaying Manchester to snaps of cars and bicycles there are many worse ways to spend your time than looking through this nice set of photographs.


The Chicane: A Celebration Of Classic Motorsport, apparently.  Well if a tag line ever described a blog better, I'd like to see it, this really does what it says on the tin and it does it well.  Photographs, videos, a nice easy to read style with plenty already in the archive for you to browse, before adding it to your RSS feed reader of choice.  Great stuff.


So time for the obligatory video, this time we're showing you just what you can find with a bit of poking around in a Japanese blog and some copying of search terms into YouTube.

Hope you enjoy the links.

 

 

Posted on: September 15, 2009 04:22

Bill Harrahs 1969 “Jerrari” came to my attention last year when it cropped up on eBay. I’d never seen or heard of it before and it is a pretty bizarre machine, combining curvacious Ferrari 365 front sheet metal with a then brand new Jeep Wagoneer. The Ferrari theme was more than skin deep though as the 365’s V12 engine also found its way into this concoction.

Harrah's Jerrari in a period magazine

When listed on eBay it was now fitted with a more mundane small block Chevy motor so what happened to the Italian running gear?

eBay photos on Jalopnik

You would imagine it may have ended up back in a sixties Ferrari but I recently discovered, totally by chance, its destination.

I had bought a pile of seventies Street Rodder magazines at an autojumble as its an era of hot rodding I feel I know very little about. Leafing through them I came to a 1978 issue and some construction photos of a roadster being built at Magoos Auto Shop in California. The car’s owner ran a West coast Ferrari dealership and so had decided to build a top-notch rod as a promo for the business using a V12 for motorvation.

In 1977 Harrah had decided to replace the Jerrari with another V12 equipped Wagoneer and presumable chose a more current engine. The engine from the old wagon found its way into that same hot rod shop where it was installed in the roadster, the chassis extended by four inches to allow for its length. Once complete this car was named the “Deucari” and won the coveted “Americas Most Beautiful Roadster” award in 1979, making the cover of Street Rodder in June of that year.

So this one engine has been in several iconic cars, leaving Modena in a 365, being transplanted into a millionaires folly and then finding a home in a famous hot rod in which (assuming its not since been replaced) it still lives as seen here in a recent Oakland Roadster Show. Not bad!

 

Posted on: June 11, 2009 06:15

We're not really ones for posting single links to ebay sales, so we'll attempt to expand on this one a little, so you can understand how cool this sale is and maybe some rich benefactor may decide to look kindly upon us and buy it as a present!

Above is a photo as it is now, however the first incarnation of this awesome Hillman Husky to hit print was in November 1988, built by Chris Hay as an everyday street rod works van for his plumbing business, pulled along quite happily by a 2 litre Alfa twin cam lump.  It is pure unadulterated cool already, smooth body, subtle custom mods, great paint and detailing as well as a bit of a power hike!  You can see the Street Machine article on the Beardmore Brothers Website here.

This wasn't the end of the story for this particular Husky though.  It dissappeared for a while when it was bought by one Dave Rothwell, a man of considerable talent within the UK hot rodding and custom scene.  This Husky can be seen in the background of a photoshoot from Custom Car in 1995, but it wasn't until 2000 that it got a feature of its own.  Dave Rothwell is a credit to this hobby, a man with talent and a consummate attention to detail.  He also isn't a man who has a rules book it would appear.  Once it broke cover again the car featured a turbo charged Cosworth engine, new paint, new interior, new wheels and a few other subtle exterior mods, like indicators, as well as sprucing up of the breaks and running gear.  The full Custom Car feature can also be found on the Beardmore Brothers Website.

Not only is this car a reflection of the quality of retro cars in the UK scene, but it has also served as an inspiration to many current car builders, and hopefully future car builders, an exercise in suitable mods performed very well from the first incarnation to its current state.

So if you fancy buying it, check out the ebay advert.  If you do buy it, please feel free to drop us an email,.. or the keys.

Posted on: May 5, 2009 05:00

It seems about time we had another linklog, seeing as we've been plucking the finest morsels of goodness out of the teeth of the internets.

We'll start off with a story, the story of a lost car.  If we were in the plagiarising mood this would make for an excellent blog entry for us, sadly we didn't get the scoop, so rather than rehash someone else story we'll give you the link to the source.  This is the story of "Orbitron Apocalypto" a lost Roth show custom that re-emerged in Mexico, the story is VERY long, but brilliant fun, set yourself aside a goof couple of hours to read it.



Staying on the other side of the Atlantic but a bit further south we head over to the Flickr account of Fabio Davini.  In it we find some great coverage of motorsports events and individual photoshoots, a photo from which is in this blog entry.  There is much to be found from this collection of images, or if you aren't that inquisitive just sit back and enjoy.

More photos now, a little closer to home in Sweden we find Tobias Ohlander as is usual on sites in languages we can't understand, we head straight for the Galleri link in it we find individual photoshoots, as well as event coverage.  A great link to keep an eye on through the 2009 season.

AS is tradition, we'll leave you with a youtube video.  Today comes as a precursor to an entry that will be making its way onto here in the next few weeks :




Posted on: March 20, 2009 07:08