Hot Rods and Kustom Cars
After shooting in Las Lunas, NM I hopped in the Galaxie and headed east on I-40 towards Texas! My next stop was at Owens Salvage in Wellington, TX to see Bob Owens (FlatTopBob). If you look back here on the site you can see my previous visit to Owens Salvage and hear my podcast with Bob here. Bob’s Buick is one of my favorites. Something so good about this car, plus with the setting of the Owen’s shop/house it just turned out awesome.
After my shoot in AZ I headed east on US60, it’s a route that I’d taken a few times when I was in school there 17 years ago. I knew the road was a scenic one and just had a couple of manageable inclines plus a great drive down and back up the other side of the Salt River Canyon.
It wasn’t the quickest route and I was on a time table, trying to beat the sunset to Los Lunas, NM. Once I got to Quemodo, NM I was on road that was new to me. The scenery was great, the road was pretty good too. Unlike going through Colorado the road was more between the mountains rather than through the more tightly packed Colorado Rockies. When I crossed the Continental Divide for the last time it was more of a big hill than the mountains on either side.
Following the slight detour and the crazy run down from Salt Lake City to Vegas I had to skip some planned sight seeing at the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon because it was night and I needed to make up some miles. My next stop was in my old stomping grounds in the Phoenix area. Back in 2000 I was living in the area as I went to school at the Conservatory for Recording Arts & Sciences in Tempe.
Early Tuesday morning I got up and added some more oil to the engine and finished the last 100 miles in to the Phoenix area and made my way over to Gilbert, AZ. It was great to be in town again, if even for just a quick drive through. I met up with my AZ car owner Tom Mikla at his home and we hopped in his car and went looking for a location. Time was tight and I still needed to get to NM by evening so I could have a chance of getting back on schedule so we found a spot and started shooting.
I’ll give more details about the car in the book but wow this thing is stout thanks to the engine from Tom’s NASCAR days being under the hood.
As you read yesterday, this stop was a bit delayed! This stop was supposed to be Saturday afternoon and instead it was late Monday evening.
This car is a great example of pure and simple hot rodding. Nothing extra that’s not needed, just strip parts away and put a more powerful engine in, I don’t know what more needs to be said. I like it, I want one for myself.
The timing wasn’t ideal, but I have to say a huge thanks to Derek Campbell for being willing to let me shoot his car 2 days behind schedule and at night. I really like these images, they are different from anything else I’d shot to date. I didn’t get to experience any of Vegas this trip but I will be back.
Sometimes in life, your plans don’t exactly go as you wanted…
So let’s pick the story up from the photo shoot in California. After shooting Brian’s roadster I went and got a hotel room and started looking for a shop to take a look at the engine to figure out the miss that I had. I tried pulling the plug wires one at a time while the car was running, sure enough when you pulled the #6 wire from the distributor, the engine didn’t change at all. When pulling all of the others the engine got worse, so that means the problem was with #6. So I tried pulling the wire from the spark plug, nope the problem was not with the wire. Okay, maybe it’s the plug? Nope the plug was fine.
Week 4 of the 48 Cars 48 States trip recap! Including the rest of the tale of the burnt valve, stops in Phoenix, Wellington, TX and KCMO
Continue reading “173- #48Cars48States Week 4 Recap – #ChromePipesAndPinstripes”
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From Salem, OR down to Penryn, CA is a pretty straight forward drive. It rained on me most of the way down to the Medford area where I stayed for the night. Just hop on the I-5 and haul butt south! The west was certainly beautiful and I wish I could have stayed longer and spent some time on the coast but that wasn’t in the cards.