Year: 2017

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.

Continue reading “48 Cars in 48 States #17 : Arizona”

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.

Continue reading “48 Cars in 48 States #16 : Nevada”

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.

Continue reading “48 Cars in 48 States : A Slight Detour”

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.

Continue reading “48 Cars in 48 States #15 : California”

When I first started planning out this trip my friend TJ Wilson had just moved from Texas to Oregon. At that time he was in the eastern half of the state. Someone said that I HAD to go to the Columbia River Gorge and was bummed to see that my route wouldn’t take me there. But now TJ and family live in Salem, OR and I completely forgot about the suggestion to check out the Gorge until I crested a hill and started to descend into it.

Continue reading “48 Cars in 48 States #14 : Oregon”

After the monster drive from Salt Lake City up to the Post Falls, ID/Spokane area I was glad to have a short drive over to Spokane of about 15 minutes. My Washington car belongs to John Gunsaulis of Hop Up Magazine. I first saw this sweet right hand drive, banger powered Phaethon at the Hot Rod Hill Climb in 2015 and was immediately drawn to it’s simplicity and cool factor.

Continue reading “48 Cars in 48 States #13 : Washington”

After a long drive from Colorado to Utah I woke up early for another long drive up to Post Falls, Idaho. Russ Freund’s Takeout T was my subject for Idaho, a car I’d last seen in person in 2011 at the Starbird show in Tulsa, OK. The car is still as beautiful today as it was then.

Continue reading “48 Cars in 48 States #12 : Idaho”

My first trip to the Hot Rod Hill Climb a few years ago I saw this beautiful 36 Ford. I was floored that such a beautiful kustom was being thrashed up the mountain! Fast forward to year’s HRHC and I see that Kipp Winward drove it over the OMG Road on the dirt and according to his Throttlers Car Club fellow members, he was sideways around every corner.

Continue reading “48 Cars in 48 States #11 : Utah”

The Colorado vehicle for the 48 Cars 48 States trip is the Odd Rod, well technically it’s the recreation of the Odd Rod! My buddy Mike Nicholas (of Nick’s Hot Rod Garage, Hot Rod Hill Climb, and Hot Rod Dirt Drags) was asked by Duane Helms to help bring together Duane’s dream of recreating the Odd Rod a couple of years ago. What you see here is that recreation.

Continue reading “48 Cars in 48 States #10 : Colorado”

I first saw John & Chelle Binger’s car at the 2016 Hot Rod Hill Climb, then again at the 2017 Hot Rod Dirt Drags and last week at the 2017 Hot Rod Hill Climb. It’s a great, simple hot rod that has style and is fun to drive around in! I drove down from the Billings, MT area to Cheyenne through some beautiful countryside, the Big Horn Mountains and the high plains of Wyoming. I got to Cheyenne just about the time a small rain storm came through so we went over to the Binger’s shop and checked out some of what was there.

Continue reading “48 Cars in 48 States #09 : Wyoming”

After leaving Bismarck, ND I headed straight west on I-94 to Montana. The first couple of hours looked a lot like western KS, big rolling hills and lots of pasture. Then I came across the most beautiful part of the entire trip so far, the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, right at Medora, ND. This is well worth the time if you can stop, I couldn’t as I was racing the sun, so I got to enjoy the beauty at 75 mph as I drove through. Shortly after crossing the border the smoke from the forest fires out west got bad again. I continued the next 3 hours of driving with about 3 miles of visibility, it was actually kind of stressful after a bit. I’m from KS, used to being able to see the horizon, so the close quarters of the smoke really wore me out as I drove.

Continue reading “48 Cars in 48 States #08 : Montana”

Tom Huber’s 40 Chevy Convertible is my car for North Dakota. After shooting with the Van Pelt’s in SD Tim & Thom lead me on a short tour through the Black Hills and took me up by Mount Rushmore. I didn’t have time to go in and do all the stuff that I wanted to do but it was still good to get to check it out.

The Galaxie is running great but still doesn’t like city driving. The short stint through Rapid City and then the long climb up to Mount Rushmore combined with a stop along the way meant she got really warm again. Lucky for me we stopped right passed the top and parked for a bit, giving the car a chance to cool back down.

Continue reading “48 Cars in 48 States #07 : North Dakota”

Well, that didn’t go quite as planned, but I made it to South Dakota late Sunday night. I left the Starliner show and headed north, my route took me within 12 miles of my own home so I stopped again and used my wifi and slept in my own bed, planning to take off at 5:30 am to arrive in Rapid City, SD by 2:30 pm Mountain time. First, I awoke to the shrill alarm at 5am and quickly decided that 6:30 would be a better starting time… then it was 7:30… by 8am I was finally rolling out of Gypsum, KS.

I headed up U.S. 81, since my route took me through Concordia, KS I stopped in to see my friend Dalton for a little bit. As I left Concordia the car died on me, weird. I started it back up and kept going, figuring it was nothing. I made it about 30 miles north and saw a big thunderstorm sitting on top of US 81 a couple of miles ahead. A quick decision took me west on US 36. 30 or so miles later I drove through the small town of Mankato, KS, the home of City Limits Hot Rods owned by my friend PJ Garst. I figured it was Sunday morning and I’d already stopped once, I better keep rolling down the road instead of calling him to say hi.

Continue reading “48 Cars in 48 States #06 : South Dakota”

Picking up where yesterday’s post left off, I was at home Wednesday night so I took advantage of the opportunity to do some laundry and use my own fast wifi. Thursday morning I got a ride back over to pick up the Galaxie, packed my stuff back in my car and headed for Wichita. I knew that I needed to fix the exhaust leak on the passenger side so I called up Rocky Burris and headed to his place figuring that it would be easier to get a set of gaskets for a Ford FE in Wichita than in Salina. Plus if I had to order them in at least I’d be in Wichita with everyone for the Starliner weekend instead of sitting in my house twiddling my thumbs.

Continue reading “48 Cars in 48 States #05 : Kansas”

After leaving MS I headed up into Memphis, I wanted to swing by Graceland and take a touristy photo of my Galaxie in front of the gate, but the line was way too long and I had a shoot in AR to get to!

Continue reading “48 Cars In 48 States #04 : Arkansas”