Author: Royboy

Adapt. Improvise. Overcome. That’s the motto of this 48 Cars 48 States trip. When my friend Jeff informed me that he wouldn’t be back in Michigan for our shoot I had to put the word out that I needed a replacement vehicle. It didn’t take long for Andy Corralez to line up this incredible hot rod pickup built and owned by Bill Thorndyke AND the location. Andy really came through and I appreciate his efforts to make sure that I had a car for Michigan.

I left the Iron Invasion in Woodstock, IL and followed my hosts RC Scott & Erin back to the south suburbs of Chicago. We went to the Maple Tree Inn in Blue Island,IL for dinner. Amazing cajun food, atmosphere and company! The next morning I took off for Michigan to head to The Ivy Barn, where this shoot was done.

The truck is a fresh build and as you can see it’s pretty spectacular. I’ll have a full write up on it in the book!

Continue reading “48 Cars in 48 States #27 : Michigan”

After leaving Antigo, WI and Bob K, I headed south and drove down to have dinner with my buddy Luke Zoch of Phaethon Speed Shop North then continued to see some other Vagabonds in Kenosha, WI. Jerry has a great hobby shop there with an attached apartment that was a great spot to stay for the night. I got to hang out with a few guys while they worked on their cars and then got a dime tour of the town and a beer at a bar owned by one of the guys. If you find yourself in Kenosha, WI make sure you check out Hill’s Hot Rod Hideout.

The next day I made the short drive down to IL for the shoot, the story continues below…

Continue reading “48 Cars in 48 States #26 : Illinois”

After leaving the Minneapolis, MN area I drove east to Antigo, WI to visit everyone’s buddy Bob K! Bob was in good spirits and it was great to see him and talk to him. His car that we shot for the 48 Cars 48 States project is his 47 Chevy. I think I first saw the car at the Detroit Autorama in the basement, then later that year at the Custom Car Revival.

Bob is such a great guy it was an honor to stop by and hang out with him and shoot some photos of his car. I hope to make it back to Antigo again soon!

Continue reading “48 Cars in 48 States #25 : Wisconsin”

While Corvettes are not my normal fare, they were customized back when they were new because they weren’t the sacred cow that they’ve become. This one belongs to custom car aficionado Mark Moriarty of the Minneapolis, MN area.

Mark has a bunch of cool cars, heck he has two in his LIVING ROOM, plus a few more in the garage. Some historic traditional customs, a car very similar to the Chevelle he had in his younger days, a couple of the Zinger cars, a very fast looking boat and a rocket powered go kart. You read that right…

So the car that he chose from his collection to shoot for this project was his Corvette. It has some minor modifications to clean it up and hop it up a bit. It’s very clean, shaving the door handles really changes the flow of the door panels. The car is fun to ride in and has a great look to it. I was honored to get to hang out with Mark and see his collection.

Continue reading “48 Cars in 48 States #24 : Minnesota”

My friend and a great artist Todd Jones introduced me to Jeremy Schirm who owns this 40 Mercury. I think that was at the Detroit Autorama a couple of years ago. I first saw the car at the 2016 Vintage Torque Fest, then again at the 2017 Custom Car Revival. Jeremy was one of the first ones to answer the call when I asked for folks in each state to be a part of this project.

The car had been put away for the season when I got ahold of Jeremy to tell him that I was about a week away from showing up to shoot some photos. Not a huge deal, just about 160 miles more driving to get to the spot where the car was. Like me a couple of times on this trip he had a newly developed engine tick in his fairly new engine so we shot the car right next to the garage that it was stored in. One of my ticks turned into the saga you saw on this site a few days ago, the other has just been an exhaust leak that a new gasket fixed.

Since Jeremy is a paint and body man by trade the paint on this car is intricate and well done, not a ton of body mods were done but then again, they aren’t really all that needed on the 40 Mercury, it was a great looking car from the beginning.

More on the car in the book!

Continue reading “48 Cars in 48 States #23 : Iowa”

My Nebraska car belongs to John MacKichan and was built specifically to attend the Hot Rod Hill Climb. I got to ride in this car and it’s pretty impressive for a B Motor, especially when loaded with 4 people and going up a mountain!

This 1930 Ford Model A Roadster was originally built as a hot rod in 1954 in Ashland, NE. In 1958 the original builder sold the car to Frank Schaffer who drove the roadster every day year round until 1973. That’s 15 Nebraska summers and winter… my hat is off to Mr. Schaffer! After 73 the car was put into storage, sometimes inside a barn, for a few years outside under a cover until MacKichan purchased the car and put it back into a barn for a few years. In November of 2013 when MacKichan hauled it out with a tractor and started to work on it to get ready for the 2014 Hot Rod Hill Climb. That work lasted from Dec. to July and the car made it to the Hill Climb.

MacKichan has a long history in performance vehicles including projects for Indy, Pikes Peak, and especially Bonneville. He designed, engineered, and fabricated much of the MacKichan/Schulz Bonneville Streamliner. The streamliner was retired after 22 years of racing with a final record run in 2010 at 323.3 MPH in the D/FS Class. The fastest overall record for the streamliner was 328.9 MPH in the C/BGS Class in 2000 along with the fastest exit speed of 346 MPH.

Some facts about the roadster, more in the book!

Built with a Model B 4-banger and cross-flow

Cragar head. John built a Halibrand quick-change rear end and added a T-5 transmission.

Continue reading “48 Cars in 48 States #22 : Nebraska”

The tail end of the 1st half of the trip was a stop in KCMO at the club hangout of the Los Punk Rods club. The trip started with a stop at their Greaserama show on Sept. 2nd and it was a great bookend to the western part of the country to come back to KC and shoot photos of Dave Sprinkle’s Econoline.

Technically Dave now lives in Kansas but the truck stays at the club shop which is in Missouri… by about 40 feet, it’s literally right next to the state line, but that counts! It was built in Missouri and it was shot in Missouri!

I’ll have more info on the truck in the book when it comes out, enjoy the photos!

Continue reading “48 Cars in 48 States #21 : Missouri”

After leaving Owens Salvage in Wellington, TX I headed east to OK. A brief stop for dinner with some friends in OKC and then it was time to get over to the Tulsa area for my OK stop the next day. My friends at Hot Rod Garage, Inc. in Sand Springs, OK recently completed this beauty for Tim Wilson, a long time friend of HRG co-owner Jason Smith.

Jason also has a sweet 63 Falcon that’s set up for AutoCross and for running road courses like the nearby Hallet raceway. His plan for the weekend was to take the 32 down to Fort Worth to the Goodguys show and also to take the Falcon for some autocross time. Since the rear tires on the Falcon were almost bald and he had some new ones to mount up… why not finish off the old ones in style?

Continue reading “48 Cars in 48 States #20 : Oklahoma”

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.

Continue reading “48 Cars in 48 States #19 : Texas”

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.

Continue reading “48 Cars in 48 States #18 : New Mexico”

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”