For the last few years I’ve shown either my 63 Galaxie or my 51 Ford Sedan at this show, but this year I hadn’t done anything different on either car and I needed this weekend to work on the camper for the 48 Cars In 48 States trip, so I left all of my stuff at home. It was kind of odd to not have a car in the show!
This year Jack Marinelli called and told me that he was going to be setting up the first ever Midwest Roadster Display at the show this year. He gathered up a bunch of area roadsters to display together, including Troy Pate’s 32 that you see above. The rest of the Midwest Roadster Display is in this post, I hope you enjoy! More to come tomorrow.
48 Cars In 48 States : The Great American Road Trip – A 48 state road trip with a stop in each state to photograph a traditionally styled hot rod, kustom or drag vehicle. Daily updates will be posted here on royboyproductions.com so you can see where I’ve gone, who I’ve met, some of what I’ve seen. At the end of the trip I’ll produce a roughly 200 page full color book of the entire adventure. I’m looking for sponsors to help cover the costs of the trip, contact me here for more information on that! Your company could have it’s logo on both sides of the camper for the entire trip.
I honestly can’t say how long I’ve been attending the Starbird-Devlin show in Wichita each January. I remember faking that I was over an illness as a small child so that I could go to the show. Looking back I’m pretty sure that my folks knew that I was still sick but they also knew that I had my heart set on going down to Century II in downtown Wichita, KS for the show. In those days the show was the Starbird Rod & Kustom Car Show, a few years ago a group of local car aficionados including Tom and Tim Devlin purchased the show and changed it so that the proceeds would go to some great local charities.
This year I was able to carve out a little time Friday evening to rush down to Wichita and shoot the show, finishing a few minutes after they were announcing the closing of the show for the day. Enjoy the photos, there will be 4 days of coverage on this show this week.
48 Cars In 48 States : The Great American Road Trip – A 48 state road trip with a stop in each state to photograph a traditionally styled hot rod, kustom or drag vehicle. Daily updates will be posted here on royboyproductions.com so you can see where I’ve gone, who I’ve met, some of what I’ve seen. At the end of the trip I’ll produce a roughly 200 page full color book of the entire adventure. I’m looking for sponsors to help cover the costs of the trip, contact me here for more information on that! Your company could have it’s logo on both sides of the camper for the entire trip.
This week Royboy has to scramble after two different guests had to postpone. So a quick 90 mile drive down to Wichita to pick up a generator for the Camper for the #48Cars48States trip turned into an in person podcast in Travis Chadwick’s tiki basement.
This is it for the 2017 Retro Rewind coverage, the show was awesome, the outside temps were cold. I had a great time with friends that I don’t get to see often enough and I made some new ones. These kinda small “armory type” shows are a lot of fun and I hope that we as a group can do more of them. Indoor shows are not much fun to take a car to if you live far away, so having it be a one or two day show at max really helps with people’s scheduling. What indoor shows are you hitting this winter? Leave your answers in the comments at the bottom of this page.
The Retro Rewind is a small show, it’s a small show but it’s packed with stuff. About 40 cars, 40 bikes, vendors, live music, art auctions, pinup contest, movies, more live music. If you’re bored at this show, it’s because you didn’t try hard enough.
After arriving Friday night we all gathered in the hotel for some live music, mingling and drinks. Before to long we slid down the street to the Rainbow Lounge for some karaoke and some more drinks (I see a theme developing). With an 8am start time I called it a night early (around 1am) and caught some sleep. Getting into the show early is great for photos with minimal spectators in the shots.
I’m not sure what kind of polar vortex forces seem to not want me to be in Dubuque, Iowa in January for the Retro Rewind, but they keep throwing some chilling temps out each time I make the 9 hour drive up from Kansas. John Wells and company started out with the Vintage Torque Fest a few years ago, added the Iron Invasion and then the Retro Rewind.
The Five Flags Center in Dubuque is the home for the show each January. Wells and company do a great job making sure that the cars and bikes that show up each year are different, something that more indoor shows would do well to copy. Enjoy part 1 of the coverage.
This week Royboy goes over the upcoming couple of months including show schedules, camper renovation plans and some revamping to the trusty Galaxie 500 before going into a bit of a rant on whether or not it’s “lucky” to be able to go on a 2 month road trip or the result of a ton of hard work.
Here’s an email I got from Jonnie King lately, I hope you enjoy the audio!
“This is a shot of Jack when he was in our KSLQ-FM Studios in St. Louis in 1974. I was MD at the time, and, we put him on-the-air for one afternoon when he was in town to promote “Clap For The Wolfman”. He was just SO GREAT !
IN ANY EVENT, if you have time to add the NYE Link to your Site/FB Page I would sincerely appreciate it…we’re almost at One Million Hits for Dec. and it would help so much !
This week we look back at the BEST moments of Chrome Pipes and Pinstripes in 2016 featuring Mike Alexander, Josh Mishler, Mike Keller, Adam Sorokin, Dennis McPhail, Tim Strange, Darryl Hollenbeck, John Mearns and Ray Evernham. Enjoy my favorite moments of 2016!
The most viewed photo of the most viewed gallery of 2016. From the 2016 Hot Rod Hill Climb
2016 has been a great year! This year I traveled over 27,000 miles by car and a couple thousand more by plane attending events from the Grand National Roadster Show in Pomona, CA to the Detroit Autorama in Detroit, MI and a whole pile of places in between. I’ve shot 39 events and a bunch of shoots for magazines or private clients, amassing more than 15,000 images along the way. So far this year there have been more than 10,340,884 photo views not counting any social media. It’s been a heck of a ride and it’s just been preparing me for the next adventure. Enjoy some of my favorite images from the year so far. Don’t forget if you like an image you can get a copy in any size you’d like by clicking on the photo.
Here are the Top 10 most viewed galleries of my 2016.
Two years ago I went down to Springfield, MO for the Hot Rod Holiday show. I haven’t been able to make it back since then but lucky for me and you, Cory McMahon was able to go and he shared some photos with me to share with all of you.
This week Royboy is joined by Piero De Luca of Mad Fabricators and Motornation.tv and Bob Bleed of Midwest Fabrication to talk about all things hot rods.
For the 2nd year in a row, Dennis McPhail and his crew at Artist At Large World Headquarters threw down the Kustom Kulture Xmas Party on Dec. 4th in Wichita, KS at Artist At Large.
Artists from across the country came to town for the art show that filled the entire building this year. Companies such as mine and all the way up to companies like Vintage Air gave items to be given away as door prizes throughout the day. All you had to do is show up to get most of the door prizes but some you had to buy a piece of art to get an entry.
It was a great showing of amazing artists and I hated leaving, I was able to grab a couple of prints from Timm McKenny before I left, now I have eleventy billion pieces of art in the house to get matted and framed. I still want more.
6 years ago I decided that I needed to organize a fun run. When would I do it? The schedule was full already through most of the year. I decided to do the run in December and Mickey from Stray Kat Kustoms suggested Decembrrrr Run as the name. That first year lived up to the brrrr part as it was about 13 degrees with a cold wind.
This year we gathered up in Gypsum, KS and drove to Wichita, KS. We stopped at Devlin Rod & Custom and Soft Strip along with a lunch stop. It was a blast! Here are some photos of the day!
This week Royboy takes a bit of a break and plays an interview by Kevin Flood with Neil Fretwell of the VHRA in the UK. The VHRA is responsible for putting on the event at Pendine each year and a few other vintage hot rod events.
A few months ago I announced to the world that I was going to do something big and awesome in 2017. The plan is simple, I’m going to hop in the Galaxie, with the canned ham camper on the back and I’m going to hit all lower 48 states in one monster road trip of a life time.
This weekend I finally got to tear in to the camper to fix some of the rotted wood. Most old campers have some rotted wood, this one had more than I bargained for…
I want more small town shows to be like this one. I don’t even know what it is that makes me like it so much. I’ve been to lots of small town shows that just had nothing special about them. This one though, maybe it’s the people, maybe it’s the friends, maybe it’s something special about the town, whatever it is this is one of the shows that I hope everyone can experience. I had a great time at the Hobo Happenings.
As I rolled into Douglass, KS for the Hobo Happenings show I could tell this was going to be a good year. The show had more cars than I’ve ever seen there before. My friends of the Primarys club in Wichita saved me a spot so that I could park next to them. This is one of those shows that’s about good people. The small town of Douglass was bursting at the seams with kool. There are bigger shows with more people but this one has some great folks. Walking around talking to folks, shooting photos, wishing the show season wasn’t over.
The typical last show of the year in this region is the Hobo Happenings in Douglass, KS. I forget when I first attended, but this was the first year that I took a car that I can remember. It was cold… I mean really cold for the 23 degree temperature. The stack of Steele Rubber weather stripping on my shop bench didn’t do me any good while I drove the car. The Galaxie’s heater was on high and just enough to overcome the drafty car. Another item for this winter’s to do list.
Enjoy the photos, more of the story of the trip and more photos tomorrow.
Have you noticed the amount of wagons? Wow, the show had some great wagons, and a bunch of great 1958 cars in general. Parked next to me was the newest build from David Guymon, a 1958 Ford wagon he’s just finished for Lars Hellgren. The car has a McCullough super charged Y block and a chop top. It’s really cool and I will be shooting it for a magazine feature soon. I hope you enjoyed the show coverage and make sure to get Pistons & Paint on your schedule for next year.
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This week Jon Wright of Custom Chrome Plating is on the phone. Jon started CCP 48 years ago because he knew he just had to do something in the car world. We talk about what it’s like to start a business, learn along the way, deal with the changing world around the business and more. I get to meet lots of great people on the road, Jon Wright is one of the great ones.
