The 2nd stop on the Garage Krawl for our group was my friend Roger’s house. Due to it being a private property I will not mention his last name or where it is. Roger has a fantastic collection of Fords mostly 40’s of various types and a couple of Falcons and more, but his automobilia collection is equally as impressive.
Great old signs
Extra parts
Some grilles in the background behind this great plane
Dashes, grilles, and beauty rings
So the power company puts in an ugly power station behind your house and keeps building it bigger… well you’d better find a cool way to hide it from your view. This works
Everyone’s backyard should be so kool.
More yard art, some of it I might have a need for, I may have to come back and make an offer…
The chain was just laying there, but I couldn’t help shooting a pic of the cool wheel and tire.
pretty kool mag.
One wall of the garage featured license plates staring in 1913 I believe, and sequentially going up from there.
Another wall featured only 1940 Kansas plates, from 99 of the 105 Kansas counties, that’s an impressive collection.
Some great car club plaques.
Great taillight lens display
What to do with your extra plates? Why not make an American Flag? 🙂
Then it was off to Chaotic Customs in Mulvane, KS for a shop visit and some lunch. Giant hot dogs, soda, chips and some homemade cookies really hit the spot. Here’s Mike Young’s 40 Ford pickup which is being built for SEMA this year.
Some of the projects under construction at Chaotic.
Then it was off to my buddy Jack’s place for a visit. Here’s a lineup of Jack’s rides. He has a 30 year head start on me but I hope to catch up one day.
Then it was off to Big Joe’s for an air conditioned shop visit (it was a hot one that day!) Here’s a “gas station” that Joe built to hold his compressor and welders and such when not in use.
Some of the art inside the main shop building.
Then I hopped in my buddy’s Galaxie for a ride to Rocky’s shop, we had a good line of 10 or so rides on the way there.
Rocky has a pretty kool collection of Wichita area club plaques too.
and the best chandelier around.
Then it was back to the hotel for some fajitas courtesy of the Lonely Knights. Thanks for the good eats folks!
The 100 or so people in the parking lot stayed out and socialized until around midnight. So many good friends that are all really more like family than friends. This is a big reason why this show is one of my favorites of the year.
As I did last year, I got to the Host Hotel on Thursday evening about 7pm so that I could wake up ready to go on the Garage Krawl on Friday morning. After dinner with some friends I shot some night shots in the parking lot.
One of my favorite Mercs around.
Mickey’s Merc
Love that hood ornament
More of our friends from the Lonely Knights in Colorado
Proof that HDR doesn’t have to be wild, this is the style I prefer for most shots, just making the photo look more like what your eye sees (with a little extra something).
Then there are times when I pump up the volume a bit.
That’s it for the regular coverage of the show, tomorrow I’ll feature some that I’ve spent a little more time on. Since I was shooting this show for magazine show coverage I didn’t spend much time working on artsy photos, it was more about getting the needed photos for the article.
I’ve been seeing this truck for years, I really should do a feature on it on the site.
Good to see you and the family Don, see ya in Wichita this weekend!
Jeremy Barrett’s pickup.
When you can’t find a v12, two v6’s will do the trick!
Interesting hard top chop. I never made it over to investigate further, but I wish I would have.
Can’t wait to see this one done!
The flush mount skirts, the lake pipes, the spots, it’s all working for me.
See I told you if I got down low you couldn’t tell that the other half of the car wasn’t shammied… oops.
I keep seeing this car this summer but I haven’t had a chance to BS with the owner yet.
Jebby’s “Nadine” and the tail end of my Galaxie. Nadine looks damn good for 200k+ miles.
Neal was nice enough to give me a lift in when I walked out to the entrance to give my dad a wristband. I can’t wait to see the next evolution of this kool truck.
Random Crowd Shot
I’ve been seeing this truck for years at the Greaserama. Looks like a ball of fun.
For part 2 we’re still on Saturday. The show was big big big this year, I don’t feel that there would have been any way to get all of the cars and especially all of the spectator cars into the area of the old venue. It was pretty impressive to head up on the north hill of the fairgrounds to see all that the 2013 Greaserama was.
Functional kustom Like this photo?
Channeled Tall T, I like!
Clean
My ride, thanks to Jeff Myers at Premier Body & Paint in Arkansas City, KS for the kustom 60’s style paint and Clint Rowe for the pinstriping.
Looking good man!
An iconic recipe for kool
inally got to see my friends from Oliver Built Garage for the first time this year, I need to make more trips up to Iowa.
Dick’s ride again, with the hood shut as all kustoms should be 😉
I love these two rides.
It’s always good to see my good friends Dan and Sharyl Stears, see ya again next weekend in Wichita!
One of my good friends Todd C. Jones, amazing guy and artist. Look for a feature on him coming soon!
I was hiding from the rain under a canopy, my camera doesn’t like getting wet.
Man, what a great weekend! The Greaserama moved this year from it’s long time venue to a new one that was outside of KC, many denounced the move but the crowd that showed up on Saturday proved that change can be good. I’m writing an article for a magazine on the show so I’ll save most of my words of the event for that, here the photos will do the talking.
From time to time in my car show coverage, I like to spend a little extra editing time on a shot. Most of these end up in this gallery. Here are a few of my favorites, these would look great printed on metallic paper in 12×18 or larger on your wall. Especially the HDR shots, they really pop on the metallic paper. Just click on the photo, pick your size and paper style and boom you are good to go!
Last year I made my first ever trip to Denison, TX for the KKOA Hotrodding Hullabaloo. Like the KKOA Leadsled Spectacular in Salina, KS the event has some Run What Ya Brung Drags on Friday. The show this year looks to be a great time too, I wish I could make it but the new Sept. 27-29 dates for the show conflicts with another event that I will be attending.
Just down the street and around the corner from the show are my buddies at Atlas Speed & Custom, get ahold of them if you get down to the show, they have a lot of kool going on.
It was unusually chilly in North Texas on the Friday of last year’s show, here are some pics from the Drags held at a local airstrip west of Denison.
Later that evening I went over to a local watering hole to see my buddies in the band Pushrod rock the house. Waaaaay too early the next morning I was up and at em again and headed over to the park for the show. I was greeted with a bunch of familiar faces from my adventures up here in KS and OK, and a bunch of new to me folks too. The show was small, laid back and really perfect for spending time with friends telling tall tails and talking kustoms.
Then it was out to dinner with some friends and when I got back to the hotel I couldn’t resist some night shots.
Sunday I went back over to the show to see who was around, quite a few had split town, but there were still some kool rides to be seen.
All in all, I had a damn good time, well worth the 12 hours it took to drive there and back! If not for the previously mentioned scheduling conflict I would be going back this year for sure. If you can make it to the show, get there, enjoy some kool kustoms and hot rods and of course hanging out with each other!
Well, it took some learning, cussing and figuring but I think I finally got it. What you should have now on royboyproductions.com is a fully functional store for buying whatever it is that you want from Royboy Productions. Embroidered Hats, silk screened shirts, posters, and more all available from this one place. If you have any questions please let me know and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can!
Still one of my favorite shows that I’ve ever attended. The cars, the venue, the bands, everything just came together to make it a fantastic weekend. The Hot Rod Revolution in 2010 was the first year for the show in Austin, TX, it’s only about a 9 hour drive so it sounded like a great excuse to drive down and check it out. Leaving home at 6:15 pm I checked in to my hotel room at around 3:30am and went to sleep, 6 hours later I was headed to the show. The City of Austin Seaholm Power Plant made for a perfect backdrop of about 100 hot rods. 1948 and older only, traditional hot rod styling only, this show couldn’t help but be awesome. Here’s a slide show of that gallery, click here to go to the gallery directly.
Since then the show has moved to a new location in Austin at Camp Maybre. I attended the 2011 show there and shot photos that can be seen here. The show’s date has moved around and has conflicted with other shows that I needed to attend since and I’ve not been able to go again. Hopefully one of these years I can get back to it because it’s a great show of my favorite type of hot rods.
So one day not too long ago I get invited on Facebook to an Open House at a shop I didn’t know in Wichita, KS. The open house was the same day as another event that I was attending a few blocks away so it’s a no brainer that I’m going to stop in if at all possible. Clutch Rod And Custom at 406 S. Market in Wichita, KS was the shop. I’m glad I stopped in. As I’m told, the shop is an old Mercury dealership, I’d love to see the spacious facility filled with bathtub Mercs! The front display room had a couple of cars in it and every available surface was covered in art by different kulture artists. The cars on display in the shop were top notch, I didn’t get much chance to talk to the folks at the shop as they were busy running the Open House, but I did get to spend some time with my good buddy Ben Dragdaddy (facebook) and his lovely wife and my fellow photographer and buddy Grant Cox. I expect you to go to their pages on FB and follow their feeds, you won’t be disappointed.
Here are some photos from the evening.
Thanks to Clutch Rod And Custom for the food, the music and some good times of hot rod/kustom fellowship with some old friends.
Coming up September 28th in Wichita, KS is the 6th annual Rumble (formerly the Rumble in Delano)! The show has a new venue this year, moving to the street where some of the first kustom kulture art shows in the area were held at the Go Away Garage.
This show has been a lot of fun to attend over the last few years, the date’s changed and now the venue but I have a feeling the show will continue to get better and better.
The show runs from 1pm to 8pm and will be at 508 S Commerce St. in Downtown Wichita, KS. There will be hot rods, kustoms, bikes and more on display. The Pin-up Pagent is open to ladies 18 and up and there will be prizes for 1st, 2nd & 3rd, go here for more info. 4 bands will take the stage at various points in the event including Sucker, Callahan Band, TheTerminals & The Trip Daddy’s. To register your ride for the show go to this page on their site.
Hooligans Hot Rods finished up the Zombie Merc last year, I can’t imagine the amount of tape that went into those flames.
The theatre room of Century II was full of some fantastic vintage racers of all types. From midgets to a fresh from Bonneville racer, everything you could think of was in the building.
This car was at Bonneville earlier in the month, on the 2nd day while running 249mph something went wrong, the car ended up rolling 17 times before it came to a stop. The driver is banged up but okay.
The 4th Annual Blacktop Nationals went down this weekend Aug. 23-25 in Wichita, KS. Based in the area of Century II in downtown Wichita the show stretches out across the Arkansas River to the west and to the south of Century II as well. The show welcomes all kinds of vehicles and has them out in the streets and inside of Century II as well. A road course is set up to the south of Century II for some ride alongs in new Ford Mustangs. Ford is one of the major sponsors of the show, and they go all out bringing their “circus” to town with new rides of all flavors.
You don’t see these very often.
The show judges the cars on the engine compartments, that’s why they all are open, yes I know it ruins photos and no there’s nothing that can be done about it.
A fun little roadster.
A clean 58 Chevrolet
I liked this Vette alot.
Mike’s newest build, a clean east coast style 34 Ford with all pre-53 parts except the 59 steering wheel, “it’s just too kool to not have on it.”
The cleanest shoebox in the area. So well done, so clean.
That’s it for the first installment. If you want to see the entire gallery go here. Tomorrow morning at the normal 9am time we’ll have a new update!
A couple of weeks ago I was in Wichita on a Saturday afternoon and I decided to finally head over to kustom/hot rod/general car guy legend Dave Stuckey’s. Some may know Stuckey’s name, he was the man originally responsible for the amazingly kool kustom “Lil Coffin” (read more about that here). Dave has been working for awhile on a couple of really cool projects, one of them being a somewhat drag version of Lil Coffin, not that it set out that way but there are some similarities in the overall design of the body. His attention to detail on this project is phenomenal. Lots of kustom touches on items that will never be seen by most people let alone noticed, some subtle, some not so subtle. I won’t show you too much of the car, it needs to be a surprise. Here are some shots of it.
Another project in the works is this coupe, he has a beautiful flathead built for it and is just waiting to finish the big project to get back on it.
Here’s a shot of my favorite version of the Lil Coffin on an old Starliner poster. (More info on the upcoming Starliner show)I’m hoping to be able to stop in more often and sit with Stuckey and a video camera so that he can tell you some of his stories in his voice. It’s part of project that I hope to spend more time on in the future, more on that later.
From time to time while I’m doing my normal car show coverage I’ll take an extra second and do some multiple exposure shots. When I get time I merge these HDR shots for a bit of a different look from normal. Mostly I try to keep them fairly realistic looking but occasionally I will get a bit wild. Here are some from the H.A.M.B. Drags. Remember if any of these shots are something that would look good on your living room or garage wall, click the photo to go to the shopping cart and order any size you’d like.
Some of my Mulvane Marauder friends were in attendance
Of course the Lil Honker, always a favorite.
My buddy John’s barn find gasser
The man, the myth, the traveling legend Bob K!
Butch M’s 56 Chevy Gasser got some new touches
Perfection.
Simple, cool, I want one.
Some of the best curves in the automotive world.
Bill Moore’s “High School Dropout” Merc
This is one of the slickest flatties I’ve ever seen.
Don’s 53 is always looking good.
Another view of Rick’s new shoebox.
Krobe’s fastback fleetline Chevy
There are a couple of shoebox utes in the area, this one has a ton of work in it.
Mike’s bad blue Chevy Truck
Kerry’s rail, I hear tell that about the time I headed for the hotel he pulled a 165 mph run, congrats man!
John and Butch warming up the hides.
That’s it for this HAMB Drags post, 1 more tomorrow and then maybe some special edits on Friday.
Thanks for following along on all of my adventures, remember if there are any photos you’d like to own a copy of for your wall, click on the photo here, and the site will take you to the appropriate page to buy prints. Every print you buy helps put gas in the tank to get me and my cameras to another show to bring you more show coverage.
As usual for this event I decided to leave my ride at home and catch a ride with my folks down to Joplin. With all of the travel that I do, it’s good to spend a couple of those weekends a year with them on the road. As I loaded my bags into the back of the truck the rain was pouring down in our little town. We headed south as quick as we could to try to outrun the storm. The route between Gypsum, KS and Joplin, MO has a few turns so every time we out ran the storm we made a turn and drove right back into it for the first 2 hours or so of the trip. 15 or 20 miles in a massive hail storm and torrential downpours were lowlights of Thursday evening’s drive.
Friday morning we assembled some of our friends and headed for Springfield, MO for the swap meet. The Ozarks Antique Auto Club Swap Meet is massive. There is no other way to describe it really. The car corral is usually loaded with good buys and some that are a bit over priced. There are top notch vendors from across the country and a truly staggering amount of individual sellers covering the fairgrounds. I didn’t find anything that I couldn’t live without, actually I had my heart set on an Offenhauser 4bbl intake for my flathead and some matching heads, but some new Royboy computer upgrades had that cash spoken for. Ahhhh, maybe next year.
Then it was back to the host hotel area for the Friday Night pre-party! Tons of folks drove their rides from all over the country to attend the drags and the pre-party. Music was provided by my friends Pushrod and they rocked the party like non-other.