Hot Rods and Kustom Cars
I’m off traveling this weekend, today I’m driving back from the Texas Thaw. I should be stopping at Atlas Speed & Custom for a shop visit. I’m writing this on Thursday night and the plan is to stop by Chaotic Customs and Premier Body & Paint tomorrow on the way to Texas, as well as pick up some freshly embroidered hats for sale.
So since I’m off gallivanting around on the road I thought I’d share some more build threads with you from the H.A.M.B. Click the titles to see the threads!
The Chemical City Coupe ’32 5-window build thread
If you’re building a hot rod or street rod you need parts. You can go to the junk yard or swap meet, get dirty, maybe find something maybe not, maybe have to fix it if you do find it, or you can order new stuff. If you are in a time crunch ordering parts can be a life saver. Have a look at my friends over at RJay’s Speed Shop.
For the month of March, RJays is having a 10% sale on all front end components from RJays Parts, Pete & Jakes, Superbell, Heidts & more!
RJays also offers parts for Tri-Five Chevys’ and Classic Trucks as well as the hot rods and street rods. Plus a section on Towing and Trailers so you can outfit your ride’s ride as well.
You can have a look at some of their customer’s cars here.
Find RJay’s on Facebook here.
Here’s the New Flathead motor mounts includes rubber mounts also $49.95 a pair.
Support the small mom & pop places, get good stuff at good prices and build something kool.
See you at a show.
Travis
Now in stock is the Limited Edition Royboy Poster #1. Only 50 copies of this poster will ever be made, they will be hand numbered, and half are already gone in just 2 weeks!
This poster image will be as seen below without the giant RB of course. Jack’s 29 Roadster that I’ve talked so much about in the past (even made a video about it). The poster will be 11×17 sized and suitable for framing if you’d like but it’d look great on your garage wall just as it is. This 29 Roadster on 32 rails was built in the mid 50’s and it’s never been changed. It is pure traditional hot rodding.
This is the poster image, the poster WILL NOT HAVE THE RB logo across it.
Here’s the first 25 orders getting ready for me to ship them!
The posters are in stock now and shipping, order today before they are all gone!
See you at a show,
Travis
A few years ago I met this crazy artist type named Dragdaddy. Turns out he’s become a good friend, go figure. One of the hardest working artists I know, he works a draining day job and every day turns out fantastic art in his spare time!
Here are a couple of pieces that he’s working on right now.
Ben has a unique style that pays homage to the masters of the past with familiar themes but is done in his own way.
For the last few years Ben and some select artist friends have been creating some larger than life art on the walls of Travis Miller’s shop in Dewey, OK where we hold the Stray Kat 500.
So go visit Ben Dragdaddys on the ol Facebook, buy some of his art (his coloring books are AWESOME) and then thank me later.
See you at a show,
Travis
Okay time for part 3, it’s all about the bikes!
McGregor Boys (Steve’s) Twin Engine Triumph Drag Bike (more on this bike later this week I hope)
And his new BSA Drag Bike
Joe’s daily rider
Hooters was nice enough to sponsor the bikini contest
A couple of cell phone photos of my friend Denny’s bagger chopper.
And that’s it! Yeah I could have taken more shots of the bikini girls but I didn’t. I was having too much time hanging out with friends and BS’ing. Sorry!
See you at a show,
Travis
The biggest reason to have an indoor show is to stay away from the weather. But when Ma Nature decides to drop about a foot of white stuff on the ground the day before the show load in, even having a roof for the show can’t really help all that much. That’s what happened to the 2013 The Chill in Park City, KS. Still had a nice turnout of motorcycles and cars, but about 1/3 down from normal due to the weather.
Mike Newkirk had 2 fast rides on display, this is the twin blown Hemi’d FED that he piloted at the 2012 KKOA Leadsled Spectacular.
The other is his own funny car
Muscle cars always gotta have everything all open and stuff, I’d rather see them shut, the designers spent a lot of time making the body look good, all of that is ruined when it’s open. Looks like the car is broken down on the side of the road.
Butch normally brings out his beautiful 56 Chevy Gasser, but this weekend was diplaying his hot rod.
Most of the drag cars showed up because they were already in the trailers, a little easier to unload in the comfy warm building 🙂
Jeb McGregor brought out Nadine, his faithful steed for over 300,000 miles.
Again, beautiful kustom, and it would look so much better closed up.
More tomorrow!
See you at a show,
Travis
I’m embarrassed. Next weekend is the 6th Annual Texas Thaw, and it will be the first one that I attend. Sorry to Big Ken, I should have been there years ago.
For all the info on the event go here.
And for some coverage of last year’s event go here.
If you’re going to the Texas Thaw, look for the big guy in the red rb hat!
See you at a show,
Travis
Part 4
Weird and wild and I kinda dig it.
That’s it for my coverage, I’ll go back and add some more edits of some of the images and I’ll have a special post of them next week maybe.
Don’t forget about the limited edition poster pre-sale going on right now.
See you at a show,
Travis
Part 2
I really loved this A
More kids should be in these
Dr. Evil-mobile
Pure gorgeousness
Doc, you nailed it on this one!
Doc’s other ride 🙂
EXOTA, under constant customization since 1958ish I believe.
Mickey’s Merc looking more and more comfortable at indoor shows!
That’s it for part 2, See you at a show,
Travis
Part 1!
Darryl’s grandson Dakota has just finished this 67 Riviera Bubbletop. Very kool ride!
One of Dakota’s previous builds.
Ron Pinkston of Hooligan Hot Rods in Wichita finished up this Merc which qualified for the Fine Nine.
Also qualified for the Fine Nine, with interior by Fast AL’s Upholstery!
Here’s the Fine Nine winner, the Atomitron by John Saltsman, driven out from CA for the show. I love to see kustoms driven especially when competing for such a prestigious award.
Also driven out from CA was Keith Dean’s 40 Mercury
Another of Shawn Mundy’s Fine Nine qualified 35 Ford Pickup.
Fine Nine qualified 34 Ford from Chaotic Customs
That’s it for part 1, sorry there’s not much commentary as I am saving it for a possible coverage article in a magazine.
See you at a show,
Travis
So a couple of years ago I hear of a new indoor show in the Wichita area. Coming just a month after the Starbird show, I wondered how it would work. Then I hear that it’s also a major bike show. How is this going to work?
So it works, I’ll be. When I walked in the door of the Kansas Pavillions in Park City, KS I was greeted with some motorcycle vendors, I’m not typically much of a bike guy but I can appreciate a well built bike just like a well built car. As I walked around the first room of The Chill I saw every manner of bike on the planet. It was impressive. In building 2 that first year were some vendors, some cars and a stage area. Building 3 was chock full of cars, it was a pretty good turnout.
So a year later I’m headed back to the show. I know now that it works, and I hear some changes are in store. Sure enough, the car area was expanded, the bike area was rearranged to allow the stage for some live music. The same high quality selection of bikes, hot rods, kustoms, trucks, drag cars, tuners, street machines, etc.
Happy Valentine’s Day ladies and gents… mostly the ladies.
More kool build threads on the HAMB, read them, get inspired and get yourself a ride on the road! Ironic since my 2 are both down for right now!
The first one this time is from the user dragsled (Tim Jones). This lil front engined dragster (click here to see the thread) is pretty rad through and through.
He started with this chassis
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One of the koolest build threads on the HAMB has been my friend Roger Jetter’s Caddy build (click here to see the thread)!
I’ve been lucky enough to see the car a few times, here are some of the finished car.
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Another buddy Nick has been building a sick roadster (click here to see the thread), he got it all together last year and proceeded to enjoy the hell out of it driving all over the place. Now he’s blown it back apart so that he could finish it out. Just like everything he does, it’s turning out amazing. 
Look, it’s possible, anyone can get a great ride eventually, it takes a little (or a lot) of money, time, effort and you’ll cuss alot while doing it. Go out and get yourself on the road, that’s where you find the good stuff of life. Speaking of that I’m going to get back to work on my Galaxie and try to get it back on the road.
Saturday I head out for the Starbird Exotic Car Show in Tulsa.
See you at a show,
Travis
Okay for part 3 we’ve moved into the middle section of the building. Housing some drag cars, a kool boat, a bunch of bikes…whoa wait, I’ll just show you it’s a ton easier.
This boat looks like a good time.
Looks sporty 🙂
My nephews need a pair of these.
Mmmmmmmmmeat
I can’t decide if I like it or not.
I know I like this one.
And this one.
I thought the whole point of having someone ride with you was to get her to wrap her arms around you???
Big chrome bill
Ben Dragdaddy working on some art, it’s what he does, you should buy lots of it.
Quite possibly the koolest wagon ever
One purdy pickup
Ridler Winner….mmmmmm
Built at Bright Built Hot Rods
A bad ass 34 built by my friends at Chaotic Customs in Mulvane, KS
More drag goodness
A mix between minitruckin and old school hot rods
Beautiful 39 Ford Deluxe Street Rod
GORGEOUS 34 Ford Woody
Chad Kolman’s 777 Award winner
A really hot 51 Ford
Last time I saw this rod it had artillery wheels, completely different look in drag mode.
Way out there… I’m not a fan of the headlights but the rest of it I’m down with.
64 Ford Fairlane Thunderbolt. No I will not make my 64 Fairlane a T-Bolt.
History!
I like those green walls Clark
Dunna nunna nunna nunna nunna nunna nunna… BATMAN!
That’s it for the show from my eyes. There were obviously more cars than I shot, but either there were too many people around them, the shot didn’t come out or I just wasn’t feeling it. All in all, I’ll come back next year 🙂
See you at a show,
Travis
I’m not entirely sure how long I’ve been going to the World of Wheels show in Kansas City’s Bartle Hall. The years have kind of blended together for me. Lots of great friends and lots of fantastic machinery at this show year after year!
The weather was good this year, meaning that there was nothing to keep the spectator crowd away. The showed up for sure, it was packed the entire 6 or so hours that I was in the building. I showed up with t-shirts, hoodies and a bunch of calendars in hand, the first order of business was to deliver all of these goodies so I didn’t have to carry them around. The final stop of that was with my friends of the Los Punk Rods (check out their blog here, lots of great reading here). They are the crew responsible for the Greaserama each Labor Day weekend (see the 2012 Greaserama coverage here.)
Punk Rod Eric’s new ride is coming together nicely. Lots of German influences on the car to reflect Eric’s German roots. Look for a feature here when it is all done!
Punk Rod Dave has built this very kool bike, if I understood correctly it is his first build. The shakedown run was a 3 hour haul ass drive to Salina in 100+ heat, that’s confidence!
Love the hard top roof.
Dan’s busy watching some work being done on the convertible chop job, team headed up by Gene Winfield himself.
Some high end muscle cars on display
Fast Eddie’s Merc
Denny’s sedan always gets people’s attention.
I need to build one of these
I don’t know any details on this build yet, but I hope to find out some soon. I like where it’s headed!
I better show one of Dan working lest ya think he wasn’t doing anything!
That’s it for part 1, part 2 tomorrow!
See you at a show,
Travis
For the last few years I’ve been taking advantage of some friends that live in the area by sleeping in their spare room and using that local home base to attend the Starbird Exotic Car Show at the QuikTrip Center on the Fairgrounds in Tulsa, OK.
Last year was a fun show, as soon as I walked in the door I’m greeted with the first finished view I’d had of the late Elden Titus’ Vibrasonic.
Another great ride that’s been on display at the show the last couple of years is Tom’s coupe.
Of course some of the rides from Starbird’s collection and Hall of Fame Museum were on display.
Darryl’s grandson Dakota is building kustoms under the Star Kustoms name and did this Chevy pickup
Ridler Winner in attendance!
What mighty big eyes you have…
One of my favorite kustom shoeboxes, a recreation of Junior Conway’s amazing Ford.
This Gasser got a lot of attention
Gee I wonder why I don’t get all giddy about shooting a row of newer Mustangs…
Wild kustom Pantera
Originally built by Dave Stuckey, restored by Darryl Starbird, the Lil Coffin
If you can make it, you should get there!
See you at a show,
Travis
The new shirts are available in Women’s T, Men’s T or Men’s long sleeve T designs. This logo is on the back,
And this one on the front,
At the 2011 KKOA Leadsled Spectacular I was approached by my friend Mickey of Stray Kat Kustoms car shows with some good news. Our mutual friend and fellow Stray Kat, Krobe had been asked to do a feature of his beautiful 30 Model A Ford for Car Kulture Deluxe. Mickey and Krobe had been kind enough to mention to Alan Mayes of CKD that they knew a photographer at the show that could handle photographing the car, lucky for me that was me!
Essentially I started this kustom and hot rod photographic adventure in 2006. That’s the first photos that I have from my old Sony Digital camera with the small CD discs. I remember that first day in Lawrence, KS filling the camera up with about 180 photos and resorting to my phone’s camera to cover the rest of the show. Those photos were less than inspiring… from both cameras. The show was the 2006 Kruzin’ In The Heartland held in Lawrence, KS.
I’d seen the ad for the show in Ol Skool Rodz I believe, my uncle Paul (povertyflats to many of you) and my father and I headed up early on Saturday morning to see the show. It was supposed to be hot that day and we were leaving by about noon, but there were only a couple hundred cars max so it wasn’t hard to get all the way through the show in that time.
I had never really seen a hot rod like this, I was used to street rods, this was something new to me, many of these rides looked attainable. Most of the street rods were kind of about how big the billet wheels were, or how much it cost to have this or that machined, these weren’t about that game at all.
The first time I really stopped to look at a FED. I was amazed that the driver was resting his important parts on a part of the car that seemed somewhat fragile kind of like sitting on a grenade and then pulling the pin.
I’ve seen this one around a few times, as I remember it was pretty fast in Salina a couple of years later, then it got kept out of Hunnert a year or two after that for wheels that were too new or something along those lines (those wheels are not on it in this photo).
Don’t shoot into the sun!
I did that a lot that day
Dad in his somewhat goofy hat on the right.
I shot a lot more engines and interiors that day than I do now, maybe I should take the time to do more of those shots, some of you might appreciate that.
Hey I know that car! Krobe’s other ride! See an article about his 30 Model A Coupe tomorrow here on this blog, use the subscribe feature on the right to make sure you don’t miss it.
This ride would drastically change over the next few years. Built by Bright Built Hot Rods in Salina, KS. After an unfortunate accident with a Subaru, it would become much different.
Hmmmm this one looks familiar too… right Eric?
My first photo of The Tiki Taxi, now Steve has become a good friend.
Jack’s 30 Coupe, Jack’s not too bad a fella either. He also owns the 29 Roadster on 32 rails that I shot a video of last year, and his 51 Ford is under construction now, see the post on Fast AL’s Upholstery for a shot of it.
I wonder now how different my life would have been for those next few years if I’d actually met a few of my hoodlum friends that day instead of seeing their cars and meeting them 6 years later.
Any way that it happened, I’m glad to be able to look back and see my friends were there all along, we just hadn’t crossed paths yet. Get out to a show this year, take a kid and get them involved, meet the people, scope the cars, enjoy it all.
See you at a show,
Travis
So, on Monday of this week I told you about my weekend, traveling to the Joplin area to shoot Ryno’s 61 Ford pickup, and then off to Aaron’s Fast AL’s Upholstery on the way home for a bit of a visit. Yesterday I shared some photos of the visit to Fast AL’s, here are some of the time spent at Ryno Built.
At first I wasn’t sure if Ryno had some secrets he wasn’t telling but no this is just the lace used to get all of the kool lacework in the paint job of the truck…
Some TrueSpoke Supremes on a 1931 Studebaker President Sedan, info on the build can be found here.
With the frame nearing completion, the Stude body has been placed so the floor supports can be build and some other items fabbed.
Looks to be the beginnings of a healthy ride.
Floor supports in place.
A 4 door Stude is not your normal idea of a hot rod, but this is not your normal hot rod shop. 
Next time I’ll get a bunch more photos of the wagon that is being built for Mrs. Ryno. For now for info on the 60 Chevrolet Kingswood Wagon that Ryno is building for his wife, click here.
For more info on Ryno Built you can contact him on Facebook. Hire him to build you something safe, kool and fast. For the last visit to Ryno Built click here.
See you at a show,
Travis
I stopped by Aaron Lawrence’s Fast AL’s Upholstery in Dewey, OK for a visit on Sunday. Aaron is a fellow Stray Kat Kustoms brother & he’s doing some amazing upholstery work.
Aaron is working brother Jack’s 1951 Ford Tudor Sedan Kustom right now. Most of the work on the build was done by Jack himself, but Chris Carlson and crew at Chaotic Customs have done a boatload of work on this very kool kustom.
Fast AL’s next project is waiting it’s turn.
Lots of kool on the walls of Fast AL’s Upholstery
If you need kustom upholstery, Fast AL’s number is in the first photo, give Aaron a call and tell him Royboy sent ya!
See you at a show,
Travis
The weekend started off with a trip to Park City, KS to attend the Wichita Model A Club’s annual swap meet. As usual, lots of people, lots of vendors and I left with nothing. It was a trip to just see some friends and socialize for me. By mid-afternoon I’d headed for Joplin to meet up with Ryno of Ryno Built and shoot his amazing 61 Ford Unibody pickup.
Ryno has a few projects going on, this intake and triple 94 carb setup are for his wife’s 9 passenger wagon, which lays frame of course. 🙂 More pics of it next time.
Not long after arriving we grabbed some great BBQ at Woody’s Smokehouse BBQ and headed out in search of shoot locations. The flake in the new paint job looked spectacular.
We found some great spots and shot for a couple of hours experimenting with different shooting angles, techniques, locations. So far from the back of the camera we captured some great images.
Sunday morning we got up early and went back out to capture some more images. We explored a bit of Route 66 looking for good locations and ended up heading back to downtown Joplin where there were a few places to hit.
Then we headed out for a late breakfast. Headed south from downtown we went through the damage path of the horrible tornado that hit Joplin in May of 2011.
The roads southeast of Joplin were great and beautiful even in the winter, I imagine in the fall they are even more beautiful.
We ended up at the Under Cliff, great food, great location, and great roads leading to it. The breakfast was really really good.
Obligatory Povertyflats food shot 🙂
Then it was off to Dewey, OK to visit Fast A.L.’s Upholstery. Aaron has been working on Jack’s 51 Ford and it’s turning out amazing. Look for more info on the shop visit later this week and a full feature (or series of them) in some magazines coming soon!
The end of the trip was a stop at my Dad’s to pick up my dog. Dad had found some great little book magazines and gave them to me. A really kool ending of a great weekend!
See you at a show,
Travis
