The 2017 Kool Kustom Kar Show was a nice mixture of hot rods, kustoms, cruisers, muscle cars, restorations and some drag vehicles. I’d love to see the Kustom Corner grow next year, maybe I’ll have to take one of my rides out to the show.
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, your company could have it’s logo on both sides of the camper for the entire trip. Click here for more info : Business Sponsorship Packages
The Kool Kustom Kar Show is the kind of indoor show that I hope we can see more of. A small show packed wall to wall with cars. I get the big indoor shows that have wrestlers and tv stars on hand to sign autographs and such but I don’t want to go to a car show for anything except cars and the folks that own them! That’s what this show is to me.
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, your company could have it’s logo on both sides of the camper for the entire trip. Click here for more info : Business Sponsorship Packages
For Part 2 of the 2017 Kool Kustom Kar Show from Pueblo, CO I’m focusing on the Kustom Corner of the show. Dave and Chrissi Pareso brought 3 cars down and Dave invited a few of his friends to bring their kustoms. You already know this is my favorite part of the show, right? So much kool!
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, your company could have it’s logo on both sides of the camper for the entire trip. Click here for more info : Business Sponsorship Packages
This weekend’s trip was a short 26 hours round trip up to Colorado. After driving up Friday night I met with a bunch of the Lonely Knights for breakfast in Colorado Springs then headed down to Pueblo for the Kool Kustom Kar Show at the fairgrounds.
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, your company could have it’s logo on both sides of the camper for the entire trip. Click here for more info : Business Sponsorship Packages
Welcome to the final day of my coverage of the 2017 Grand National Roadster show. Hopefully by now you’ve seen the captions that I added this time, adding in the names of the owners and the make/model of the cars if I can grab the info at the show. Let me know how you like this or dislike it, it’s a ton of extra work but if you dig it I’ll keep doing it. Also for those that subscribe to the site, how do you like getting the entire post in your email inbox?
In this coverage post I cover a few things, some more of the outdoor cars, building 9 featuring Tri-Fives, a display of some seriously awesome woodies, a rad blown drag VW, a couple of kustoms, hot rods, and the amazingly righteous unveiling of the Beast IV at the NHRA Museum. Congrats to Webb Automotive Art, and everyone involved on an insanely cool build. It was motivating to be in a room with so many of the people that inspire me on a regular basis.
I hope that you’ve enjoyed the coverage of the Grand National Roadster Show. If you like it, please share these posts with your car friends and make sure to thank Speedway Motors for making this coverage possible.
Saturday Morning we were back at it, exploring the NHRA Museum as we waited for the 2017 Grand National Roadster Show to open. If you’re a car nut, this is one of the cooler museums you could pass time in. Being from Kansas we especially paid attention to the section talking about the first ever NHRA Nationals in Great Bend, KS in 1955, the track is still there and still in operation. If you find yourself at the GNRS, the Father’s Day LA Roadster show or just in Pomona, CA with some time to kill doing something awesome, put the NHRA museum on your list of things to do.
Saturday there’s an addition to the cars that were in the show on Friday, in between the buildings are more hot rods, kustoms, gassers, lowriders, cruisers, and just about anything else cool that you can think of. Enjoy the photos of the “Drive In Car Show”
My Friday at the 2017 Grand National Roadster Show ended in the Suede Palace. This is my home. The cars, the artists, the vendors, tons of my friends, this is the part of the GNRS where I’m in my zone. Artists like Max Grundy, James Owens, Keith Weesner, Jeff Allison were all either hanging out or slinging their art, we talked art, cars, music and rod/kustom history until the PA system repeatedly told us that it was time to go. The Suede Palace is a good place to be in a great show, make sure to check it out if you ever find yourself at the Grand National Roadster Show.
For part 3, I’m doing better than last night. It’s only 12:30 am this time! The folks and I had a great weekend in the LA metro, flew home today and it’s back to the real world tomorrow. So here’s your part 3 featuring photos from buildings 5 and 6, look for some shots from Friday night’s hang out in the Suede Palace in tomorrow’s update.
As I’m writing this it’s Saturday night, well it’s 2am Sunday morning. After walking over 13 miles in the last two days, I’m beat! The photos are still transferring to the computer so I’ll give you a taste of Building 4 of the Grand National Roadster Show (GNRS) . Building 4 is the building where the America’s Most Beautiful Roadster (AMBR) contenders are shown, as well as some big time booths with fresh builds by various shops and such. Enjoy, I’ll be back with more on Monday and I hope to have some captions uploaded by then as well!
This will be a bit different from my normal show coverage, we got out to California for the Grand National Roadster Show a day early so we had some time to explore the LA area so here are some photos from those adventures. We started out Thursday morning at the Early Ford Store in San Dimas, CA went to the Petersen Automotive Museum, the La Brea Tar Pits, then to Lucky Burton’s shop for a pre-show party. Since the Grand National Roadster show doesn’t open until noon on Friday we decided a bit of an adventure was in store, a couple of the folks in the group wanted to see the Pacific Ocean so we made a plan to head out to Huntington Beach. Along the way is the city of Orange, CA where Jimmy Shine has his shop and my buddy Ed Tillrock was going to be there for Shine’s open house.
The freeways were already plugged up with morning traffic so I found an alternate route via a twisty 2 lane road through the hills and we were able to completely bypass the traffic and get to Jimmy Shine’s Workshop. We had tour of the shop, bought some shirts and shot glasses and then we were off to Huntington Beach for lunch and a little site seeing. Last year I had stayed right on the beach so I was vaguely familiar with the area. We ended up out on the end of the pier having lunch watching the brave souls surfing in the chilly water.
Finally it was time to head to the Pomona Fairgrounds to check out the 2017 Grand National Roadster Show! I’ve included a couple of photos here from the NHRA Museum which is on the premises, you can see more from that museum in last year’s coverage here.
Another main stay display at the Starbird-Devlin show is the Primarys Car Club from Wichita. These folks are like family to me, a bunch of great guys and gals. They bring out a fun selection of real driven cars each year, this year including a few motorcycles as well. They also made the first official donation to the 48 Cars in 48 States trip fund. Thanks from the bottom of my heart Primarys! Enjoy the final day of my coverage of the show for this year, and look for the Grand National Roadster Show coverage to start in a couple of days!
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.
Wichita was once known as Kustom City, there are still lots of kustoms in the area. This year Jeff Myers brought the 57 Ford that he built for the late Roy Putnam and Voodoo Jimmy brought his Buick, both cars came out of Jeff’s Premier Body & Paint last year. There were a handful of other kustoms in the show but for the first year in a long time we didn’t do the Kustom City display.
Maybe next year we should bring it back? More coverage tomorrow right here on Royboy Productions.
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.
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 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.
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.
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!
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.
