A while back I did a post about the Shoebox Fords, 49-51 models. Click here to see it.
Howstuffworks.com has a great series of articles, this one on the origins of the 1949 Ford design was particularly intriguing to me as a new shoebox owner. http://auto.howstuffworks.com/1949-ford.htm
The 2013 Starbird-Devlin show is in the books!
Here are some of my favorite photos from the weekend. Thanks again to my kustom family for allowing my Galaxie to park with so many historic and beautiful rides.
Johnny Hammann’s tried and true 58 Chevy Impala. It’s been basically unchanged since Jan. 1976.
Mickey’s Merc (he washed it!) Once a 4 door, now a 2 door with a ton more kustom touches.
Distant cousins?
You don’t see these every day, and you don’t see many cars this clean and straight ever.
One of my favorite Mercs ever.
Mike’s 60 Olds fresh from a remodel… gorgeous!
Nice collection!
40 Chevy built by Big Creek Restoration with a band on stage behind it Friday evening.
The Big T
Corey Conyers is restoring a beautiful slingshot. I say it would almost be a shame to paint this body.
Larry James of Flyin Eye Kreations has been working hard to finish up his old Nova in new form
Rob Parker has been working on this Chevy Bobber Pickup Roadster for a few years, it’s pretty interesting to see all of the details that have gone into it.
That’s it for this time, click any of those photos to go to the entire gallery.
So at 9:30am on January 17, 2013 I did something I’d never done before. I drove my Galaxie into it’s first ever indoor car show. The Starbird-Devlin Car Show at Century II in Wichita, KS, “The Wichita Tradition.” This is the 56th annual show, previously known as the Starbird Rod & Custom Show, it’s been a tradition in Wichita for a long long time.
I was lucky enough to be a part of the Kustom City display this year. Thanks to the new paint work done on my Galaxie by Jeff Myers, my car has been transformed to 60’s Boulevard cruiser. Doug Reed put together the Kustom City display of street kustoms from the area and my Galaxie was lucky enough to make the group.
So we rolled in, positioned ourselves and started cleaning the cars. It wasn’t long before it was time to head back to the day job, but I managed to grab a couple of quick snapshots while I was there.
I’ll head back to the show tomorrow after work and I’ll have more shots for you throughout the weekend. I hope to do a post of cell phone photos on Sunday and start the coverage of the show on Monday.
Turning the hides at the HAMB Drags” alt=”Turning the hides at the HAMB Drags
I’ve been posting photos of the new paint that Jeff Myers of Premier Body & Paint in Arkansas City, KS did on my Galaxie. Here’s some of his collection in front of the shop.” alt=”I’ve been posting photos of the new paint that Jeff Myers of Premier Body & Paint in Arkansas City, KS did on my Galaxie. Here’s some of his collection in front of the shop.
Toast’s 40 Ford at the Stray Kat 500. 1st weekend each May in Dewey, OK
September 2009
I was barely out of a 3 year long battle to get out of debt, in fact I was a week out of it. Still I didn’t have much money as the last of my dollars and cents went to pay off the last debt I’d had, but I knew there was a show that looked to be kool happening in Wichita. The Stray Kat Kustoms Starliner show is always the weekend after Labor Day. So that morning I had to decide if I could make it until the end of the month if I spent gas money driving to this show. I had been to the Stray Kat Kustoms Rocket show in Fort Scott, KS early in the year and I loved the cars that I’d seen, and I’d always wanted to go to the Stray Kat 500 but hadn’t made it yet.
Of course I went. Of course. I almost always go when there’s a chance to see some kool rides. Determined to go on the cheap I stopped along the way at a BBQ contest that some friends were competing in, free food! SCORE! So after a free beer or two and an insane amount of amazing BBQ, I headed to the Starliner show. What I found was a great collection of kool kustoms and hotrods parked amongst a bunch of retired aircraft.
So I took a lot of photos! Obviously a kool environment for a show. At this time I knew barely anyone in the crowd and unsure of the way this social circle worked, I slipped in, shot photos and split. I had no idea how many great people that I was missing out on being friends with. Total shyness won out.
April 2010
Early in 2010 I decided to head out to Viva Las Vegas. This is the only show that I’ve really attended outside of the midwest-ish area. So on April 1, 2010 I find myself sitting in Wichita’s Mid-Continent Airport waiting for a flight that was running late.
I grabbed the latest issue of Ol Skool Rodz out of my travel bag and started catching up on some reading, pretty heady reading! When I put the magazine down to grab a drink a kind lady across from me asked if I was into hot rods.
“Yes maam!”
“Are you going to Vegas for the car show?” How did she know about this car show, the target demo for VLV for sure wasn’t this lady. I nodded, full of curiousity.
“Us too!” It was then that I realized that the rest of her party were paying full attention. Were they sizing me up wondering who I was just as I was them? I think so.
Her husband and his white bearded friend talked to me a bit about cars and where I was from and “oh I was stationed in Salina back in the old days.” I found it like most conversations with old car guys, pretty damned interesting.
Before we knew it, the plane was pulling up to the gate and it was time for us to go. I was pretty happy to have met some kool old car folk (folks into old cars, not old and into cars), but the big picture was I was heading out to Vegas for a couple of shows!
Viva Las Vegas was an eye opening experience. I had never been to a show that was as much about a lifestyle as it was about the cars. It could be argued that it was less about the cars that year, I didn’t care, there was a parking lot full of kool iron and some beautiful women walking around. I did see my new friends there but only briefly and from a distance. I figured Wichita isn’t that big of a place, I’m bound to see them at a show sooner or later. Little did I know that I had already been shooting photos of their cars at shows for 4 years… remember that shy part earlier?
Another stranger then, friend now, Big Rich’s Caddy!
No dude I don’t know you, you were just a casualty of an opportunistic photographer.
Gambino’s F-You 54!
You get the idea, plenty of kool rides, and as you can tell a whole lot of people!
Okay, one more I couldn’t help myself.
On the Monday after the show, I find myself waiting at the Vegas airport waiting again for a late plane. As luck would have it, a few rows away I saw my new Wichita friends. I picked up my bags and went over after we made eye contact and they waved.
We talked about the show, it wasn’t what any of us were expecting. We talked about a lot of things, and honestly I don’t remember it all, but as the conversation went on I realized that these 2 men and their wives were not just your run of the mill car folk, they had been there, done that, and had been doing it for a very very long time.
Finally I got up the nerve to mention wanting to become a professional custom car and hot rod photographer, and that I was going to all of these shows to practice shooting in the worst environments I could so that I could learn as much as possible… yadda yadda. Oh, and here’s a book I made…
The next 45 minutes the two men went through the book with their wives looking over their outside shoulders, turning the book around every page or so to point at a car and tell me who it belonged to, or a story about the car or a story about one like it. Never has any institution of higher learning taught so much as these folks were teaching me as we waited for a delayed plane. The loved the book, we all knew the work wasn’t stellar but they loved that I was taking the time to document them and their friends’ passion, and they heartily encouraged me to keep it up. We exchanged phone numbers when the announcement was made that the plane had arrived. I was going to take them up on the offer to come visit and listen to more stories.
May 2010
The first weekend of each May is the Stray Kat 500 in Dewey, OK. This was to be my first trip, my new friends were going to be there and I had been wanting to go for a couple of years. I knew of a few key folks due to the H.A.M.B. so this already had the makings of a bit of a different show for me instead of just shooting pics and splitting, I had people to talk to.
Somewhere in here I had the idea to produce some small books that were kind of like the little paged magazines of yesteryear. Each one was 60 pages and featured 1 show. I had created a few of them, designed them, filled them with images, printed them, bound them, the whole shebang. The entrepreneur in me decided that I was going to make money selling these books, the hardback that my friends and I had shared in the airport, and a few other items. I didn’t factor in that if I was sitting in a booth selling items then I couldn’t be out there shooting photos to make more of them! Thanks to my Dad and my Uncle Tom for booth sitting for me that day so I could take photos.
My first car show booth.
Don’s Beautiful Buick
As it would turn out my new friends had a lot of friends at the 500 that day. They came over and bought just about everything my meager booth had to sell. The came to talk to me, they sent their friends, they introduced me to tons of people and made sure people knew that I was to be supported, I was the only one paying attention to the passion of building kool kustoms and hotrods enough to not only take photos and put them online for the world to see but to make books and such from them. Monetarily this was a good weekend, the only good weekend I ever had with that meager booth. But relationally, it was a gold mine.
Hub & Gloria Harness and Steve & Carol Albers, thank you. Thank you for encouraging me when I wasn’t very good (I say that I’ve not improved much to this day), and for instantly welcoming me into your kustom family. When I still thought that this was about trying to make money with my passion for kool cars I was getting very discouraged. I was ready to quit. It was your welcoming smiles, your friendship, your generosity of time that made me realize that the treasure in this adventure would never live in my wallet but always in my heart. The friends that I’ve met since meeting the four of you have been amongst the greatest people I’ve ever been lucky enough to be around.
Hub & Gloria’s beautiful Buick Cinnamon
Steve & Carol’s 40 Ford with 250,000 miles on “this drivetrain” and a custom hand built trailer behind it so that Carol would travel with Steve out to Santa Maria, California instead of flying.
The point of this whole story is simple. Kustom folks are some of the best people on earth. Find some, make friends and if you’re lucky… the true riches of your life will multiply.
For the first time ever, my Galaxie will be entered into an indoor car show. Now to be clear, this car was never meant to be a show car, only a kool kustom that I occasionally show off at shows. This first indoor show will be the Starbird-Devlin show in Wichita, KS at Century II on Jan. 18-20th.
I’ve been attending the show here on and off since the early 80’s. Back then I remember very little about the show or the cars that I saw there. Mostly the memories are just of good times with my dad and sometimes Grandpa at the Starbird show. It was a big deal. Not even an all too present case of the chicken pox could keep me away, when my folks asked if I was well enough to go, I lied my ass off. I was going to the Starbird show.
Over the years that I’ve been attending with a camera in hand we’ve been privy to some pretty fantastic vehicles on display at the show.
2007
2009
2010
Lil Coffin
The Toad (see Issue #57 of Car Kulture Deluxe for a full feature on The Toad)
The Trixie Tee
Starbird’s Predicta BubbleTop
Part 2 will post tomorrow and will include 2011 and 2012 favorites.
Use the controls on the right to follow this blog and get updates whenever a new post is up.
Comment below on what your favorite ride featured here is.
I’ve had my 1963 Ford Galaxie 500 since 2004. When she first entered my life she looked like a 70’s cruiser. Stock body, dark tinted windows (80’s probably), Cragar S/S wheels and some fairly large raised white letter tires.
It is my goal to continue to share the great people and cars of the Midwest with all of you around the world for years to come, so far for the last few years this has been a very expensive hobby. Thank you to those that buy hats, shirts, photos etc because you help to pay the bills for websites, cameras, gas, hotels, food, etc. to keep the machine rolling.
I do hope to someday make this a full time occupation since it is a passion that occupies so much of my mind so much of the time. I do not want to charge people to see the photos, but I am looking at ways to add sponsorship to the site to help pay the bills. The goal is to have royboyproductions.com a self sustaining entity by the end of 2013.
The future of the site as I see it today means more articles on show coverage, more feature videos, a series of videos on the construction of a kustom from barn find to boulevard beautiful. Stay tuned, buy some photos, a shirt, a hat or just tell your friends where to find a source for kool. royboyproductions.com
See you at a show, Travis
Here’s a shot of my good friend Jeff Myers’ shop Premier Body & Paint in Arkansas City, KS. Jeff has just completed a kustom paint job on my 63 Ford Galaxie (you can see his Galaxie in the photo).
The schedule for 2013 is already filling up! This post will be a breakdown of some of the shows of the first few months, have a look at the info I provide, check out the photos from years past and pick a couple out to attend!
January
Jan. 18-20th Wichita, KS Starbird-Devlin Charity Car Show “The Wichita Tradition” See the 2012 photos here
So as I sit here typing we’re a couple of hours away from the 3rd Annual Mid Decembrrrr Run. Folks from hundreds of miles away are now on their way to Salina, KS to meet up and go on a long drive in our classic cars. It’s been a really good time so far, hopefully this year is too!
This will be it as far as 2012 goes for me and my cameras. It’s been a fantastic year, went new places, met new people and had a great time throughout it all. For 2012 there are 33 galleries with 7,987 photos so far, whew, my shutter finger is tired! To see them all go here: http://royboyproductions.smugmug.com/Cars/2012
Some of my favorites are
Fuel Altered “Black Mariah” doing a smoky burnout at the 2012 KKOA Leadsled Spectacular, see more from that weekend here.
About a year ago I joined Instagram, it’s been a fun way to give new life to some old photos and spread the word about what it is that I do here. http://instagram.com/royboyprods is where you can find those photos if you are not already on Instagram.
Have a great weekend, I’m off with a bunch of my rod/kustom friends for a road trip. Merry Christmas and I’ll see you at a show,
Like the KKOA Leadsled Spectacular held in Salina, KS the Hotrodding Hullabaloo features Friday Run What Ya Brung Drags. Being that the show has a smaller attendance the drags were a bit let crowded.
They do wear some weird head gear in Texas racing…
Now on to the show Saturday held at a downtown area park.
Stray Kat Kustoms in the line o Mercs
Buck’s bad bad Chev
I love The Whale
I think that this show could grow back to a really great celebration of Kustoms in the years to come. I really like the town, the people, the venue, I think we should all strive to get to this one next year and just over run the park with kool kustoms.
The show was a lot of fun, a small show but a great collection of kool kustoms and hot rods. The town was fantastic and I hope to be back for years to come.
Night shots back at the hotel
That’s it, there are more pics but that’s it for the posts here, to see the entire gallery click any of the photos in this blog post.
Despite cold weather and reports that the show has become a bit small I headed south Thursdaynight headed for Denison, TX for the 2012 KKOA Hotrodding Hullabaloo, Denison is also home to Atlas Speed & Custom so what better excuse to go to TX for the weekend? Friday started with a shop visit to my buddies Atlas Speed & Custom in downtown Denison for a look around the shop and to check in on the Revolution 32 build. Mike’s new toy, it’s a vintage build right hand drive from England I believe. Super kool car, especially the front license plate… Atlas’ logo was done by Jeff Norwell, and it’s cool factor is off the scale. Lots of cool old Hot Rod mags and others for sale in the store area. Vintage go fast goodies on display Daddy-o was working hard but still took 30 minutes to show me around town and tell me some history. Daddy-O’s own Chevy waiting it’s turn. Modifying a $250 brake pedal to fit. The Atlas boys are also the members of the band Pushrod who will be performing at the Hot Rod Revolution this weekend in Austin. Mike’s dad was a member of the Leonard Stockers. Punchlist above the workbench leading the way to the finish line. I’m looking forward to seeing the truck progress throughout its build. The 51 passenger car dash is a nice touch. Daddy-O’s sedan waiting along side the others (still say you need to give me this because I’m a super duper nice guy) I posted this on the 32 build thread but if you haven’t seen it here ya go.
I’ve been blessed to meet some great folks in my travels around the midwest attending car shows from Austin to Chicago. So about a year back I decided that I wanted to feature some of the great people and their vehicles in a way that photographs alone couldn’t do. So in August the first video was released of Yblock292’s 29 Roadster. A bit behind schedule here is the 2nd video, this time of Finkd (Jeff Myers) beautiful mild custom 63 Ford Galaxie.
Jeff has become a great friend and was nice enough to take me and the camera for a ride to explain all about the car. I hope you enjoy it!
Jeff’s Arkansas City, KS based shop Premier Body & Paint is a H.A.M.B. Alliance Vendor so if you need some work done, make sure to join and let him know you’re a member! Music in this one was provided by my buddies The Rumblejetts, make sure to support them as well.
The first stop for my Saturday Sept. 22nd was at the Last Run in Arkansas City, KS. I’ve heard about this show for over a decade, it was time to finally check it out. Enjoy the slideshow and click any photo to go to the full gallery.
From Garnett (see part 1) I headed out to Mulvane, KS home of the Mulvane Marauders. This part was another fun drive, exploring country side, just randomly heading south and west until I got close to the show.
That was a fun drive! I got to see some of the grain storage facilities that I’d done the mechanical and fabrication drawings for, drove a new section of one of my favorite roads, an old section of highway just outside of most people’s point of view while they cruise on US-400, had a burger at the historic Beaumont Hotel and explored a fun new-to-me road between Latham and Douglass, KS.
Once I arrived in Mulvane it’s the same story as every other time, the many friends I’ve made in the Marauders make me feel at home. This show is held on the old main street area of Mulvane and features some of the over 160 members of the club’s rides as well as many area cars. The Marauders gave away a freshly rebuilt engine this year along with a huge table full of door prizes and some killer trophies made by various members of the Marauders.
One of the most beautiful kustoms around, Don’s 54 Buick
Jody’s way kool Y-block powered kustom Ford truck
Steve’s Tiki Taxi
Merideth’s Trixie Tee, built to match her Trophy Girl purse, this is a killer little hotrod!
Jack’s 40 Ford
One kool kustom influenced hot rod
I really dig this killer Merc kustom, check out the headlights…
Some high dollar rides showed up
Chris and Karma Carlson of Chaotic Customs drive this 60 Pontiac named Stella nearly every day, and judging by the color of the back tire, Chris didn’t get the kids to clean Stella after driving down the dirt road they live on. That’s dedication, live on a dirt road and drive a ride like this!
One of my favorite cars of the show, Kent drives the heck out of her too!
Another 51 Ford! This time with the 6 cylinder drive train.
Interesting dash
Bill Hines and crew chopped this at the KKOA in 2009 I believe. Love the chop and the color!
Kevin’s 64 Galaxie
Chris giving out the awards.
Congrats Kent!
That’s it for the 2nd part, a drive up to Gypsum would end my day driving around central-eastern KS. Hope you enjoyed the coverage, stay tuned to the blog with RSS feeds or email updates so you know when I’ve updated the blog.
Part 5! With the fun of the Friday Garage Krawl in our memories, it was on to the main event of the Starliner show at the Kansas Aviation Museum. Before I go any further I want to say thanks to yblock292 for not only putting together the Garage Krawl but for hosting me for the weekend. I had an absolute blast hanging out and talking hotrods and kustoms with ya!
On to the show!
I was lucky enough to hang out with some of the Mulvane Marauders.
Jack’s 40 is just too cool!
Aaron of Fast AL’s Upholstery taking a shot of his car
Gotcha again Twotallokie!
Zombie Speed Shop, it’s always good to see the truck…oh okay and you too.
I think I need one of these!
The boys from Iron Buffalo Hot Rods brought out their toys… but no bull this time…
I love this ride and I need to do a feature on it for my site, I’d better get on that soon!
Part 6
Hey Jimmy…about your wheels….
sorry, I just can’t help myself…
My buddy Michael brought his awesome 40 Ford Truck out, I got to see it under construction, it’s awesome to see it finished.
Finkd (Jeff Myers) brought out his Stude pickup, I never get tired of seeing this ride.
Hub Harness brought out his beautiful Buick, this is my favorite kustom. Sorry to anyone that might get their feelings hurt but I just love this ride.
Okay, back to the day job! Thanks for checking out the pics folks, remember if any of them look cool to you, you can buy downloads as cheaply as $2 and prints start for just a couple of bucks more. Every purchase helps put gas in the car to get to the next show, or buy more camera equipment to provide you all better coverage so please consider it!
