Apparently, I can’t read a map very well. You see, Dewey, OK is not really on the way from Joplin, MO to Salina, KS by any logical means, yet I seem to keep finding myself there on that particular journey. Dewey is Stray Kat Kustoms central, and I enjoy spending some time with my Stray Kat brethren there. One of them is Aaron Lawrence, the AL in Fast AL’s Upholstery. Aaron has been really skyrocketing lately as an upholsterer, and it’s been fun to watch a buddy really find his stride and just kick butt. Every time that I get myself down to Dewey I find one or two new rides in Aaron’s shop getting full on kustom interiors. He just finished the beautiful 58 Edsel Wagon that I showed you last week as part of the 2014 Starbird-Devlin show coverage and he already has 2 more under construction.
So I pulled out the iPhone and shot some quick images as we sat around and talked. Aaron is in the middle of an expansion on his shop so that he can move some of the operation to a separate room. The new space will add and office and an indoor space to hang out as well moving some of the dirtier work out of the same space that the cars are in. This should save some cleaning time on the cars and less moving cars in and out as they are being worked on. I’m looking forward to seeing the future for Fast AL’s, every car I see just keeps getting better and better.
Aaron has been fast at work forming the wood frame portions of the new seat.The trunk, top and door panels will all receive the Fast AL’s Upholstery treatment as well.From what I was able to gather it will receive a full interior as well. It’s easy to see why Aaron is expanding the size of the shop. The ability to have a room to do the dirtier work in and not get the cars covered in the debris of building an interior will help Aaron out tremendously.This Chevelle received a new top the day before I arrived.Putting the car up on stands gets it at a reasonable height for working on the interior.Aaron’s Layla has now been pulled into the shop to to start upgrading the interior before Lonestar Roundup. I can’t wait to see how it turns out.
As I type this, it’s 10:45 on Thursday night, less than 12 hours until this post goes live. About 8 hours until I have to be at my day job… and I as started this post I honestly had no idea what I should write. Today, Thursday Jan. 23, 2014 is the largest traffic day that this blog has ever had. After a slow winter where I struggled to find you good fresh content, finally I got to get out to my first show of 2014 and I can see that you appreciate the fresh content. Over 700 views today with a previous record of 560 for the blog, what did I do to deserve that? Thanks folks, when I see that you dig what I’m doing enough to check it out that much, it’s all worth it.
The Future
Here we are at the end of January, before I know it I’ll be up to my eyeballs in car shows and I won’t remember how boring this winter was. February has 3 events that I’m planning on attending, should be putting about 1100 miles on the car. I am hoping to spend an afternoon with a family I know in Wichita that is full of gearheads with a killer collection of rides. The following weekend the plan is to head down and check out the Model A Club Swap Meet. I typically don’t buy much but there’s always that one thing that you see someone else got that you need and had the cash for. So I go… and I never seem to find it in time.
After that it’s a big windshield time weekend. First heading to Bartle Hall in KC to cover the World of Wheels Autorama for you. Later that afternoon I make the trip from KC to Tulsa to an old buddy’s spare room. Sunday early I’ll head to the Quiktrip Center and the Darryl Starbird Car Show. This is the 50th edition of the show and it promises to be a good one. Finally we have a weekend where I don’t have anything planned…yet. Either it will get filled with a couple of shop visits or shooting some features, either way the weekend will be used to create some fresh content for you folks to enjoy.
For the month of March I should be at about 1400 miles, it adds up quickly! Magazine articles can help offset the travel costs but those don’t pay until month and months later, if at all. Another way to offset that is for get paid by you folks to shoot your rides when I’m on the road. If you have a car that you’d like me to shoot, let me know here and we’ll figure out a time and place, I’m very affordable. 🙂
The first weekend of March I’ll be off for another double header weekend. First up will be the Texas Thaw drags and car show held at the Northstar Dragway in Denton, TX. That evening I’ll make my way up to Wichita to catch a hotel for the night. Sunday morning will be off to the Chill in Park City before returning home to edit photos and get them up on the site. Then there’s an open weekend that I hope to head to KC and catch up with some friends and shoot their shop and hopefully feature a couple of their cars.
After that it’s off to Texas again for the Goodguys Spring Lonestar Nationals at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth. A 12 hour drive for a 5 or 6 hour stay at the show. Hopefully I find something that I can shoot a feature on for the site while I’m there. The two following weeks are open as of now but I will be looking for cars to shoot those weekends. That’s a basic rundown of what’s going on between now and when I leave for the Lonestar Roundup at the begin of April.
Why?
Why the hell do I do this? After putting in more than 50 hours a week at a day job why do I spend all of my extra money traveling all over the midwest to shoot car show coverage, edit it, pay to host it online and then just give it all away to you for free? I’m nuts. Well that’s what most think. I’m hoping that I can create enough kool content to keep you coming back every day, and maybe kool enough that you’ll share it with your friends and they’ll come check it out too. If we get enough viewers here then maybe the future sponsors can cover all of that gas money, all of the hotel money, all of the show entry fees, all of the website costs. That would be a dream come true. Well, that would be partly a dream come true.
The real dream, the one that haunts me at my day job, the one that keeps me from concentrating on much of anything else is doing this full time. Selling my house and everything that won’t fit in an RV which is big enough to pull my Galaxie in a trailer. Spending each week traveling from one show to the next, stopping at pro and private shops along the way, shooting shop visits, tech articles, and features as much as possible to keep you folks full up on the best content possible. Maybe I am nuts. Or maybe that’s how this thing goes to the next level.
It’s going to be a busy couple of months but when you folks pull me aside to tell me thanks for all of the effort, it’s worth it. When I see a Royboy hat or beanie or shirt from across a show, and I have no idea who it is that’s wearing it. It’s worth it. When someone attends a show for the first time or gets their car done so they can get to a certain show that I’ve featured and they tell me that it’s my coverage that made them do it. It’s worth it.
For those that saw me at the Starbird-Devlin show that I’ve been covering all week long and wanted to know where to get one of my Model A Hot Rod Stencil Shirts I put up a new page here for you to order them. There are a few sizes in stock now from my last order, for those that are not in stock put your order in now to get one. I can’t afford to have a bunch printed and just sit in my trunk for 8 months so if you want one, you’d better get one ordered.
Stay tuned next week for some news on the Royboy New Blood Award that I’ll be giving away at the KKOA Leadsled Spectacular this summer.
For those that don’t know you can catch all kinda good links from my Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ and a bunch of kool stuff on Tumblr and Instagram.
As this is posted I’m finishing up my 3 hour stint a the day job on Saturday morning. From here I catch a ride with my Dad and my 3 & 5 year old nephews down to Wichita’s Century II where the Starbird-Devlin show is in full swing. The boys and I will check the show out today then they will come home and then my cameras will come out and I’ll get you some photos of the show. Look for those photos to start showing up here tomorrow Sunday the 19th. Here’s what I posted this week so far:
I’m excited to finally get the 2014 car show season underway! Next weekend I’ll be heading to Ryno Built’s shop to check in on a Merc project that he’s building for a buddy of mine. While we’re there we’ll also build a new transmission crossmember for my Galaxie so that the car can be dropped a couple more inches. So look for a tech article on that, plus the shop visit post from Ryno’s place. From there I’m hoping to hit 2 shops on the way home, 1 private where they’re doing a big time chop and another a pro upholstery shop. Stay tuned for those visits as well. The goal for 2014 is to start doing a lot more car features, more videos, and more of the same coverage that has been viewed over 11.5 million times so far. Buckle up, it’s bound to be a heck of a ride!
For the 2nd year in a row I’ve been asked by my friend and mentor Doug Reed to include my car in the Kustom City display in the Starbird-Devlin Car Show held in Wichita’s Century II Convention Center. To me, it’s an honor. I get to display my car along side some of my favorite kustoms and hang out with some of my favorite people. Today was the move-in for our group, so early this morning I fired up my Galaxie and made the 80 mile drive down to Century II. An early morning drive with some great tunes in my favorite car is an amazing thing for my attitude.
As soon as I pulled in I was greeted by one of my friends from the Kustom City display, I was waved into the building and directed to my parking spot with a bunch of rides that far outclass mine. As last year, some of the cars in the display are immortalized on Dennis McPhail’s Kustom City poster, it’s a real big deal to me to even be in the same display as all of these cars.
After getting the cars into position I spent about an hour hand wiping down the car. In my haste to get to the show and see my kustom family I forgot to stop and hit the car wash. Thankfully I had a fresh bottle of Meguiar’s Quik Detailer in the trunk, I cleaned every damn surface of the exterior with the stuff. 🙂 Then it was off to walk around the show a bit and see who else was already set up or in the process.
Out for a morning drive in my Galaxie 500 with my bug collection.
Here are some of the photos I took while walking around.
Floyd\’s 58 Edsel Wagon kustom. The car features a bunch of great pinstriping and a full kustom interior by Fast AL’s Upholstery amongst more kool touches.
Floyd’s Edsel Wagon. We talked today about me shooting a feature on it for a magazine, I can’t wait!
I keep running into this beautiful Mercury from Nebraska, and I’m not mad about that.Troy Pate’s newly finished hot rod. It was his uncle’s street beast back in the old days and was finished just before the show. I REALLY want a ride 🙂
Michael Behrendt’s 34 Ford Coupe. The car was given to him years ago on the condition that he someday build the car. Nothing on the car is newer than 53 except the 59 Olds steering wheel. The east coast channeling lends to the car’s Norm Grabowski’s Kookie Car-esque profile. I’ve been given a ride in the car and it was a blast!Goren brought this beautiful 48 Merc up from Texas.Chaotic Customs has their normal huge display full of just about everything you need for you hot rod or kustom. The new sign is kool too.Devlin Hot Rods shop is just up the street from Century II and they had some very nice rides in their display. There’s a giant glass wall behind that curtain so look for more photos of these rides later, I’ll shoot them when the sun goes down tomorrow.These are the cars parked in front of me in the Kustom City display. Johnny Hammann’s 58 Chevy (as it was built in 76), Terry Cook’s Chevy, and Jack’s 51 Ford.Looking back down Kustom City. We have 10 cars this year in the display, I’ve been asked to help round up cars for next year and I’m an ambitious fella. Let’s shoot for 20 cars for 2015. If you have a kustom and want to hang out with some awesome people, send me a message here.Hub and Gloria Harness’ beautiful “Cinnamon” One of my favorite kustoms on the planet. They have been so amazingly supportive over the last few years and I’m lucky and honored to know them.
The 2nd show on the weekend of Feb 14-16 is the Darryl Starbird show in Tulsa Oklahoma’s Quiktrip Center. For more info on the show go to Starbird’s site here.
Be sure to keep an eye on the center isle of the building for the Fine Nine award participants and see if you can guess who’s taking home the Go For The Gold award and it’s huge cash prize.
Finally Episode 3 is ready! Changing up the format a bit for this one, I stripped away the intro and just left the feature. Way back in 2012 I shot this video at RynoBuilt’s shop in SW Missouri. Since then the truck was finished, we shot it for a magazine and it was featured as the February 2014 cover on Classic Trucks Magazine (order a copy here).
Thanks Ryno for letting me shoot the truck for the magazine and for this video! Everyone go follow Ryno on Facebook to keep up to date on what he’s working on.
A couple of years ago I came up with the idea to do car features in video form. For some of you that have been following for awhile, you’ve seen these before. For the new folks take a few minutes and hopefully enjoy!
The concept is simple, get the car owner on camera telling the story of the ride. Unfortunately it is a time consuming process and time is what I don’t have much of. So…. there are 2 to date. I am planning on releasing a 3rd one next week (a year after I meant to release it). And hopefully more will follow. Feature videos are the perfect way to capture your memories of your favorite ride to remember for the rest of your life and pass on to future generations.
Between Christmas and New Year’s I was on a road trip and had a little time to stop by and see my friends at Chaotic Customs in Mulvane, KS. They’ve done some work on one of my cars and a couple for my dad and I wanted to drop off some Christmas candy from my family to the Chaotic crew.
Here are some cell phone photos from that visit.
The 2014 SEMA build is Karma’s Mustang. The top has been chopped and numerous other changes are underway.The 2014 SEMA build is Karma’s Mustang. The top has been chopped and numerous other changes are underway.Jack’s 39 Ford is in the shop for some new floors and rust repair. The chassis sports a ton of parts that Jack got from RJay’s Speed Shop.This hot rod is getting the full treatment with a whole bunch of custom treatments, stay tuned for more on it.Chaotic’s Chris Carlson showing the newly chopped removable hard top on this kustom MercuryAnother project is this ’59 Chevy.The crew at Chaotic is really doing a kool job on this Stingray Vette. Adding a bit of muscle to the front fenders, sucking the bumpers into the body a bit for a more streamlined look, re-shaping the wheel wells again to show a bit of a bulge on the body. Almost like the way the designers may have envisioned the car before the bean counters took over. I can’t wait to see this one all finished up.
Thanks to my friends at Chaotic for opening up the doors to my dad and I and taking the time to show us all of the projects in the shop. I’m sure the big tray of candy had nothing to do with that :). I have upcoming shop visits planned for 3 new shops in the next few months, stay up to date by subscribing in the top right hand corner of the page.
For a couple of years now I’ve covered a fairly new show called The Chill held in Park City, KS in the fairgrounds buildings next to the Kansas Coliseum just north of Wichita, KS on I-135. I’ve enjoyed the show each time I’ve been to it, it’s always good to have another event to attend. The show has 1 giant room dedicated to bikes and bike related vendors, and 2 that are filled with cars and car related vendors. The show this year goes down Feb. 28 – Mar. 2, 2014. For more info go here.
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2013 was a fun year. In total over 50 new photo galleries were added to the 2013 folder, I haven’t added up the miles yet, or the expenses on hotels and such, but the fun meter was pegged all year long. Here are the most popular photo galleries from 2013 in slideshow form, click on the slide show to see the entire gallery. The total photo views for Royboy Galleries for 2013 was 4,462,950 not counting tomorrow of course. Since moving my photos to their current home on Smugmug just after the 2010 KKOA Leadsled Spectacular the total photo views for the site are now at 11,581,517. That just blows my mind. The majority of those views comes from people looking at my car show coverage threads on the H.A.M.B. but this year a big chunk was also from right here on my own site. The largest single day of the year was 7/29 (just after the KKOA) with 183,318 however most days average under 10,000 photo views.
The top 10 Royboy Productions galleries with the most views for 2013 are:
This was the first time that I showed my Galaxie at the Starbird-Devlin show and with it’s fresh Jeff Myers paint job (the plan is for an update to that paint job just before the show this year).
The 2nd time that I’ve made the trip down to this show at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas. I have a lot of friends in North Texas so I suspect that I will return for this event in the future, not sure about 2014 yet though.
I missed the first few H.A.M.B. Drags events but it’s one I go to every year now. It’s great to see so many of my H.A.M.B. friends, get to see them run their cars and it’s turned into a family event for us with friends and family gathering from 4 states to hang out in Joplin.
A cold and rainy forecast kept many away from the Stray Kat 500, but still the car count was HUGE for the weather, with my personal estimates in the 400 range.
The other Stray Kat Kustoms show is the Starliner, and unlike many of the shows this year it wasn’t rainy, it was almost unbearably hot on that tarmac. Not the hottest show we’ve had in the last few years for sure but it was pretty brutal. Still one of the koolest shows on the planet.
Greaserama had a new home this year, some said that they would not attend because of it. They weren’t missed, this was easily the largest Greaserama to date and has room for growth in the new venue.
ANOTHER Texas show, this one a bit farther south. Austin’s Lonestar Roundup keeps getting bigger and bigger, which can cause problems in a city already experiencing growing pains with horrendous traffic and construction zones. The show was huge this year and I had a blast taking my ride to it for the first time. I’ll be back in 2014.
And the most popular photo gallery of Royboy Productions for 2013 was:
If it wasn’t for this show, I might not be doing this today. When the KKOA Leadsled Spectacular came to Salina it breathed a great new life into the show and it’s grown year after year. The last 3 years were incredibly hot with temps over 105 degrees, but this year was different. The rain that in some way was present for most of the year was again a factor but on Sunday this year it was 65 degrees instead of the 109 of the previous year. The show reached a new high of 1,867 entries. I hope in future years we can increase the number of kustoms and hot rods!
In my mind there is no greater escape for me than to hop in a great car with a great stereo, roll the windows down and go blasting down some two lane highway. For as long as I’ve been driving, music and cars have gone together for me. As the years went on I found that it was possible to create a pretty fantastic listening environment in my favorite place to listen to music.
Please excuse the copious amounts of tweed, these were taken in the 90’s 🙂
About a decade ago some friends and I were going to make a run at competing for a world championship again in sound quality ranks of IASCA and USACi auto sound competitions. Life got in the way. I still have most of the equipment from that buildup as the car was never finished and I’m making plans now on putting a system in the Galaxie. Not to compete again, we were once among the very best in the world, that competitive nature is long gone from me. Now I just want to get in, put on a great song and just get lost on the road to nowhere.
Stay locked into the blog over the coming months, I hope to have a whole bunch of tech articles for you, both auto sound and just old car related. From installing new high output headlights in the Galaxie to better see at night and new taillights so you can better see me, to new weather stripping, sound deadening, proper wiring selection for a stereo system, building speaker mounts, system design, wiring harness installation (maybe), etc. I hope to provide more show coverage from outside photographers as well from shows that I cannot attend. If you have any other suggestions for the type of content you’d like to see, let me know here. As long as it goes to the common goal of talking about kool hot rods and hot kustoms built in the midwest, I’m open to hear your suggestions.
My goals for 2014 for Royboy Productions is to make this site into a daily digital magazine, turning up the volume with shop features, car features, the car show coverage that I do so much, tech articles and more. I’m throwing around the idea of creating a hard back book of car features whenever I have enough of them built up to fill a book and make it a good value for YOU. I will continue to create the occasional new books like the 2013 Squared book I just put out. Hopefully I’ll continue with the Artist Feature series as long as they keep filling out the questionnaires and agreeing to be on the site.
Stay tuned folks 2014 is about to get loud in more ways than one. Next Monday and Tuesday as we wind down 2013 I will feature some of the most popular posts and photos that I shared with you this year.
My friend John Wells of Vintage Torque is a man on a mission. Both his hugely successful Vintage Torque Fest and Iron Invasion shows raise money for HelpingHannahsHeart.org and he’s not stopping there. Also available as a fund raiser are 2 coloring books, I just ordered a couple of the new Asphalt Fiends Coloring Books for gifts for my nephews for Christmas (they are 3 and 5 and I don’t think they read this blog so I am not ruining their surprise). HelpingHannahsHeart.org is a foundation to help families who are dealing with the financial burden that comes from having a child with Critical Aortic Stenosis or related Congenital Heart Defects. The Wells family knows all too well what this financial burden looks like, this is their way of helping others going through the same thing.
The coloring books are a veritable who’s who of the hot rod art world. Page after page of heavy hitter artists lending their art in a coloring book line art form. The 2014 edition features art from Zombie, John Detich, Eric Foust, Grant Cushman, Ryan Curtis, Dustin Weisgerber, Kris Chisholm, Shawn Spiwak, Max Grundy, Andrew Wright, Paul Kester, Nate Greco, Shawn Dickinson, ZAKKA, Mike Learn, BigToe, Chad Lambert, Joey Finz, Mark Thompson, Bruce Gossett, Chad Scheres, Scott Fisk, Jeff Gaither, Johnny Jalopy, Corrie Erickson, Jim Hively, Ben DragDaddys Mitchell, BOMONSTER, Del Swanson, Sara Ray, Sinclair, Arlo Dillman, and GerPeters.
The 2013 edition boasts this line up: Ryan Curtis, Nate Greco, John Detrich, Eric Foust, Mark Thompson, Ruben Montes, Shawn Spiwak, Chainsaw Chuck, Johnny Jalopy, Dane Brown, Bradie O’Neal, Darren Menzies, John Hoogeveen, Chris Hamer, Del Swanson, Thomas Metcalf, Nik Scarlett, Dustin Weisgerber, Grant Cushman, Joey Finz, Chad Scheres, Jeff Schwerdtfeger, Ben DragDaddys Mitchell, Britt Madding, Ryan Curtis, Kurt Wright, Thomas Metcalf, Tom Krohne, Bruce Gossett, Ger Peters and Lil Nick.
I’ve been going over the books for a couple of days now and I’m really impressed. There are some fantastic artists featured with a whole truck load of incredible art just waiting for your (or your child’s) coloring touch. So get on over to Asphalt Fiends Coloring Books and get yourself some ordered. Get an extra to keep because these could easily be a great collector’s item.
See you at a show,
Royboy
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Valentine’s Day is for lovers, in 2014 Valentine’s Day weekend is for car lovers with 2 big indoor shows in the region. The one that I’m going to talk about here is Darryl Starbird’s show in Tulsa, OK. The show has for years included a monster truck show and the price tag seems to go up and up but I go back every year. Why? Because they continue to draw some great cars and with the 2014 edition being the 50th annual event, I’m sure there will be a ton of great rides on display. Go here for the show flyer for more info.
It’s time for a new book! I’ve gone through and picked out my 120 favorite Instagram photos from the Royboy Productions Instagram feed and I’ve put them in this new book called “2013 Squared” The book is available as a hardback, softback or as a pdf version for your tablet or smartphone. Here’s a 15 page preview!
It may seem odd to some to already be looking forward to the start of the 2014 show season but the truth is, it’s literally 1 month away here in the Midwest! On January 11th in the Five Flags Arena in Dubuque Iowa the Retro Rewind goes down in conjunction with the Fuel Injected Film Festival.
A while back we were presented with a chance to coordinate a car show in Dubuque. But we didn’t want to do just another cookie cutter event that shows off the local Camaro club or some tricked out 2012 Mustang….
Our proposal was to bring back a distinct time.
A time before muscle cars dominated.
In effect, take the basic concept of a traditional hot rod show and throw it indoors.
This has been done with great success with Jalopyrama in MD, Grand National Roadster Show, and the World of Wheels extreme areas in Indy, KC, Chicago, and the best one – Detroit.
But even some of those events tend to let beaters in….(like mine)
What we are trying to create is a show that would bring the standard up a bit.
A show that celebrates those that take the time to get a display together the way they did back in the 50′s and 60′s.
A show that combines two of the most iconic symbols of America. Cars and Guitars. The Retro Rewind is not really anything new, but what is different about the event is going to be the sheer volume of
things to do AT the event.
We hope this event will be successful because we can team up with several players in the community that would be able to make the
Retro Rewind special. Many out of town kustom car owners will display their cars. We already have commitments from cars in IN, MI, WI, KS, IL, and IA.
Many will want to
come out to break up the winter monotony.
Example:This past Super Bowl Sunday there were 100 gearheads meeting in a parking lot in 14 degree weather while snow was flying.
This meeting was a Facebook event…..no ads. Bare Bones have positive word of mouth on their events they have done in the past, and we think Torque Fest and Iron Invasion do as well.
It is this dedication to the hot rod lifestyle that we will capture at Retro Rewind.
Our message will be spread around the midwest at car shows, antique shows, and CD, vinyl, and guitar shows with the help of several dealers that attend shows from Ohio to Kansas City.
Currently there are NO guitar shows in Iowa! This is an obvious hole that needs to be filled.
Guitar and hot rod fans will want to stay around to see the talent of JB (a big name that we are in current contract negotiations with.)
The proposal is that there would be a discounted price for going to both events – but people could go to either event by
purchasing tickets for the concert that night or just pay for the event the day of the show.
In order to get maximum exposure for the event, ads will be placed in Vintage Guitar, Guitar Player, Ol Skool Rodz,
Rod & Kulture, as well as the usual blitz of propaganda we give out to all the fans around the midwest.
Art Auction – There will be a smaller version of the Vintage Torque Fest art auction held at the Retro Rewind. The thing
that will distinguish this auction from others is the fact that half the proceeds from the auction will go directly to the artist and the other half will
go to Hannah Wells Medical Trust. Invited artists will have the ability to set up and sell their wares. This
will give the public a chance to see their items for sale as well as what the artists may be working on at the show.
7 Sins Section – Performing different feats throughout the day, 7 Sins Sideshow Circus act will amaze the crowd with their
daring stage act. Do NOT try these things at home!
Pin Up Contest – Ten girls will be chosen to get onstage and give the crowd a taste of vintage cheesecake. Get your cameras ready for the poses!
Mileage for invited cars – Retro Rewind invites any historic, kustom, cover car, or vintage show rod to take a part of the festivities. We are trying
to keep the quality of the cars higher since this is exactly what was done at indoor shows in the late 50s and early 60s.
Peoples Choice Award – $500 to the winner! The public will pick the car they think is best. If we can get a sponsor, we will try to make the
second and third place winners happy as well.
Model Display Area – Scott Baldauf will round up the usual suspects to bring out some miniature rods and customs! If you have something you would like displayed – go ahead and bring it!
Motor Matinee – Step inside the Five Flags Theater – adjoined on the east side of the building. This is an 1800′s
opera house that has been updated in the 1980′s to bring in choice acts to the stage. We will be using this theater throughout the day
showing documentaries, vintage racing, and perhaps some highlights from past years Torque Fests.
Bands 3 on the Tree will wow the crowd with their mix of original and swingin favorites Rumble Seat Riot will hit the stage going 90MPH and won’t stop
til everyone has danced their feet off!
Indoor Swap – 8 foot tables will be available for approximately 40 dealers that would like to come to the show to sell their old vinyl, vintage motorcyle or car parts, or used music instruments.
Admission will be $10 and this gets you into BOTH the film festival and the car/cycle show.
Show hours are 9-7
Return to Five Flags Theater at 8pm
opening band open at 830pm
JB at 930pm
We are trying to keep a price point of $18-$20 for the headliner.
AND
we are going to give a discount of $5 for those that come to both events.
We have other announcements we will make later on to make this event even better, but know that this is going to be a
good time, and those looking for a good time in the winter will want to attend.
Scheduled to Appear:
Chuck the Barber
National Motorcycle Museum
Ed Tillrock
Rock N Roll Land
V8 Custom Guitars
Dubuque Tattoo Co.
Flying Weasel Garage
Retro Relics
Todd Jones
Wrenchin’ Wendy Walker
Retro A Go-Go
Hot Rod Honeys
Hetz
Nate Ullrich – Lyfebehindbars.com
Wisconsin Hot Rod Radio
Broken Cherry
Relic
P’Gosh
John Berry
Ol Skool Rodz
Scott Takes – Underground Art Studios
Kansas Demilitarized Zone
Jimmy Flintstone Studios
A couple of weeks ago when my weekend plans were changed due to a show being cancelled due to an impending ice storm I looked for alternate places to cover on the site. One of my favorites is my good buddy Jeff Myers’ Premier Body and Paint in Arkansas City, KS, so I decided to head down to AC and see what Jeff was up to. A couple of months ago Jeff bought out a former partner in the business and has been making some changes since then. Things are starting to look different around the shop and I see a new gleam in Jeff’s eye that’s telling me he’s got a renewed energy. I’m looking forward to seeing what Premier turns out in 2014. For those that don’t know Jeff took my car from stock to wild paint last winter, read more about that here, and it may be going back for a couple more kustom touches this winter if the timing works out:).
1957 Ford under construction. The car was Jeff’s Dad’s back in the old days and now Jeff and his son are working on it for a customer.This beauty is owned by a fellow Beatnik and is at Premier for a chop. Jeff says it\’s one of the nicest cars that he\’s had in for a chop yet.Formerly this 1960 Ford Fairlane was owned by McPhail. Shortly after going to it\’s new home in NJ the car was sideswiped by a city bus. After being stored at Premier for awhile the body work has now been redone and the car is ready for the kustom fadeaway paint job.
Voodoo Jim\’s Corn Cobb Coupe is in for a freshened Nailhead. While the engine is out it\’s time to dress up the frame and firewall a bit.This fastback Mustang is in the shop for a bit of frame straightening and is waiting it\’s turn on the rack.The back shop at Premier is going to be transformed from storage to the Kustom Shop. The front shop will continue to be the collision shop and pay the bills allowing Jeff to do the kustom work back here. Pictured are a couple of cars that are in for some kustom touches.
Jeff’s own 63 Ford Kustom hanging out in the back shop. I’m partial to 63 Galaxie’s and this one is one of my favorites.
Part 4 and the final post of the show coverage from the Creme De La Chrome Rocky Mountain Auto Show in Denver Colorado held over Thanksgiving Weekend. This post features a bunch of rides that were on display in the Hot Rod Hill Climb area as well as the Deluxe Speed Shop display. Some of my favorites of the show.
That’s it for my whirlwind trip up to Denver and back on Black Friday. After that last pic I hopped in my daily driver and high tailed it east for 422 miles, had some drinks with friends and family and called it a day. I hope you enjoyed the coverage of the show! More fresh content for you tomorrow morning at 9am Central!
To see the daily Monday through Saturday blog posts in your email inbox as soon as they go live go to the top right hand corner of royboyproductions.com and enter your email address. On the last day of each month 1 subscriber will be randomly picked to win a prize, November’s prize was a rb Embroidered Hat. For December I’m working on getting a big bunch of prizes from different websites, including shirts, discounts and whatever else I can round up!
To see the daily Monday through Saturday blog posts in your email inbox as soon as they go live go to the top right hand corner of royboyproductions.com and enter your email address. On the last day of each month 1 subscriber will be randomly picked to win a prize, November’s prize was a rb Embroidered Hat. For December I’m working on getting a big bunch of prizes from different websites, including shirts, discounts and whatever else I can round up!
Here’s another post stuffed with 40 photos from the Rocky Mountain Auto Show. The show featured all kinds of cars and like I said in post 1, most of them were new to me so I’m sharing them even if they don’t fit in the more traditional/old school style. There is a post coming that is chock full of vintage hot rods that were at the Hot Rod Hill Climb so stay tuned, to make sure you don’t miss it, subscribe by entering your email address in the top right hand corner of this page. Again thanks to Dan Greenberg for allowing me to borrow this lens, go check out his photography and buy something!
Enough of my gabbing let’s get to the photos!
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Click any photo to go to the entire gallery.Click any photo to go to the entire gallery.Click any photo to go to the entire gallery.Click any photo to go to the entire gallery.Click any photo to go to the entire gallery.Click any photo to go to the entire gallery.Click any photo to go to the entire gallery.Click any photo to go to the entire gallery.Click any photo to go to the entire gallery.Click any photo to go to the entire gallery.Click any photo to go to the entire gallery.Click any photo to go to the entire gallery.Click any photo to go to the entire gallery.Click any photo to go to the entire gallery.Click any photo to go to the entire gallery.Click any photo to go to the entire gallery.Click any photo to go to the entire gallery.Click any photo to go to the entire gallery.Click any photo to go to the entire gallery.
More to come tomorrow, don’t forget to subscribe in the top right hand corner of royboyproductions.com to get this blog delivered in your email inbox every time it goes live. 1 lucky subscriber at the end of each month will win a prize package, you have to be on the list to be eligible.
See you at a show,
Royboy
CALENDAR UPDATE!!!!
As of right now only 20 copies remain of the Trucks Edition, all others are sold out!
For a couple of years I’ve been hearing about the Rock Mountain Auto Show in Denver, CO over Thanksgiving weekend, 2013 was finally the time to make it up and check the show out. One of the voices telling me of the show was my friend photographer Dan Greenberg, and once I saw that my friends from the Hot Rod Hill Climb were going to do a display featuring a bunch of the cars that ran the hill climb this year, I was all in.
Waking up at 5:30 am I rolled out for the 6 hour drive west on I-70 for the Colorado Convention Center on the south west side of Denver’s downtown. As soon as I arrived I ran into a bunch of friends from across the midwest, including Dan who had a lens for me to experiment with. I’ve been considering buying a certain lens and he had an older version of it and was kind enough to let me test his out. Thanks Dan! Here’s the first batch of photos from the event, click on any of them to go to the entire gallery. This show had a lot of quality cars that aren’t of the traditional or old school flavor but they were new to me and hopefully new to you so I’m including them in the coverage.
To see the daily Monday through Saturday blog posts in your email inbox as soon as they go live go to the top right hand corner of royboyproductions.com and enter your email address. On the last day of each month 1 subscriber will be randomly picked to win a prize, November’s prize was a rb Embroidered Hat. For December I’m working on getting a big bunch of prizes from different websites, including shirts, discounts and whatever else I can round up!
“Hi to all ! Hope you’re in the mood for the Holiday Season, and thanks for joining us here at my friend Travis’ Site !
What you’ll hear right now is one of the most informative pieces on Sectioning that you’ll ever find !
THE LEGENDARY GENE WINFIELD , has chopped many tops through the years, but the first car he ever sectioned was a ’56 Merc !
That iconic custom was christened the “Jade Idol”, and I wanted Gene to give me the lowdown on sectioning that car…and the full-story of what has to be done during that
process.
This is a cool Interview, and you won’t want to miss Gene’s stories…not only about the Jade Idol, but about his own chopped & sectioned ’58 Impala ! To listen, Just-Click-On-Here !
Thanks again for joining us here…and be sure to check-out some of the GREAT Merch available: for you…or one of your friends !
On my way to the Hot Rod Revolution (which was being cancelled as I shot these photos) I stopped by my friends’ Chaotic Customs in Mulvane, KS to see what they were up to. The shop was full of projects and folks working on them. Drew Carlson was nice enough to take a few minutes off of working on a project to show me around the shop and explain what they’d been up to recently since finishing the SEMA build on Mike’s 40 Ford Pickup. The photos below should all be captioned and explain what you’re seeing. I will try to stop in a couple of more times over the next few months for more updates on these projects.
Jack’s 39 Ford Body, Drew Carlson hand fabbed the rear section and replaced all the rusty sections towards the bottom of the body all around.The factory antenna holes were patched up as well as some other holes in the body and of course some rusty spots.Rear shot of the 39, new floors installed. Drew was working on the car as I got there, later in the day I stopped by Jack’s home shop where he was working on getting the frame painted so it could be reassembled and reunited with the body.About an inch was taken out of the meat above the window area of the roof on this pickup. More on it in a few weeks, lots of mods going on here.1940 Chevy Convertible with new floor pans, new suspension and new 4 bar setup in the back.The new floor pans in the 1940 Chevy ConvertibleThe 1940 Chevy’s new front suspension.A new roll pan for the 40 Chevy ConvertibleThe owner of this Vette wanted to update the car a bit. Chaotic is exaggerating some of the factory lines a bit more like what a factory dream car might have been like. Vette purists will hate it but, I dig it big time.The rear bumpers were sucked in to the body and reshaped to fit.Here you can see the peak of the passenger side fender has been raised about an inch. The more aggressive big block hood will be added as well.Here you can see the difference in the front fenders. The raised peak adds style and aggressiveness that should have been there from the factory.A recently completed project at Chaotic, back in for a checkup.Chaotic just finished up Mike’s 40 Ford pickup for SEMA and is now prepping it for the show circuit, starting next week!A Mustang fastback in the shop for some major upgrades. EFI 302, 6 speed Tremec, Mustang II style front suspension, removed shock towers, smoothed and flamed inner fenders, are just some of the mods on this car. More photos in a couple of weeks.
See you at a show,
Royboy
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Next up for the Artist Feature part of the site is Ed Tillrock! Ed’s talent with any artistic medium is staggering to someone like me that struggles with stick figures but when he has a pencil in his hand he’s just downright amazing. Ed produces pencil drawings that you will swear are some sort of Photoshop manipulation of a black and white photo, but I’ve sat and watched the man create these amazing images on blank paper. It’s nothing short of amazing.
Without any further ado…
Q: Do you remember an “ah-ha” moment that made you know that art was going to be an integral part of your life? A: As a kid I wanted to be an architect, but loved to draw! The “ah-ha” moment came in High School in an architecture class. I discovered Architectural Rendering! Art and architecture… A perfect fit for me…. I became a renderer! Did that for over 30 years, until the wheels came off the economy… It turned out to be a good thing for me… About 6 years ago I merged my passions for art and hot rods. I work more now than I ever have, but it’s not work! It’s a labor of love… Drawing with a regular #2 pencil is what I have done my whole life. It was a natural progression for me to scribble hot rods with graphite on illustration board. I love the depth and richness I get with it. I treat my art as if it’s oil on canvas, but it’s all pencil!
Q: If you could pick 1 piece of your work that would represent the entire body of your work, which one would you choose? A: Bus Stop
Q:Who or what most inspires your work? A: Tom Fritz’s oil paintings really inspire me. He’s got that passion, hard working effort and he’s a great guy to hang around with. (I hate him!)
Max (World-Wide) Grundy is such an energizing force. He never stops! His passion for his art is unbelievable.
I could also add, Kenny Youngblood, Steve Stanford, Chip, Frank Lloyd Wright, and of course Norman Rockwell….
Q: What’s 1 piece of advice you’d give an artist that’s just starting out today?
A: Learn to draw by hand! Computers are fantastic, but before you can run you need to walk. The basics are important…. And draw every day!!!
Thanks Ed for taking the time to answer the questions and for sharing some of your art with all of us! Folks, go to Ed’s site, buy his art, it’s that simple and makes amazing Christmas gifts.
See you at a show,
Royboy
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Just because this year is almost over doesn’t mean that we can’t be looking forward to the start of next year! In these parts January has but one major event. The Starbird-Devlin Rod & Customs Charities Car Show. The show goes down this January 17-19th at the Century II in Wichita, KS. Last year’s show was the first time that I displayed my car for an indoor show and I really had a good time, this year I will again be a part of the Kustom City display featuring Wichita area kustoms. I’m honored to get to have my Galaxie with these beautiful cars!
Here’s a slide show of the photos from this year’s event.
in the trunk, I cleaned every damn surface of the exterior with the stuff. 🙂 Then it was off to walk around the show a bit and see who else was already set up or in the process.
