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62 Galaxie 500

What to do with an ex-street rod 62 Galaxie 500?

Some quick sketch work ideation for Dane:

New work for an old friend.

My buddy Mike got himself a pretty awesome Nomad, then put an extension on the garage.
More walls = more room for art! ...I'm not one to deny a man his art. :)

Finding the beauty... in the fugly.

Every time that I see a particularly hideous botch job on the HAMB, I feel the need to at least try and see what could be done. This one was a tough one...

The HAMB Posting

The car (if you can call it that):

My 5 minute sketch "solution":

Hot Rodding loses another Icon: Norm Grabowski. 1933-2012

Rest in Peace.

Photo courtesy of Street Rodder

Flying Flathead: Some history revealed!

Put up a post on the HAMB to see if I could dig up some history on our '34. Turns out it was built sometime in the late 70's or so. One of the members on the forum clued me in to the when and where, and was cool enough to scan the Street Rodder that it was featured in in '83. The rear tires look to be on the skimpy side, but look at that mill!

The "Flying Flathead": Out of storage and on the (slow) road to recovery.

After 12 years of dormant storage, my father finally unearthed his 34 roadster to start into it.

First a little history on the car:

As far as we've been told this was originally built up in the 60's or 70's by a pair of guys who ran it locally. Apprently it was featured in Street Rodder at some point wearing gloss purple and the name  "Flying Flathead" across the rear. When my father bought it, it looked as pictured; half assembled (or disassembled) and not running. Here's the car pulled into the daylight. I will update as we move forward.

...and closer

Closer...

54 Engine Sugery: Dropping the motor back in.

With the help of some beer,and a few buddies, I managed to get the motor set on the mounts, and started running fuel lines. Still a ways to go before firing it up, but the hard part is done anyway...

54 Engine Sugery: Closer and Closer...

Engine is cleaned detailed and ready to shoe-horn back in...

While it's out and the nose is in the air, I figured I might as well adjust the height again ...and whack another 1.5" outta the front, since I stepped it up to 3" blocks in the rear. It's hard to tell form the pic, but it stands quite a bit lower in front now, even without the weight of the motor, so it'll probably squat pretty hard once I drop the powerplant back in. :)



Honored.

Received some pictures last night from my buddy Sage, at Acme Signs. He's good friends with John Mumford, who owns and maintains the piece of automotive history that I based one of my Blueprint Series off of. The blueprint is now hanging in Johns garage, within eye shot of...well, the Sam Barris Merc! They sent me these pics of it, and it totally made my day. Needless to say, I'm honored to have one of my pieces be anywhere near the real deal.  Thanks Sage!

Barn Find Friday! 47 Plymouth coupe on the cheap.

I never really gave much thought to post war fat fendered cars. Be it Ford, GM or Mopar, they just never did much for me. But as I have become more versed in some of the early customs of the 50's I've seen what a good height adjustment, some tasteful dechroming and mild custom touches, along with wide whites and a good set of wheels or caps can do for even an otherwise homely car.

Case and point? the 46-8 Plymouth Coupes. Overall a decent looking car, with nice enough proportions.

Which brings me to the Friday Barn Find. Definitely gonna need some work, but if it's been inside for 30 years... well at least it hasn't been outside for 30 years! And the asking price seems fair enough.

The CL Ad

54 Engine Surgery: More prep work

Pro Touring '68 Dart GTS Conv.

Some new portrait work.

54 Heart Surgery: Cleaning and Polishing.

Since everything is apart, might as well detail it all up. The carbs were in need of some rebuild attention anyway, so I pulled everything apart, and cleaned, polished and reassembled it.

You can see how grimey it had become:

After some much needed clean up:

SpeedCo Motosports Shirt Logo.

54 Heart Surgery: Some new goodies

Well, actually I've had them for years, but finally have an excuse to get em rebuilt and put em to use!