Rolling Bones Hot Rod Shop

Sometimes, I think New York must be heaven on Earth. Around every corner I turn or every city I look up on the internet holds some gem, some oasis from the sea of crap and mediocrity that our world generally is these days. And today, I found a fresh breath of garage air called the Rolling Bones Hot Rod Shop, located in Greenfield Center, NY. It's kinda stupid that I haven't heard about them until now, because they are masters of what they do and quite well known in the hot rod community. Way to go, me! Always two steps behind.


Image from Hot Rod Revival
The two proprietors of this old school speed shop, Ken Schmidt and Keith Cornell, appear to be (I say appear because I haven't been there or anything) churning out some really well-built, classically styled hot rods prime for melting salt out in Bonneville. They even have a documentary out about a trip with their cars to the Mecca of rod-racing, aptly titled "The Road to Bonneville".

I highly recommend checking them out if you are anywhere in that area. They seem like a bunch of like-minded good guys who are worth supporting. Check out more photos of their shop here and a Deuce frame buildup process article at Street Rodder mag.

ROD-A-DAY: Maryland Model A

Yes, I know...you probably thought you'd never see another Rod-A-Day again, didn't you??? Well HA - just when you think I've forgotten about my promises, I make good on them. At least for today.


1930 Model A sedan, from the 38th Annual Vintage Tin of Maryland Rod Run in September, by splattergraphics via Flickr.
In other stream of consciousness news: am about to embark on reading Tom Wolfe's "The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby"; there are NO hot rod magazines based out of the East Coast (I'm talking made-of-paper old school type magazines...are there?) and I want to design for one someday; and Hair the musical was actually pretty great (fuckin' hippies).

And in a whoppingly good suprise turn of aural events, my sexy piece of man beast just put Man...or Astroman? 1000X ** on the record player (yes, a real record player). I knew there was a reason I liked that guy.

**(Buy it from Touch and Go Records and support your local indie record label, jerkface!!! Buy vinyl! ...Or one day someone is going to spill a glass of water on your cellphone and you'll lose your entire record and video collection as well as your entire personal library!!)


Is it artifical? This gravity is strong...

ROA-A-DAY: Barn Busters

This bit of photography beauty comes from the Flickr set of Washington D.C. based artist and furniture maker A. Drauglis. One day, I hope to restore Model A's just for the fun of it too.

ROD-A-DAY: Hot Custom Ford in Florida

I hate street rod paint jobs. HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE. Fifty-somethings with absolutely no color-theory knowledge shouldn't be allowed to choose finish colors for their cars. The horrifying results are usually enough to send me into vomiting epileptic seizures as they race by (and by "race", I mean cruise by at 25 miles per hour, because that's "racing" when you're 50 and own a light peach pink, fiberglass body '32 ford with a weird, airbrushed checkered-flag stripe zig-zagging all over the side of your ride). Case in point, see massacre below.


Dear lord.

But today's rod of the day, while utilizing some seriously sherbet-inspired standard street rod colors, is far from vom-inducing. Behold - the custom '49-50 ford that candy coated dreams are made of...


From the Titus Nights car show in Titusville, FL, taken by Keith, found on Flickr.
Basically, what it comes down to for me is that basically when you're in Florida, shit like this can be let to slide.

And yes, yes...I realize that my "Rod-A-Day" posts are probably disappointing you on many levels, firstly because they are obviously not happening every day and secondly because they are so heavy with shoebox Fords. Especially scalloped shoebox Fords. I swear I'm going to try and mix it up. SWEAR!

ROD-A-DAY: Roddy Moore's '49 Shoebox

RIGHT before I was about to call it a night, I stumbled across this beaut of a 'box from Virginia (assumedly) posted on Garage Magazine's blog page.

Artistic mastery of scallops, if I've ever seen it

Although I haven't done more research, it appears that Mr. Moore is also heavily affiliated with the Blue Ridge Institution in Ferrum, Virginia, and possibly responsible for curating a recent exhibition called "Full Throttle: A History of Drag Racing and Oval Track Racing in Southwest Virginia", which is right up our little East Coast alley. Having grown up myself relatively close to the Blue Ridge area of Appalachia, this all has particularly more interest to me.

You have to check out the Full Throttle site...just look at this list of original Car Clubs from the area.


Thundering Turtles car club plaque
How cool is that? I have no doubt in my mind I've had conversations with members of some of these clubs who were still around to wax enthusiastically about draggin' and drivin' in Virginia mid-century. Other tart little morsels in the online exhibit: a list of drag strips throughout the area and opening years, featurettes of local legends in car craft including apholstry and pin striping (to name a couple) and a glossery of southern VA hot roddin' slang terms. So check it out already, ya Squirrel!

UPDATE MADNESS!!!

Madness? Really? Ok, so it might not be much, depending on your definition of madness, but I updated the site with a bunch of new images today. Actually, the sad part of technology is that what took me an entire day to do (scanning, photoshopping and uploading old 35mm photos) will take you a fraction of an hour to look at. ...I'm going to try not to think about it.

First, I finally got all the images I took at the KKOA show back in June together and posted for you to check out both below and on the RODS page. (I'm still working on all the captions, so cool yer jets.)


Kustom Kemps of America Sled Scene East 2009
Want more? Well aren't you in luck! A few weeks ago I found three rolls of undeveloped film while I was cleaning up the house, so I got them developed and a week later (that's how long it takes the drug store to process film these days), voila! Turns out two of them were photos from the NSRA East show at the York Fairgrounds in York, PA from either 2000 or 2001, I can't really tell which.


A few selected images from the set.
Again, if you're interested, you can check them all out in their own set on Flickr until they are all here on the site, in one neat and tidy little place. I've been having some trouble deciding if I should just give up making individual pages for all these car show photos and just link solely to the Flickr set, but really, there's something kinda special about having all your web content in one place to look at. Makes shit easier, right? Probably.

I'm starting to realize why I had neglected this website for such a long time previously; having a full-time job (or I should say, being one of the lucky people I know who still has a full-time job) is really cutting into my "being productive in other more exciting areas of my life" time. Yeesh. I'm going to do my best to keep this stuff coming and still get at least four hours of sleep a night so, enjoy it while you can!

KKOA and a ROD-A-DAY

This past weekend the main squeeze and I traveled back to my hometown in PA for some much needed time away from the grunt and grime of NYC to do some grilling and clean our lungs out for a few days. While there, on Saturday evening, I finally realized that ("supposedly"...more on this in a second) the annual Kustom Kemps of America Sled Scene East show at Oakside Park in Biglerville, PA was going on this same weekend. I say "supposedly" because while the local paper in my parents' town claimed the show was in full effect, all I could find online was a random smattering of internet notices saying that the 2009 KKOA show had been relocated and would never again be held in Oakside Park. Instead, from now on it will be at the Mason Dixon Dragway in Boonsboro, Maryland, about an hour south of its former locale. As far as I'm concerned, it seems like a great venue switch, if only for bathrooms that aren't porta-johns and the fact that you can sign up to drag your car against anybody else you've had in your crosshairs to race.

The only sad part is that this means there's one less interesting thing to do in Gettysburg, PA at any given time of year.

Regardless, Mark and I had seen a few old cars in town and traveled up there on Sunday to see if there was any roddin' goodness left to be had. While there was, it was pretty sparse and pretty short-lived. (At least by then we weren't charged admission and they were giving away free fruit salad at the snack bar.) I don't know if some people showed up there because they were confused, but we at least got a handful of great shots of the cool cars that were still hanging around.

Until I get a chance to upload all of those images, in the meantime, let me give you this - our very first ever "Rod-A-Day" photo, from Brad Lehman (assumedly) via his Flickr account...


From the KKOA '08 Sled Scene East at Oakside Park
There are oh soooo many cars I come across in my daily Flickr travels, not to mention being a part of several auto-enthusiast photo groups on the site that I figured I'd share some of my favorites with all my lovely garage-goers. The idea being that these will eventually appear every day at the top of the "Rods" section of the site (once I get that up to snuff...) and I have created my own Flickr Group in hopes that you'll be able to go back and view each of the previous "Rod-A-Day" vehicles, in case you were lame and missed a few days). Maybe if I'm lucky, some of you will sign up and send me photos of your own rides you'd like to see featured on this site. I'd love to be able to get all the nitty gritty details about people's cars, which isn't always possible when it's a photo of somebody else's car and not your own (like above).

HOT SLEDS IN THE SUMMER

The Rumblers Car Club of NYC will be having their 6th annual "Rumble in the Country" at the Terryville Fairgrounds in Terryville, Connecticut THIS SATURDAY, June 13th. Open to classic kustoms, hot rods and motorcycles, it's only $10/car to show off your damn hard machining & restoration work to the gasser-groveling public (pre-register by email at rumblersnomads@yahoo.com).

There will be bands, food and camping (on Friday night the 12th) so don't miss out. I won't be there because:

A) I can't ride my bike that far on a Friday night
B) The closest Metro North station is still almost two hours away, and
C) I will be back in PA for that particular weekend

...but that doesn't mean YOU shouldn't be.

Also, coming up quickly is the Goodguys East Coast Nats and swap meet in Rhinebeck, NY, at the Dutchess County Fairgrounds, June 26th - 28th.




Register now for a weekend of stage shows, parties and gearhead goodness. You can register now online (closes at midnight, Friday, June 12th!) and after, there will be registration at the Fairgrounds themselves.