Hot Rod Hemi's, Flatheads and Bangers - Take Your Pick! #1 Overhead Valve Conversion Banger Ford Flathead in a Slick looking Slingshot. Best Engines of the 2011 LA Roadster Show We tried this at the 2010 LA Roadster Show and it's been a great story with interesting feedback. So why not try it again? Everyone's got their own style and as you can see from the engines I picked out, I trend towards nostalgic, blown, FAST looking engines. How about you? Take a look at these and choose which one your favorite! Hit the "Like" button above and call it out by number. Or, if this is your car or you happen to be an expert on early Hemi's or overhead valve conversion flathead motors, then let us know what we're looking at. I hope I caught something to your liking! #2 Another well executed Ford "Banger" Flathead - Think there's enough carburetion? #3 I'm a sucker for the black and chrome look with simple lakes style headers. This Ford Flathead engine's got Harrell Los Angeles Racing Equipment on board. Learn more about Jim Harrell and the flathead parts...

PDX Car Culture Alive at Portland Car Show Rain Didn't Spoil This Parade! - Story and photos by Nick K. This time of the year Portland,Or has it’s Rose City festival. Which includes a number of festivities such as the Starlight Parade, Fleet Week, Rose Cup Races, a number of firework shows and now, the Rose City Round Up car show. Which is becoming a Kustom Kulture staple in a rich history of Portland’s Rose City Festivals. Portland's best hot rod and kustom kulture show geared up for it's 4th Rose City Round Up. The Rose City Round-up is an annual event hosted by the Driven Dead Car Club (CC) to celebrate the hot rod lifestyle of the Pacific Northwest. This being my 1st run at the Round Up, I was quite revved up for this event. It's no secret that I have a fondness for the Great Northwest not to mention a love for the culture. I had plenty of time to think about it as we drove 10hrs up Interstate 5 to get to Portland, Or. I have to admit it's quite a drive when you have...

Hot Rod, Street Rods and Customs Pack Pomona (click on any picture to see it full size) In all the years I've been going to the LA Roadster Show, I've always attended the SoCal Speed Shop's open house car show on the Friday night before the Roadster Show. By about 4PM on Friday, everyone's already setup their swap spaces and scoped out the early deals, so besides grabbing a bite, there's not much else to do except see some great local custom hot rods and see what Jimmy Shine and the other builders are up to at the shop. Outside the shop, the streets are lined with hot rods and customs like this 49 Buick Sedanette. Out of all the cars I saw this weekend, this Buick was one of my favorites. It was for sale too. Got an extra $45k? Much like the high style and high dollar cars found at the LA Roadster Show, SoCal brings in some of the finest hot rod examples to be found in all of California... and farther. They normally have at least one Billy Gibbons project going on, and he's, "Bad,...

Nostalgia drag racing all weekend in Beaver Springs, PA Located about an hour's drive north of Harrisburg, PA, Beaver Springs Dragway is a dragstrip with lots of heart. The crew running the show goes out of their way to make you feel like part of the family. Their advertising slogan is "Nobody does it better!" and I would have to say that's definitely not false advertising! The "Beav" is the perfect location for Gasser Magazine's Gasser Reunion that was held June 10-12. We hit the road early to make the 3 hour drive from our home base in WV and it rained the entire trip! When we arrived, the spectators' parking field had an inch of standing water. Do you ever get the feeling that maybe you are wasting your time making a long trip for nothing? Well, luckily that feeling for us was wrong and the sun was shining by 8:30am. Everyone was able to enjoy a full day of racing. Randy Campbell's 1950 "Full Metal Jacket" Studebaker sits in the pits drying after the early morning rain. The track crew did an excellent job getting the dragstrip prepared...

Hot Rod Roadsters - Only the Pretty Ones at 2011 LA Roadster Show (click on any picture to see it full size) I mentioned in the 2011 LA Roadster Show kick-off story there's three parts of the show: the "Proper" roadster show, the "other" cars (also the part I like best!) and the swap meet. I'd say there's four parts if you include the Pomona SoCal Speed Shop open house. We'll cover all of those for you at MyRideisMe.com! Stay tuned and check back often! As you can see, there was no shortage of custom hot rods at the show. The key difference for the LA Roadster Show is of course, they all must be roadsters. The strict definition is "no roll up windows" but who cares! If the top comes off, it's a roadster to me. By the afternoon, the sky had finally cleared from its dreary (and miserable to photograph!) gray color and was showing a beautiful blue sky. Isn't this what we always think of for California? The few Model T's and late 30's and 40's roadsters were easy to spot and served to break up...

Custom Hot Rods Rock the LA Roadsters Back again! For the 5th year, this is one of the best hot rod and custom car shows you'll see, in California, or maybe anywhere. It's easy to see why this show's a success: The Roadster Show "proper" - finished, shiny painted no-roof cars only The "Other" cars... every other custom car in So-cal, pre '75, want'n a primo parking spot A freakin HUGE swap meet!! (if this doesn't get yer motor turn'n... move on now) Make your way to Pomona, make sure to Learn the NEW LA Roadster Show layout and enjoy what we found... 2011 LA Roadsters Show Here's how the day starts for most people attending the LA Roadster Show. It's a massive line. We arrived at about 3:30AM on Friday morning (no we're not psycho, that's just when we arrived from AZ!) and were in the 5th line. Each line was about 1/2 mile long with trucks, trailers and RV's filled with swap'n goodies. It's not long before you realize... you might see just about anything... Look closely, that's a right hand driver Chevy Ute. When's the last...

Cool Hot Rods and Customs from Australia It wasn't easy, but after 6 cell calls and struggling through the crowds at 2011 Viva Las Vegas, I finally met up with Luke Ray, the creative mind behind Fuel Magazine. Fuel Magazine's all about the hot rods, custom cars, bikes and oh yes... the girls that make Australia's scene one not to miss. Available in the traditional styled "Small book" format, it's a very high quality publication where no expense is spared on printing. The latest issue, #07 is "'The Customs Issue". Luke figured it'd be cool to do a customs biased issue, seeing as there are so many cool custom cars here in Australia. Sounds great to me... my book's in the mail. Luke also features some of the world's greatest artists. Here's a quick sample that's not so coincidentally pretty friendly on the eyes. One of these days, I'll go see first hand. Until then, preview Fuel Magazine Issue #7 here: Buy Australian Hot Rod Magazine: Fuel Have you seen Fuel before? Let us know what you...

Cool Hot Rods from 2011 York NSRA Nationals Car Show More than 3500 hot rods and customs registered for the 38th Street Rod Nationals East. You must be doing something right to be able to say this is the 38th time you have hosted an event and the 2011 event wasn’t any different. The city of York, PA has been lucky enough to be the location of this massive gathering for 31 of those 38 years. It has only been a few years since the National Street Rod Association (NSRA) relaxed the age restriction for vehicles entering the show grounds. Now, you can find more vehicles than just street rods, as long as they are 20 years old or older, driving around the event fields. Some of the best rides the East Coast has to offer attend this show annually. Right when we walked through the spectators’ gate I was greeted with one of my favorite paint schemes. There is just something about gloss flames on a flat black finish that appeals to me. Paul Kain’s 1948 Ford was done exactly the way I like it. Would you believe...

What's New for the 2011 LA Roadster Show Looking for show coverage for 2011? Try these links! First Pictures from 2011 LA Roadster Show Shiny and Finished – Inside the 2011 LA Roadster Show SoCal Pomona’s Open House – Nothing to See Here There's few shows not to miss. One of them is the LA Roadster Show in Pomona, CA. This is the 47th car show for the Los Angeles Roadsters Car Club and this year's Father's Day Weekend,  June 18th-19th. If you're planning to attend, you should know about a major layout changes so you don't get lost on the way in. Spectators: The biggest change is for spectators. This year, you'll be parking in the Blue Lot off White Avenue through Gate #9. If you've ever been to the Grand National Roadster Show, it's the same for that show. There's a bus/trolley available to help you get back and forth, or you can make the short walk through the tunnel. It's a long walk from the parking lot and the Roadster Show Parking/Vendors area over to Specialty Parking and the Swap Meet so make sure you jump...

The Oregon Rally and an Intro to Rallying At the beginning of the automotive era, all auto races were rallies – dedicated race tracks simply didn’t exist, and paved roads were rare outside of cities. So the only way to race cars was to start at Point A and race to Point B. That’s what they did in 1894 – the challenge was to get yourself and your car from Paris to Rouen – a distance of some 79 miles. The winning car made it in 6 hours and 48 minutes – 3 hours and 30 minutes ahead of second place.  That made the average speed about 11 miles per hour. But there it was – an auto race that used unpaved roads to get from one place to another.  Almost 117 years later, the Oregon Trail Rally happened May 13-15 weekend at Portland International Raceway and on roads up in the Columbia Gorge near The Dalles.  The cars are a little bit faster, but the fundamentals of the race are the same – get your car, driver, and navigator from one place to another as fast as you...

Paint Review - Phoenix Custom Paint Shop to Avoid! You're not looking at an artistic interpretation of the state of West Virginia, you're looking at the terrible paint work by a company in Phoenix, Arizona called "Terrific Paint and Customs". When you start a project, one of the biggest things you need to decide is a budget. Because my four-door, Ford Falcon wagon was never going to be a high-dollar car, no matter what I did to it, I didn't want to spend a fortune on paint. I did want something shiny that I could be proud of, but I knew that getting a great paint job, or "Show Quality" was not in my budget. That's when I started looking for a "driver" quality paint shop.  I found a Craigslist ad and gave the guy a call. He sounded cool enough, knowledgeable, and his ad said, "15 year experience". I sent a bunch of pictures of my Falcon, we talked and sent way too many texts about all the things I wanted to do and he said $1800 and it'd be done in about 3 weeks. (keep that in...

How To Metal Flake Your Car Just because I love grease, doesn't mean that I don't love sparkly things too! Before going to Viva Las Vegas this year, I wanted to add a little bling to my 1955 Studebaker Champion with a metal flake paint job. Studie and I have been through a lot together in the five years I’ve owned and drove her. I’ve become attuned to her original patina’d coral and white paint job. So originally the thought of changing her exterior in any way made me nervous. But the more I thought about adding a subtle sparkle to Studie’s white roof portion, the more I liked the idea. Not knowing the first thing about how to paint, I was lucky to have an expert nearby. Pati Fairchild is the newest member of my car club, the Gasoline Girls. She also happens to be a professional paint and body chick who teaches the subject at El Camino College. After polling friends on Facebook and looking through various paint samples, I paid a visit to Coast Airbrush in Anaheim for my final selection. I went in knowing I wanted...