The rains held off long enough this weekend for the wife and I to attend our first Concours d’ Elegance. Like the last few weekends, the rain has played havoc on most East coast events and this weekend was no exception. But, the clouds parted late Saturday and I decided we would risk attending the Sunday show. The 19th Concours d’ Elegance of the Eastern United States was held once again on the campus of Northampton Community College in Bethlehem, PA as a fund raiser for The Burn Prevention Foundation. Over 100 awesome vehicles, from a 1906 Reo Model B Roadster to a 2008 Audi R8 Coupe, were present to gawk and drool over. The theme of the show was “A Century of Automotive Innovation” with a special exhibit area of “The Evolution of the Tailfin”. With the theme covering such a large segment of vehicles, there was something for everyone (Antiques, Race Cars, Muscle Cars, Super Cars, Vintage Motorcycles, etc.). How often do you get the chance to be within inches of such rare and expensive machines? This was the most excited I have been about just looking...

On the weekend of April 25-27 my family and I headed out to Orange, CA for the 2008 Motorsport Datsun/Nissan Z Show. We met up with a few members of the Desert Z association and made a caravan to Cali. Ryan and I led the way in his 1981 silver and black 280 turbo ZX, followed closely by my dad and mom in his rally orange 1976 280 Z (great year by the way!) . After checking in at the hotel we headed to the “meet and greet” in front of the Motorsport shop. While we were there Christa aka “Z Chick”, told us about a local car show held on the grounds of Ford Headquarters in LA, called “Cars and Coffee” and encouraged us to check it out. She boasted that there would be cars in attendance that we may never have even seen or heard of before and may never again in our lifetimes. She rattled off a list of celebrities and auto industry idols who had made past appearances with their vehicles, and insisted that in spite of the early hour (it starts at 6am!) it...

A short 55 miles away from my house in Chandler, AZ, I met up with AzAmber, at the Saturday night 83rd Ave and Beardsley cruise-in. What a great show! I took off Saturday and stopped by Industrial Chassis, then hit the Safeway parking lot at about 6PM. There weren't many spots left! The show was a nice mix of cars. You had your hot rods, street machines and even a few exotics, but there were also a couple low riders mixed in with the new factory muscle. Something for everyone! I handed out every card I had that night to a warm group of people saying I'd write a blog about it, so here it is. I won't feature the cars I saw in this blog, but they're coming! (Leave a comment if you see your car!) Here's the sneak peak: That nasty looking 1954 Studebaker's running a former NHRA Top Alcohol dragster engine! Watch for a feature story on that one! The pretty Jag's for sale and will be show at the Brighton Ranch Paint and Body show coming up next weekend 5/17/08. Look at their website for...

Aaah, spring in the Northeast. Time to take the covers off the hibernating beast in the garage and do some car stuff. The beginning of the season up in the Northeast has been marked for the last 31 years by a five day event simply known as Spring Carlisle. The event is held each year in April at the Carlisle Fairgrounds in Carlisle, PA. During this event, the 81 acre facility is just stuffed full of cars, parts, supplies, and collectibles for sale. If it is for sale on the East Coast it will more than likely be here. Finding it may be a problem though. Even if you arrive when the gates open at 7:00 AM you will have a tough time seeing everything by the time the gates close at 7:00 PM. Making it even harder is the fact that, if you are looking for cars, many of the nearby neighborhoods allow cars to park on their lawns (for a fee of course) and sellers take this opportunity to display cars for sale. Looking to buy shop equipment? With several large vendors present ordering ahead of time...

Just wanted to let you know that Paul (Swanee3) has loaded a few of his pics from the Phoenix 2008 World of Wheels in the MyRideisMe.com event picture gallery. (Click here to see it!) While you're there, check out the tons of pics from the Goodguys show and Billetproof 2007. Coming soon are pics from Fontana Raceway and the Grand National Roadster Show in Pomona, CA. Here's a sample of Swanee's work: If you'd like to see more of Swanee's work, check out the other site's where he loads pictures (he tells me he loves MyRideisMe.com the most!) Then watch for some photos by a new member, SEAANDSANDS. He's a portrait photographer, so this is a hobby for him too, but dig the effects he did on this photo. You gotta love that! Thanks guys! Subscribe to this blog: RSS 2.0 Care to comment? Can you take better pictures? Let's see'm! And while you're here, please JOIN MyRideisMe.com 10% off entire order at Discount Performance Auto Parts use code...

Thanks to Autorama, MyRideisMe.com was able to attend the World of Wheels show, take a ton of pictures (coming soon, right Paul?) and give away 10 tickets to the show. A great deal for everyone. I'm going to save comments on the show for another blog. Right now, I just want to say how great it was to meet one of the guys who inspire me when building my cars, Jimmy Shine. If you think you're into the hot rod and custom bike scene, but you don't know Jimmy Shine, then maybe you ain't. If you want to know more, check out this bio (Click HERE) written by Pete Chapouris, President of the SO-CAL Speed Shop (and I guess Jimmy's boss). That bio must be kinda old though cause it doesn't mention the TV show Pete and Jimmy did for TLC called, "Hard Shine". That show's where I learned more about what Jimmy Shine's been up to and the way he builds. I saw a self made guy that's worked his ass off to get where he is now that's totally into the hobby. He's living the dream so...

While cruising Myspace looking for car and bike enthusiasts to bring to the light of MyRideisMe.com, I learned of the 16th Annual YOKOHAMA HOT ROD Custom Show 2007 that happened December 2nd in Pacifico Yokohama sponsored by Mooneyes Yokohama. I’ve got a special interest in what’s going on in Japan since I work for Nissan and I lived in Harajuku, Tokyo, Japan in 2000. When there, I’d occasionally see a car that was completely out of place: an old Chevy wagon or a vintage Mustang, but nothing like what’s at this show. To find the best pics of a Japanese show you look at Japanese websites, right? Good luck! That's where a new friend from Myspace named Jiro from Gifu, Japan (near Osaka) helped me find some of those websites, especially this one: SP@RETIME. Maki Kurata from Nagoya, Japan runs Sp@retime and it is LOADED with outstanding pictures of the bike and hot rod scene in Japan. The picture to the left was just loaded. Maki and his buddies are riding in Japan now and it is COLD there now! This gallery's called: いつものメンツで極寒ナイトクルーズ！ which loosely translates to: "The...

Mess-up fuel pump, lost air bleed screw for the new carbs, broken rocker stud, up all night getting ready for the show and sore-as-hell-legs. We had a great time! Here’s my recap of the 2007 Goodguys Show in Scottsdale, AZ. That all didn’t happen to me, I did change the fuel pump on my car, but probably didn’t need to. The new pump only hit about 1.5psi to start, then up to 3, back to 1, all over the place. Finally, she settled in and makes 3 psi as I’d hoped. My friend Joe helped out by taking this photo. By the way, your battery will go dead if you leave the pump on. sigh. For the big day, Saturday, we met at 6AM at a gas station. 6 of us left together headed north on the 101. Just as we hit the freeway, I decided I’d better get gas… duh, shoulda done that before. As soon as I got back on the road, I saw my pops and his friend Larry on the side of the road. Broken rocker stud. Larry had it at the show by 11!...