Speedseekers is new book by German born designer and photographer Alexandra Lier. Visiting Speedweek's salt for the first time, she was hooked. Suddenly a fascination with fast cars, hot rods and customs drove her from her design studio to garages shooting top mechanics and builders or she was off to races to get more pics of the cars she loves. That passion is captured in her first book, Speedseekers Organized into five main chapters, History, Garage, Speed, Landspeed, and Style & Sound. That first chapter about history might as well say "vintage drag racing" cause the included photos are a fantastic collection of legendary racers from Wild Willie Borsch to to Big Daddy Don Garlits to a fiery burnoutin his first rear engine dragster by the legendary "TV" Tommy Ivo. I spent over an hour studying the vintage pictures, then explained some of them to my sons: "This guy held on with only one hand!" I can't get enough of nostalgia drags and the people and cars that made it great (and still do in some cases). From there, I skimmed over the Garage chapter to check out Speed....

Hot Rod Chevy Gasser It takes all kinds, we know that, but you gotta like the gasser style from the 60's. Straight axle jacked up in the front with a slight lift in the back too. It's an attitude. It says, "I'm fast and I was built to run." So stumbling along at the Goodguys Southwest Nationals in Scottsdale, enjoying the sun and the 3000+ cars, I found one that stopped me in my tracks. It's a gasser alright, but it was pink. Pink! Not that goofy Mary K pink or some faded, pale pretty in pink, this was HOT pink and it was glowing in the Arizona sun. People walking by kept turning their heads sideways. Delirium? I gotta get a story about this car. Questions poured out when I finally had a chance to meet Bob Starks of Weatherford, TX. The story Bob told about his car epitomizes, "My Ride is Me." After buying a 1966 Chevy II Super Sport new, then selling it to buy a house, Bob has painstakingly remade his car. (Check out the pictures of the original car at the bottom of this...

Written By: Bill Stinson, published with permission. Bill wrote this story in May of 2006, but it wasn't until 2007 when I first saw the Silver 1967 (not 68) Plymouth GTX known as the Silver Bullet. The undisputed "King of Woodward Ave" drew a crowd for days at the legengary Woodward Avenue cruise and stirred up quite a controversy when there were two of them! (that's another story about the Silver Bullet) Please enjoy this story from a man who was there and knew the owner of the Silver Bullet, Jimmy Addison. The Passing of a Legend I first met Jimmy Addison around 1961. The McKay family lived down the street from me, and of the five kids in that family, there were the twins, Gloria and Gerri (Geraldine). They were (and are) about four years older than me. One of them (Gloria) had a suitor who drove a cool ’60 Chevy convertible, black with a white top, red and white interior, packin’ a hopped-up 348 4-speed. That car was named “Restless”. Jimmy and his friend Ted White raced the car on the street and at the strip and...

Please enjoy your brief, but meaningful and entertaining, look "over the shoulder" of painter Tom Fritz as he makes what I think is my favorite piece of Hot Rod Art to date (and he's got alot to like!). Over My Shoulder... Making Hot Rod Art Written By Tom Fritz (Car and Motorcycle fine art) One of the side benefits of working at my art is that I’ve been blessed with the development of an extended family of very close friends, a rich variety of both men and women who support me in my self-inflicted torture. And as sit here in front of yet another blank canvas trying to figure out the combination of what I am and what the world needs, I’m reminded of all the conversations in which I’ve been asked, how hard is it to make my art, or how long it takes me to make it — in which they try to get a handle on how I put a painting together. "...lets face it – starving can become a nuisance. ." These questions invariably come up at shows and in order to portray the illusion...

Written by: Erock805 (Erick's Garage) -Primer National Show Pictures also by Erock Not sure if there’s a better way of spending a Labor Day weekend then in Ventura, California at the Primer Nationals. Why is that you say? Well first of all, Ventura breathes blue collar. Nestled between the grime, glitz and plastic of LA and the pure money and luxury of the uber-rich Santa Barbara lies a little beach town ripe with local color. Ventura has resisted the flow of dough from its northern and southern brethren. Urban sprawl has yet to conquer its pockets of agriculture, manufacturing, and overall laid back attitude. It remains the sleepy beach town, where both free time and surfing are worked into one’s daily schedule. Sure you can find a restrauntuer who supplies the finest wine and a $30 dollar steak or fufu lorange, but I will stick to a great burger, an amazing shake and unrefurbished bowling alley. Old Town Ventura is still a real old down town that has yet to be bombarded with food and clothing chains. Stroll around to a few of the antique shops and you will...

This story is written by Paul Schram. I met Paul after he left a comment at one of my first (and most read) blogs at MyRideisMe.com: The Real "Silver Bullet" - 2007 Woodward Cruise. The comment said: "True, not true, fact, fiction, legend, Only Jimmy and maybe I know. I have heard many stories..." Being a curious (and somewhat desperate) blog writer, I contacted Paul. After all, talk is cheap. Needless to say, it wasn't just talk! Paul was there. He knew the people and was a big part of the scene. I'm fortunate that this is the first of maybe 4 posts Paul will contribute about his time and his memories from Woodward Ave. back in the late 60's. Here's his first post, a bit of an introduction: Imagine being 16 years old, in love with cars and anything to do with Drag racing. Imagine living just a couple miles away from Woodward Avenue in the suburbs of Detroit. Imagine that it is 1968, the explosion of muscle cars from the Big 3 are hitting the streets of Detroit. On top of all that imagine you work at...

How long has it been since you were excited about a car movie? Looking back there were a few good car movies, (Who remembers Dirty Mary and Crazy Larry) especially my all time favorite "American Graffiti". Has there been or will there ever be a car movie with such massive appeal and with an equally massive following? Released in 1973, American Graffiti still spawns clone cars and I saw "John Milner" (Paul Le Mat) at this year's Grand National Roadster Show. Wikopedia's got a ton to say about American Graffiti, but none more amazing then this: Graffiti is the highest cost-to-profit success in film history. When I first saw the trailer for Deuce of Spades, the first thing I thought of was American Graffiti. Deuce of Spades is a true car movie and it's focused purely on hot rods. I can't wait. I'm not saying they're similar, because they're not! Faith Granger, the woman (yea, a woman) behind Deuce of Spades tells me, " American Graffiti is a feel good movie about cruising and coming of age... and having fun." Deuce of Spades, on the other hand, is "An...

MyRideisMe.com featured a blog a while ago about the stunning, Grand National Roadster Show stealing (click to read->) 27 Chevy Modified built by Dan Collins of the Old Gold Garage. The car was built for his wife, Tiffany Collins, who actually purchased the car in a rusty hulk in Temecula, CA. If you dug this car, check out how the car was deservingly featured on the cover of Rod and Custom Magazine and they took some great studio pictures of the car and filled in some details. Take a look at the Rod and Custom online story. Congratulations Dan and...

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...

I met Keven Carter doing what I do best... surfing the web for the best Hot Rod and bike sites out there. Keven's been sharing his work at Photobucket where old ladies looking for pics of grandkid and quilting pics browse. I talked him into letting MyRideisMe.com have a few. It's a cool mix of black and whites and color shots of mostly period correct style hot rods and kustoms with a few pinups mixed in just for fun. Keven shared this brief bio... Ever since I was a young boy I wanted to grow up and own a car with fins. Since the automotive world looks to never go back down that road, I was compelled to look to the past. I have always been fascinated with old cars and vintage design elements, from packaging to advertising. I'm a graduate of The Center for Creative Studies (now College of Creative Studies, CCS) in Detroit, Michigan where I received my bachelors of fine art with a focus in Animation. My creative endeavors aren't limited to animation, but rather they span from Video installations, Sound Design, Film Production, Music, Photography,...

If you want to have some funny on the net, type in Nostalgia Drag Racing. From wild fuel altereds to stockers banging 4 speeds to top fuel funny cars, I like it all! No delay boxes or throttle stops there, just honest drag racing. I can't get enough. So stumbling around, I found Army Armstrong of The Funny Factory. You ever wonder who builds the bodies for the growing wave of nostalgia racers? You found it. The Funny Factory's got a short but impressive list of funny car bodies and it sounds like they're growing. Here's what Army had to say about his business: We were mainly racers so I guess the funny factory was kind of an accident. We mainly wanted to race a 1969 Charger bodied F/C but settled for a 1972 Vega body. Nothing against Vega's, but we really wanted to be different so the search went on for a few more months with no luck. During the search, we heard a rumor of a Charger mold hiding in Chicago. With a few phone calls we were on a road trip to get the mold... Once...

Somehow, I found another Kustom Kaiser! When I found Keith's Kaiser (Click here to see his Garage) I instantly thought, this is one of a kind! Well, it turns out it's not. Keith and Ron (Click here to see Ron's Hot Rod's Garage) have taken different approaches to customizing their Kaisers, but both will be equally cool because of the clean and near-custom finishes on the stock Kaiser. Ron's writing a blog for Blogger.com (Click here) that I stumbled on recently. He's let me run this blog to see what he's up to for the interior. I'm checking it out just in case I get to work on my Rambler Amercian wagon project again some day! Check it out: The priming of the miscellaneous parts for the Kaiser went well as the weather was nice and I was able to paint outside. I used PPG self etching epoxy primer DPLF and prepared the bare metal with "metal Prep" a 50/50 mixture with water then wiped the area down with a 50/50 mixture of PPG Dx330 wax and grease remover and lacquer thinner cleaning a 2' x2' area at a...