Rubber@Road

Gearhead, wrench, artist

2010-07-28T15:10:00.013-05:00

As a matter of course, I write about people I don’t know here. I see a unique vehicle; I chase it down, photograph it, and interview the owner. Today, I’m writing about a good friend.

Mark and I met in art school back in the early 70s. He was studying Industrial Design, making sculpture for fun. And fixing up Corvairs. He was driving a primer white one then, with no interior trim except for the dashboard, driver’s seat, and - when you were lucky - a seat for you.

Ralph Nader would have been horrified. In fact, Mark’s license plate said it all; “UNSAFE”.

After a gap of some 30 years, I have had the pleasure of getting back in touch with Mark. He is still doing things his own way. (“Well, I lack any adult supervision”, he points out.) It struck me as ironic that he has worked for many years at Johnson Controls, testing and trouble-shooting automotive seats and interior parts.

And he’s still fixing up Corvairs. And Camaros, and ‘Vettes. And Chevy pickup trucks.

Mark has the skills to take a car completely apart, and the vision to then re-assemble that pile of parts. Each part, no matter how mundane, is cleaned, straightened, refinished before it is assembled into a complete, drivable vehicle. A work of art – industrial design and sculpture.

In the process, he has collected what he calls “The Archive” of Chevrolet parts from the 60s, mainly Corvair, some of which you see here. It may look as though these parts are just piled up randomly. They are not. Virtually every part is tagged and cataloged, hardware bagged and attached, and many carry Mark’s hand-drawn diagrams illustrating how this particular component attaches to its neighbors to eventually form an entire automobile.

Mark says he has enough Corvair parts to assemble “at least two really nice ones.” Which he might do, when he is finished restoring the 1953 Chevy pickup in the garage. And rebuilding his 1923-vintage wood frame house.

Mark took some time from all this restoration to collaborate with me on a photographic exposition of human expression through the automobile for a School of Art Alumni Show, and it was a gas to work with him.

--

Your father’s Ferrari - Vintage racing at Road America

2010-07-21T14:21:00.009-05:00

To those of us old enough to recognize a carburetor, there’s a powerful attraction to cars that possess these old mixing pots for fuel and air.

The cars of the post WWII era through the mid-seventies hold a spell on gearheads, especially racing cars.

While a modern race car is pretty much a computer lab on wheels, leaving a wake of data that’s analyzed and acted upon in real-time by a crew of engineers along the pit wall, these cars were generally designed without the aid of wind tunnels or computer simulators. Many are simply modified road cars that were never intended for competition.

Road car or purpose-built racer, they represent a team’s or sometimes a single man’s best guess at what would be fast at a given point in time. In the absence of actual data, there is wonderful and endless variety in their forms, dominated by the sure knowledge that lighter is better and a part is only too light if it breaks.

The purpose-built race cars are hand-made by experts at casting, machining and bending metals and other more exotic materials, and the intricacy of their construction is mind boggling. Full attention to the smallest part is required, or that part becomes the one that is not able to withstand the stress and the heat, and gives way, taking the entire operation out of the race.

All excess material having been shaved off, parts are frequently polished to various levels of reflectivity, sometimes just to show off the beauty of their forms.

The Kohler International Challenge at Wisconsin’s Road America is an annual gathering of aficionados of old race cars from all over the world. They come to celebrate the sounds and sights of these vintage machines. They represent a high point in optimizing an internal combustion engine and a set of four wheels to carry a single person as fast as possible around a given stretch of road.

The lucky ones even get to race them.

All contents copyright Jeffery Blackwell 2010

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Vintage Wooden Driver – 1984 Chrysler LeBaron Town & Country

2010-07-08T17:31:00.008-05:00

About the same time that serious golfers were bagging their wooden drivers and moving to metal-headed ones, Chrysler was bolting wood-like panels to its boxy K-car LeBaron, in the 50-year-old tradition they branded “Town & Country”.

I caught up with this one, most appropriately, in the parking lot of a local country club. The Town & Country could not have been more comfortable unless the forecast of thunder showers had not discouraged a top-down ride.

By 1984, Lee Iacocca had moved over from Ford to take the stick of the nose-diving Chrysler, which he saved by going to Washington in 1979 and asking the government for loan guarantees to calm banks and deserting investors. But in addition to his considerable political skills, Lee was a car guy with legendary ability to read the market, even before his customers. (Remember Iacocca’s personal challenge in those TV commercials; “If you can find a better car, buy it.”) Without this K-car and its siblings, it’s safe to say that Chrysler would not have survived to be bailed out again.

The Town & Countries were almost all station wagons, making this convertible quite rare, with just over 1,100 built in 1984. It was definitely the high-end variant of the K-car, with Mark Cross supplying the design of the “fine Corinthian” leather interior touted so famously by spokesman Ricardo Montalban.

This car also has the “Electronic Voice Alert”, which the owner tells me still works perfectly. Built by Texas Instruments, and using the same voice synthesizer technology as the contemporary “Speak n Spell” educational toy, the system lowers the radio volume (if necessary) and provides polite reminders to put on your seatbelt, seek service for a critical engine problem, and, when disembarking, “Don’t forget your car keys”.

The owner, Mr. O’Neil (who tells me his friends call him “Tip”), smiled and told me “And it always says “Thank you’. (You can listen to an EVA and a Speak n’ Spell having a conversation - of sorts – here.)

Mr. O’Neil is recently retired and drives the car almost exclusively to the club. Tip told me he has worked there for over 30 years. When I asked him if he was a Pro, he smiled and said, “Yeah. I’m a professional bartender.”

While he worked nights and weekends drawing beers for people of comfortable means, Mr. O’Neil worked days for as many years teaching kids who are “at risk” at a local high school. “It was very challenging,” he told me, “but I loved it.”

I think it’s wonderful that Mr. O’Neil and his Town & Country get to spend so much time at the club these long summer days. They’ve both worked hard and done a fine job. In the words of the Electronic Voice Alert, Mr. O’Neil; “Thank you”.

All contents copyright Jeffery Blackwell

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Land Shark; flat black 2000 Ford Taurus

2010-06-24T10:43:00.005-05:00

I was meeting my friends Clay and Paul in a hip café near campus on the east side of Milwaukee. How hip? Deep fried balls of shredded turkey meat with mashed potatoes and beer gravy? Comet Café. Farwell Avenue.

As I approached, I sensed the presence of this menacing car.

Go ahead and snicker. I don't blame you. There is probably no more domesticated a car than a 2000 Ford Taurus.

But look into the yellowed, moist, cataract-covered eyes of this beast. Even the self-adhesive Gothic symbols are shredding themselves from its flanks. There’s a roll of toilet paper on the rear package shelf, for God’s sake. This is a nasty car. Nasty.

I was telling Clay and Paul about it as I slid into the booth.

Our waitress, Ariel, smiled cheerily and said “Oh, that’s my car.”

“I got the sweet Wolverine gash when I backed into a fence.”

This incident prompted the paint job, and the blood gushing from the wound is meant to make a statement. “I wanted to enter a demolition derby, so I wanted her to look real mean," Arial told me, clenching her teeth a little bit. (She also confided that she sometimes refers to the Taurus as the “BratMobile”, but that’s not an "official" name. I'm sure she'll come up with something more intimidating.)

"But then I found out that the derbies have all these safety requirements, like a special gas tank, harnesses, and everything. And the suspension is shot. I was afraid I wouldn’t even meet the safety standards for a demolition derby." There's your proof. This car is too dangerous for the demolition derby.

“There was never any doubt about the color. It was always going to be flat black.”

All content copyright Jeffery Blackwell 2010
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Stock cars at Road America

2010-06-21T20:43:00.012-05:00

NASCAR was in the my neck of the woods over the weekend, and the opportunity to see the big cars muscle around Road America’s 14 – left and right – corners was not to be missed.

I’ve been to any number of the United States’ premier road racing circuits; Laguna Seca, Mid-Ohio, Michigan, Indianapolis, and Watkins Glen for the U.S.G.P back in the day. Plus a bunch of smaller circuits for SCCA club events. But Road America is by far my favorite race track.

Road America would be a lovely place to spend the afternoon even if there weren’t a race track there. Deep green forests of mature oaks stand at the tops of long lush hills leading down to the track.

To someone from Wisconsin, it’s almost unnatural that there are no Holsteins on the slopes of the valley that holds turn five.

When there’s a race, it’s like county fair time, but instead of prize cows you have these amazing cars.

In this case, it was the NASCAR Nationwide cars that were stampeding around the course, and these animals do have some very wide shoulders. The NASCAR boys are not afraid to lean on the competition when things get tight, and Road America has lots of turns where things got very tight. Too tight in a couple of cases. NASCAR needs to learn that a car off the course doesn’t necessitate a full course yellow flag until - well, until the cows come home.

Unfortunately, I was not at Canada Corner when the three lead cars entered this legendary downhill 90-degree right-hander side-by-side, but that amazing moment has been added to the lore of this track, which goes back to the mid-50’s – the very beginning of sports car racing in the U.S.

I don’t know if you’d call these machines sports cars, but I’m pretty sure the drivers enjoyed their drive in the country about as much as we enjoyed watching them.

All content copyright Jeffery Blackwell 2010

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Crazy ‘bout a Mercury Ford

2010-06-09T07:51:00.007-05:00

In tribute to the fallen Mercury, here are some that I have photographed recently.

I had my money
I tell you what I'd do
I would go downtown an’
Buy a Merc'ry or two
I'm crazy 'bout a Merc'ry
Yes, I'm crazy ‘bout a Merc'ry Ford
I’m gonna buy a Merc'ry an’
Cruise up and down the road

Mercury Boogie by K. C. Douglas and Robert Geddins

My Dad’s first job with Ford was actually with the L-M division, so I have known more than a few Mercurys. A Turnpike Cruiser - which I remember for its extremely awkward styling – and a Comet Caliente which I remember for being a red convertible with a four-on-the-floor are the only two that stand out.

Mercury’s best years occurred before I was born – on the salt flats, beaches and drag strips of Southern California. But I did get to see Cale Yarborough and David Pearson muscle huge Mercury Cyclones around Michigan International Speedway back when NASCAR stock cars were basically stock cars. And I saw the great Dan Gurney race a Cougar wheel to wheel with Panelli Jones in a Mustang and Mark Donohue in a Camaro in the classic TransAm series.

Sales figures prove that there are not a lot of people who will mourn, or even miss, Mercury. But as long as it was breathing, there was always the possibility that it would get an infusion of support from Ford management. Not-quite-a-Lincoln is obviously not a viable niche, but perhaps it could have become the Scion of Ford. Could the brand survive as the entry gateway to Ford, rather than the exit from it?

Ford says they are now going to focus those Mercury resources on developing Lincoln. Judging from the Mercury products of recent years, that is not a lot.

I’ve got my fingers crossed for Lincoln.

All contents copyright Jeffery Blackwell 2010

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Cartoon Caravan

2010-06-09T07:06:00.014-05:00

I came across this second generation Dodge Caravan parked in downtown Sterling, Illinois one morning.

It’s really unfortunate that I didn’t get a chance to meet the owner, because I would love to discuss the iconography behind this art.

Signed over the driver’s side headlight by “tater”, this is much better work than your run-of-the-mill ”Hey, let’s get out some damn brushes and paint the damn minivan!” minivan.

The whole thing has sort of a Peter Max/Yellow Submarine 1960s vibe to it, yet I didn’t see a single peace sign. And there are some edgier elements, like the rats and the voracious-looking shark and T-Rex comparing maws across the rear hatch. Then there’s the boxing condiments. (How do you even tell when a ketchup bottle is bleeding?)

The flying eyeball prominent on the hood has been symbolizing the all-seeing eye of various gods going back millennia, and has a prominent place in “Kar Kulture” due to its frequent use by the legendary pinstripe designer known as Von Dutch.

There’s a Native American “dream catcher” and a Christmas tree perilously close to an old-school Spy-vs.-Spy bomb (fuse lit!)

I welcome your interpretations of any of these elements, I’m sure they’re as good as mine. But I’d love to talk to you, tater. If you see this, drop me a line, man.

All content copyright Jeffery Blackwell 2010

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Interiors - A Sense of Place

2010-05-19T01:29:00.007-05:00

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Each of these three images of interiors conveys me to a very specific place and mood.

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Each draws me into their space. As I look at them, I can imagine spending a half hour waiting for someone in that seat, behind that wheel. I can feel the objects – stiff, scratchy mohair, smooth painted steel and the hard, slick chrome.

I can feel the smooth-grained vinyl and even smell it warming in the sun.

click for a very large image

All content copyright Jeffery Blackwell 2010

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The Unfortunate Tree; A Roadside Memorial

2010-05-09T17:28:00.005-05:00

It’s too bad someone in a large truck didn’t mow down this tree when it was still a sapling. The seed took hold outside of a bend in a road that otherwise runs straight for a half a mile or so.

This is exactly where you wind up if you are driving too fast for conditions.

Long ago, the tree reached the state of “immovable object”.

It bears the scars of multiple impacts.

Of course, it’s not the tree that causes the accidents, but still I wonder if it should not be taken down before it kills again.

I am reminded of Shel Silverstein’s classic story about the tree who gave its own life for the shelter and comfort of a boy growing into a man. Trees certainly provide abundantly for us. And occasionally, trees take someone away.

All contents copyright Jeffery Blackwell 2010

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Pensacola Autoworks – 1976 Chevrolet Impala

2010-04-27T09:09:00.013-05:00

“We do everything custom – bodywork, paint, airbrushing, upholstery, airbags – everything but the motor,” Joe told me.

I had met Joe beside Highway 29 in Pensacola, Florida one morning, while I was visiting my wife’s cousin who lives a little north of the city.

As is my habit, I was out early, driving the tiny Korean car I had rented at the airport. (Have you ever noticed that cars that are modestly powered, shall we say, frequently are engineered so that the accelerator pedal has violent tip-in? I could barely keep from spinning the skinny fronts on this thing, and yet once rolling it took a couple blocks to reach 60MPH.)

I hadn’t had much luck trolling for unusual wheels until this eye-searing red 1973 Chevrolet Caprice convertible rumbled into range. I did a quick turnaround (uncomfortably close to an oncoming cement truck, I realized half way through the maneuver) and started tailing the big red Chevy.

Out on the divided highway, he cut into a turn-around in the median, then shot upstream about 10 yards on the wrong side of the highway, diving into the driveway in front of a nondescript brick and tin building. He then proceeded to back the car around park it nose out - perpendicular to the road, to serve as a product-placement beside the stream of passing motorists.

By the time I whipped the little Rio around and hopped out, he had gone into the building, but his rims were still spinning, flashing in the rising Florida sun. That same sun had me wondering how to get a decent picture of this red hot machine.

That’s when I heard Joe behind me.

I was a bit puzzled by his statement that the shop does custom “airbags”. Joe schooled me by demonstration - "airbags" are in fact a system that uses compressed air to raise the body of the car up on the wheels.

(A high school friend had an old Citroen DS with a similar feature – except it was hydraulic. We used to get a kick out of pulling up next to someone at a red light and then lowering or raising ourselves and watching their reaction. As if the shape of the DS wasn’t a weird enough site in rural Michigan.)

Joe owns the 1976 Impala you see here. He stepped around to the drivers’ door. As he began to open it, I thought it was a “suicide” door – opening from the leading edge, rather than the trailing. I thought that was a pretty radical customization, but when he had the door open maybe 30 degrees or so, he began to lift it. I was amazed when it opened scissor-style, like a Lamborghini.

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The opening revealed an interior that had been stripped down to the bare metal. There were no seats. In order to demonstrate the airbags, Joe swung himself in, and sat down on door sill. I didn’t see how he actually activated the airbags, but the front end of the Impala began rearing up and the back end followed closely.

Soon, the entire body was riding in four-wheeler territory, and Joe was watching to see if the Kia driver was duly impressed. I’m sure he enjoyed my expression of childish joy at the ridiculousness of this machine.

Joe flashed me a wide grin, every one of his teeth edged by a millimeter or so of gold metal.

"Come back in a month," he suggested. "You won't believe this car."

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All contents copyright Jeffery Blackwell 2010

www.jefferyblackwell.com

Penrose Garage - 1985 Ford Ranger Dragster

2010-04-16T16:25:00.020-05:00

In rural Illinois, unless their path is diverted by a natural barrier like a river or a Walmart, roads are dead straight and 5,280 feet apart. Perfect for driving large farm implements and drag racing.

I had been through Penrose, IL at least a hundred times and never knew it.

I always slow for the cross street at the bottom of a long, shallow dip in the highway between Sterling – where my wife’s dad lives – and Polo, IL where her Aunt and Uncle used to live. And I always make a point to glance at the old store because it would be a great place to stop if it were ever open, which it never has been in the 20-some years I have been driving by.

I was out early on Easter Sunday and ended up passing through Penrose again, (although I still didn’t know it existed.) To my delight, parked in front of the SPOT-LITE FOOD MART was an early-sixties Buick “deuce and a quarter” with its period full-vinyl interior cavalierly exposed to the destructive rays of the warming sun.

Of course I pulled over and began walking around the car and in doing so set off the black spaniel-kind-of-dog guarding the house across the street and she sent the appropriate alarm up into the otherwise still morning air.

Eventually, her owner stepped squinting from the house to see what had tripped the dog and there I was. He didn’t appear to be overly concerned, but I felt I should apologize for the commotion, so I walked across the street and did so.

We talked for less than a minute about the Buick and it was clear that this was a car guy. “Yeah, I repair transmissions out of the garage there,” he said nodding. “And work on our race car.” This is precisely the kind of statement that makes my day.

The man’s name is Bob Richards and he operates the Penrose Garage, as he has for over 30 years. Transmissions – automatic transmissions – are his specialty. (Even if you are capable of understanding the schematic of an automatic transmission, don't bother trying to explain it to me. The metal casings look like wood that has been sorely infested with termites, and there are stacks of gears no thicker than the ones on a bicycle that apparently are capable of moving several thousand pounds of automobile.)

I asked Bob if I could see the race car and he informed me that it was actually a Ford Ranger pickup truck. It’s the only Ranger on the local drag race scene, and as far as he knows, the only one going. (Yes, the “Lone Ranger”.)

Whether you know anything about drag racing or not, you can appreciate the craftsmanship and ingenuity that Bob and his friends have put into this machine. The majority of the parts are designed and fabricated by these guys.

He pointed out that a few miles down I-80 I would find the Cordova International Raceway Park, and seemed to withhold judgment of me when I said I hadn’t heard of it. (He did ask if I was from Chicago.) He relayed the claim that Cordova puts out - that its “World Series of Drag Racing” is “The Oldest Continuous Drag Race in the World!!!”, having been held every August since 1956. (I plan to be there this year.)

Anyway, Bob has a team – “three old guys who are too dumb to know it can’t be done” - that has worked together over five years to turn a clapped-out $200 pickup truck into a fire-breathing thing of beauty. Bob shared that he is now 62 years old, and his buddies – Terry and Gary - are roughly of the same vintage. Terry, who does most of the driving, is in fact, 69.

Bob is an extremely modest man. He continuously raved about the man who did the paint, the guy who did the pinstriping, and his partners in the project. Ultimately, Bob said something like this; “I’m not a real religious guy, but all this is a gift from the guy upstairs.” He told me the team has a plan to pay it forward, but asked me to keep the details of that operation “off the record.”

While the “Lone Ranger” is still officially “under development”, Bob suggested (I have to say, somewhat coyly,) that he expects to pull at least 600 Horsepower from the Ford V8 when it’s in full race trim.

Just a few short weeks from now.

All content copyright Jeffery Blackwell 2010

www.jefferyblackwell.com

Magic Bus - Phantom Sonata

2010-04-01T11:13:00.007-05:00

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I saw this ad on a bus in Madison Wisconsin yesterday, and wanted to send kudos to the artist.

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Using the actual rear wheel of the bus for the graphic is pretty cool, and I found it tickling the part of my brain that distinguishes 2D from 3D.

The front graphic is interesting, but nowhere near as successful as the profile.

It had the effect of a semi-transparent Hyundai Sonata. It sure got my attention.

All content copyright Jeffery Blackwell 2010

www.jefferyblackwell.com

Curtis and Dixie - 1996 Chrysler Sebring

2010-03-20T09:41:00.008-05:00

If you gotta ghost, you know who ya gonna call. But how do you know if you gotta ghost?

You call Curtis, who drives this intense red-on-black 1996 Chrysler Sebring.

"You're not haunted until I say you're haunted,” Curtis told me.

I first saw Curtis tooling down a country road with his dog, Dixie. I swear the dog was smiling at me.

Curtis pulled out behind me, so I pulled over and grabbed my camera, to get a shot of him and Dixie driving past. He pulled up short and turned down another side road, avoiding driving past me, and it seemed deliberate. I whipped around to follow him, and saw him pulling into a driveway ahead. I rolled by slowly, and as I did, he started to back up. I hauled around and headed back just as he was stopping at the end of the drive and our eyes locked. He suddenly backed out of the driveway and turned towards me, crowding over the road into my path. Still staring at each other, we both rolled to a stop, driver to driver.

“Hey, man I love your car,” I told him. He looked skeptical. “Can I take some pictures of it? I do this blog…” I launched into my elevator speech. It seemed even more important than usual to be disarming at this point.

Curtis responded, “I’ve had people report me to the SPCA because they think my dog is in danger, but she’s wearing a harness. She can’t fall out. When I saw you get out the camera…” Now he smiled. “Sure, you can take some pictures”, he said, “go back to the highway and take the first left, where you saw me pull out. Go down that road, and I’ll meet you in front of the cemetery.”

"That’ll be a great background, because I’m a Paranormal Investigator”. OK, now this is cool.

At the cemetery, Curtis and I exchanged business cards (yes, he has business cards. If you want his phone number, just drop me an email.) Curtis uses the name Cemetery Gates Paranormal Investigation, and promises his service is discrete and confidential. He assured me he won’t roll up to your house in this car.

“Nine out of ten cases are just paranoia,” Curtis told me. “Those noises you here during the first night after moving into an old house? That’s the boiler. And when someone pulls out of that one driveway down the road, it’s that tree that casts a moving shadow on your window that looks like someone walking past.”

I asked him about the tenth case. “Well, he said, I definitely believe in an afterlife.”

He showed me some photos on his cell phone that he had taken in a cemetery the other night. Standing in the sun, the screen was pretty hard to see, but there were a series of images he taken by the light of a million candlepower spotlight. (Yes, they make those. My dad had one.)

In the first image, beyond some headstones, the spotlight was bouncing back into the lens off of some shiny object. In the second, which appeared to be aligned closely with the first, the bright spot was replaced by – a black hole. As if something was now absorbing the light. The third image in the series showed a whisp of smoke or fog emanating from the hole. It was weird, all right.

I decided to return the questioning to this life, and asked Curtis about his car. “You really like it?” he asked. Everything I did to it, except the logo, was to cover up some dent or ding. Like here, where I hit a deer,” he said pointing to a dent underneath a sticker on the front fender. Curtis designs and makes some of these stickers himself. “The wheels were rusty, so I pained ‘em red.”

“I’m a natural born skeptic,” he told me. I’m perfect for this job, because I don’t believe anything until it’s right in my face. My fiancé, now, she’s the sensitive one. She feels all kinds of stuff that you can’t see.”

At this point Dixie indicated to Curtis that she had grown impatient with this unexpected interruption in her joyride, so we shook hands, and the two of them rolled off.

All content copyright 2010 Jeffery Blackwell

www.jefferyblackwell.com

Hillbilly Chrome

2010-03-13T08:21:00.008-06:00

That’s what Gary called the ubiquitous silvery tape he used to reconstruct the rear bumper of his Dakota.

I have seen it labeled as both duct tape (tape for sealing ducts) and duck tape (for taping - ducks) Google shows that “duck tape” is by far the more popular term. (117,000 results to 932,000). So, as with all things in life, I will defer to Google.

(In the video production business, it’s called “gaffer’s tape” and in racing it is, of course, “racer’s tape”.)

Originally “gun tape” developed during the Second World War, the rubbery stuff was often used to make temporary repairs to Jeeps, and so Gary’s truck follows in that line.

It’s a 1998, and except for what’s left of the rear bumper, pretty solid. Here in the salt belt of the upper Midwest, “pretty solid” is a sympathetic way to describe the body of a vehicle that has withstood the ravages of rust without developing actual holes through the metal.

Gary applied what appears to be a good percentage of the roll of duck tape to the bumper to temporarily keep the thing from falling off. When it warms up, he intends to build a more substantial one from a couple of 4x8’s. You’ll notice that Gary, looking to avoid any safety concerns on the part of the authorities, even duck taped a small flashlight onto the duck tape bumper that shines on his license plate after dark. Of course, you have to remember to go back there and turn it on.

Gary, as you might expect, turns out to be an interesting guy, and a man of diverse interests and talents. He is a stone mason, a skill I have long admired, building walls, fireplaces and such from mere rocks (presumably with mortar – not duck tape.) But that business has taken a big hit since the housing bust (“When you need a plumber, you need a plumber now.”), so he has another job working for the county.

In his past Gary was a forensic photographer, gathering evidence at crime scenes, specializing in arson cases. In fact, Gary developed a method of obtaining usable fingerprints off metal that has been exposed to flame and intense heat, which incinerates the oil that is exposed with ordinary fingerprint methods.

He and I talked about cameras for a while, his old Minolta XE-7 (a classic first generation electronic film camera), the exceptionally fine grain of Ilford black-and-white film, and the days of the darkroom.

Nice guy, Gary, and very solid. I hope I run into him again after he installs the wooden bumper.

All content copyright 2010 Jeffery Blackwell

www.jefferyblackwell.com

Chicago Show Stopper: Lexus LFA

2010-03-10T11:37:00.013-06:00

There’s something about a car on a turntable. You could take my old Ford Focus, replete with dings and a fine crust of road salt, put it up on a rotating pedestal and people would stand and watch it go round.

If you put it on a canted, stainless steel turntable at about eye level and bathed it blue-white light, they might even desire it.

Rule number one for displaying a car is to get it up off the floor. Cars are probably the heaviest objects that most people interact with on a daily basis, and the impact of seeing a car elevated always evokes a suspension of ordinary experience.

Making it rotate slowly on a turntable creates an aura of mystery that has long made the turntable a staple at Auto Shows, perhaps outnumbered only by the spokesmodel.

Click for a very large image

That said, this Lexus LFA “supercar” looked absolutely devastating on this canted, stainless steel turntable at the Chicago Auto Show, and I wanted it.

I have rarely seen a car that looks so fast and dangerous, even as it gently spins in silence.

Its lines and proportions are explicitly seductive, and it flaunts its carbon fiber undertray shamelessly.

In certain places its mechanicals were exposed giving it some menacing edges.

Its paint was so sheer you weren’t sure if you might be looking right through to the bare metal underneath.

Its surface seemed to be distressed just enough to make it look obtainable.

I stood and watched this car turn four or five times at about 1 RPM before I remembered to take some pictures.

All content copyright 2010 by Jeffery Blackwell

www.JefferyBlackwell.com

Chicago Auto Show - Part II

2010-03-05T09:43:00.005-06:00

I really don’t have a lot to say about these images. They’re really just pretty pictures of cars and displays, with a few observations of the crowd mixed in. Some of the more hardcore stuff. Some of these I filtered pretty heavily just to make them more dramatic.

Gearheads, enjoy.

These first couple of photos are of the beautiful Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Gullwing. Luscious, I guess, is how I would describe it. Obviously an instant classic.

Always a crowd pleaser, the venerable Audi R8 made quite an impression in a gold metalflake paintjob. Phonecams were de rigor.

Got to have something for the kiddies. Jeep brought little electric Charger models and the soggy yellow guy.

Yes, there are people who will stand looking at a motor for quite a long time. I get it.

Lots for the flannel shirt crowd and those who prefer a tux.

And, of course, a few toys for the boys.

All in all, everyone seemed to be having a good time.

All content copyright 2010 Jeffery Blackwell

www.jefferyblackwell.com

Chicago Auto Show

2010-02-26T16:50:00.013-06:00

As readers may know, my Dad worked for Ford for almost 50 years. When I was young, he always worked the Detroit Auto Show. I really don’t know if Ford actually paid him to work the show or whether he just went for the buzz. He was a car guy.

On at least a couple of days during the show, I would go along and spend the entire day sitting in cars and soaking up whatever kind of entertainment and tsotchkes were being offered. I saw a whole lot of magicians and, of course, suggestively attired young women.

Click for a (very) large image

I hadn’t been to a big Auto Show in several years. I had heard that things were pretty subdued since the meltdown, but to be honest the only real differences I noticed were the absence of some of the European exotics, a few less wild-eyed “concept” cars, and the appearance of vehicles that were very conspicuously plugged into electrical outlets. (The supply of pretty young women seems to be holding up well.)

But clearly, the American auto industry is in the midst of a historical transition.

Just to tote it up, General Motors, which to someone from Detroit is like, say, the sky – it’s always been there and always will be – is really a shell of itself, inflated by taxpayer money and bereft of brands that have inspired loyalty in millions of Americans – Oldsmobile and Pontiac. The nineties strategy of accreting market share by buying niche brands like Saab and Hummer is now dust. Even the brand that GM created in a transparent effort to reinvent its business model – Saturn – has fallen from its orbit.

Chrysler, of course, is also now also a ward of the state. But in Detroit, Chrysler was always the problem child, always trying something weird (a turbine car!) and always falling just short of great success. Despite flashes of brilliant engineering, the company has rarely excelled at building or selling cars. Its purchase of American Motors seemed pathetic to me at the time, but Lee Iacocca apparently had a vision that Americans would swarm to a properly marketed Jeep (Sport! Utility! Vehicle!) That precious brand even reeled in Daimler-Benz, who ultimately failed to synthesize the two corporate cultures and bailed, leaving the company in the hands of money men instead of car guys.

“My” brand, Ford, seems to stand alone as the U.S. car company that – for the moment - has each of the highly complex processes of engineering, designing, building and marketing automobiles all firing together, and its products really shine.

Over the next few posts, I will be publishing some of my photos from the show.

Wahoo’s Gary Stacy

2010-02-17T13:39:00.019-06:00

Gary Stacy is the man who owns and operates Wahoo’s Sports Cars and Mini-Golf, which I visited about a week ago. (See my previous post.)

As I write this, or sometime in the next few days, Gary will lock up his Wahoo operations near Rockford Illinois for a couple of months.

Every year at this time, he selects a pickup truck from his used car inventory and loads it up with some of the stuff that he regularly buys and sells. He’ll drive the truck down to his other place in St. Augustine, Florida. Once there, he’ll haul the stuff to a flea market and sell it all, including the truck. Gary told me that once he started this annual trip with less than $200 in his wallet and after a weekend at the flea market he had raised close to a thousand dollars.

He’ll buy another vehicle and resell that one, too. Gary said he’d probably buy and sell three or four cars and trucks while he’s down there. He related to me the time he bought an MG for $500. Driving it back to his place, he remembered “what a miserable piece of junk those things are”, and immediately parked it on his front lawn with a “For Sale” sign on it. The next day someone paid him $1,500 for it.

Gary would not have struck me as a golfer, but he loves the game, which seems to be the main reason for the Florida migration. And explains why he built the mini-golf course.

Before he leaves St. Augustine, Gary will pick up some stuff from rummage sales and flea markets, and round up some Spanish moss, palm fronds and shells to enhance the tropical theme of the mini-golf course. Then, he’ll drive back north to re-open Wahoo’s Sports Cars and Mini-Golf for the season.

“Yeah, I get a lot of photographers in here. There was this one guy that set up a big box camera, and put his head under a piece of cloth,” he smiled, shaking his head at the memory.

I told him I was writing for my blog. I’m frequently unsure that people get what I’m doing, so I nodded at the old-school CRT monitor sitting in the corner and asked “Do you have Internet?”

“I used to,” he said and shrugged, without feeling need to offer any explanation.

Here’s the thing that struck me about Gary.

He has created a lifestyle that apparently does not require him to purchase or own anything new. He built his entire shop/store/house/office with used materials. He is a trader in used items, buying them second hand, using them for a while, and then selling them to be used again.

He creates new stuff from old when it suits his purpose, but respects, even honors, the wear that comes with time.

Gary seems to have no need for order or perfection; he is a master at improvisation.

“I’m just a ol’ hot rodder,” he told me, smiling; “I can make somethin’ out of anything.”

When I called him an artist, he was quiet for a moment, and then said “Thank you.”

Click for a larger image - very large file!

www.jefferyblackwell.com

Wahoo's Sports Cars and Mini-Golf

2010-02-09T12:08:00.023-06:00

I had taken a detour off my route from Sterling, IL to my house specifically to get a look at the Chrysler Assembly Plant in Belvidere, IL. What a soulless place that is. Like a zombie factory.

Then, I was attracted by the signs proclaiming Rockford Speedway to be “Where the Action Is!” Drove by. Looked around. Never got out of the car.

I was letting my GPS guide me home – up 2nd Street out of Rockford, through Machesney Park, where, on the frontage road, tucked into a grove of pine trees, lies Wahoo's.

Wahoo's is the creation of Gary Stacy. Literally.

Wahoo's Sports Cars, which also sells a lot of vehicles that are not sporty at all, is also home to Wahoo's Mini Golf and is unquestionably unlike anything I had ever seen. Gary built the place himself out of scrap materials. Barn wood, telephone polls, glass blocks, tin, stones and bricks, all recycled.

At the roadside, there are Gary’s handmade signs, which are art in themselves. (I didn’t even notice that the “W” in Wahoo's is an inverted McDonald’s logo until I was getting these images ready to post. There’s layers and layers of stuff here.)

Beside the road there is a row of vehicles for sale. Behind those, there is the mini golf course, which wanders out into the woods. Gary always keeps one hole shoveled all winter so he can practice putting.

“It doesn’t help. I’m still lousy”, he told me.

A short stroll down the wooded path brings you to the office of Wahoo's, which looks like a hybrid of a gingerbread house on acid and a Tiki Bar. Spanish moss dangles from the pine trees. Gary’s art is everywhere.

Click for a larger image (very large file)

Gary established Wahoo's 40 years ago, and specializes in affordable used cars and trucks. (CASH ONLY! OR GOOD CHECKS) The car lot came first, and the mini-golf course was built around it. Gary says he wanted a park-like setting for his business, not some slab of asphalt. “This was all country then,” he told me.

Gary has trophies from his racing days down at the Speedway. Besides cars and trucks, he collects and sells auto memorabilia and general old stuff that he likes. He keeps it a while, and then sells it when he gets tired of it. And can make a few dollars.

In fact, the whole of Wahoo's is up for sale. The property, buildings, businesses. Gary says that forty years is enough. But he will not sell to anyone who wants to tear down Wahoo's. "Not while I'm alive," he vowed.

Gary has built a couple of hundred cars from the ground up. He and his partner, a Mr. Blakely, now deceased, designed and built the Blakely Banshee, whose hand-welded frames were based on the stock cars that Gary raced, one of which is now serving seed to the local birds. The sign for Blakely Automobiles still stands out front. (I did not even see that cat when I took this picture.)

Gary has, as you would hope, a full repertoire of stories, a few of which I will recount in my next post.

I was lucky that I happened on Wahoo's when I did, as in two weeks Gary will be packing some stuff into his truck and heading down to his other place in St. Augustine, Florida, where he will trade some cars and play some golf. Hence the “Closing for Winter” and the “Still Open” signs.

Still time to catch him if you need a sports car. Or anything.

www.jefferyblackwell.com

The Megabus – Van Hool TD925 Double Decker Coach

2010-01-07T13:22:00.012-06:00

Among college students here in the Milwaukee area, “The Megabus” is a transportational institution, being the default mode of travel to campuses in Ann Arbor, Chicago, Madison and Minneapolis-St. Paul.

These double-decker coaches are instantly recognizable by their electric blue paint jobs sporting a 20 foot tall graphic of a roly-poly bus driver with a somewhat porcine face and glowing gold uniform.

The coaches provide a restroom, full length skylight and Wi-Fi for about 80 passengers. Built by Van Hool, a Belgian company, the Megabuses are operated by a company out of the U.K., Stagecoach Group. Fares for the buses are sold on the “yield management” pricing model, which evolved after deregulation of the airline industry. The price you pay to ride depends on how early you book, and how much demand there is for seats on the route. A half a dozen or so passengers ride for a buck (or a pound in the U.K.)

The Megabuses hub out of Chicago serving the Midwest, and from New York City, going as far as Toronto, Boston and D.C.

Whenever we’re on the Interstate and one goes by, someone in our car usually says, “There goes the Megabus!”

That’s exactly what I said when I saw one outside of London.

Securite Spatiale - A very special Vespa

2010-01-05T19:20:00.008-06:00

Having been in the deep freeze here in Wisconsin for a month and a half, I found my thoughts drifting back to last August, when we were in Paris and it was hot. I started browsing my photos from that trip.

I wish I could have met the owner of this Vespa I saw just a block or so from the Eiffel Tower. And that he/she spoke English.

I would love to know if this machine is supposed to be a vehicle for ironic humor, or whether it has actually been on at least four continents.

It has that put-on kind of air, but there is no denying this little scooter has rolled up some serious mileage and borne some intense heat. The paint is cracked beautifully, and the zebra-skin patterned vinyl appears to be at least the second skin on the seat.

The scratches on the windshield may be the result of bashing through the Australian bush or deflecting howling Darkar sand on the easternmost point in Africa.

Since I never met the owner, I am going to choose to believe that this tiny yellow Vespa – as part of the “Securite Spatiale” – Space Security - has actually been to Japan, Australia, Africa and I can personally vouch that it has been to Paris.

I wonder where on the planet (and which planet) it’s helping keep the peace on now.

Happy New Year

2010-01-02T16:13:00.006-06:00

You don’t see a lot of neat old cars out in the snow, so I was really pleased when I ran across this 1952 Chevy, frosted as it was.

Many thanks to all the viewers/readers of this journal, to my clients, and to my friends and family who have supported my work and indulged my passion over the last year. Thanks especially for your comments here at the Road.

Best wishes for the new year.

~ Jeff

1960 Ford F100 – Old Pair of Jeans

2009-12-11T20:05:00.008-06:00

Click for a larger image (very large file)

In an alley in Sterling IL, the city where my father-in-law lives, he and I found this well broken-in F100.

Sterling is most positively a working-class place. The heart of the city was Northwestern Steel and Wire, hard on the bank of the Rock River. The mill, as the residents call it, closed some ten or fifteen years ago, but several long-time manufactures of hardware are still making screws and nails, door hinges and wire springs. You can likely find Sterling nails on the shelf of your local hardware.

Click for a larger image (very large file)

Surrounded by corn and soybean fields, whether you live in town or out, hard work is a fact of life here.

The design of this truck is really from the late fifties, and carries such hallmarks as the radically curved windshield and heavy chrome bumpers.

But what I really love about the truck is the condition of the original paint, having faded to denim blue and streaked with surface rust. This nearly-fifty year old pickup is a fine example of a well-worn tool.

It’s great to see it’s still doing what it was designed for - hard work.

Crossover Ancestor - 1975 Ford Ranchero 500

2009-11-28T21:34:00.015-06:00

- UPDATE 16 FEB -

Since this post has proven to be quite popular, and I know I have some British readers, I was wondering, do you have a term for a vehicle that's a car in front and a lorry in the back? With an open bed, I mean, not like the Mini Clubman>

_ _ _

I find car-truck hybrids to be intriguing vehicles. I have always been puzzled by even their limited popularity.

It seems like almost every manufacturer has tried selling one of these mutant machines at some point, no matter how impractical or how bizarre the bodywork needed to stretch around a car front and a pickup bed. These cars are the automotive equivalent of a mullet haircut, but the party’s out in front, work in the back.

Click for a bigger image
(Large file)

You could see them as the predecessor to the SUV in that they bridge the gap between a material hauler and a people hauler, and are poorly suited for either task.

But because this Ranchero was built on a car chassis, if it were built today it would be categorized as a “crossover”. Strangely, it took more than two decades for the open pickup bed to get a roof.

When this Ranchero was built, pretty much the only people who drove pick-up trucks were people who needed to actually haul stuff. Farmers, trades people, lumber jacks.

So, why would anyone buy a car that looks like a pickup truck but isn’t robust enough to pull a big trailer or haul a ton of manure? As you can see from the silhouette of this Ranchero, they did not buy it for its vast cabin. And the bed, being open, is not really even suitable for the groceries.

My theory was always that the buyers of Rancheros and El Caminos were strictly trying to make a statement. I have just never been sure what it was.

I did not have the opportunity to visit with the driver of this pristine example, with its classic Crager S/S wheels. However, I’m guessing from the fact that I came across it dripping with morning dew after it had spent the night beside the sand volleyball court outside a large tavern near Rock Island, IL, that its owner might have had surfboards in mind. It’s all I can think of.

Despite the Ranchero’s long history (1957-1979,) built on the Fairlane, Falcon, Torino and finally the Thunderbird platforms, with a total of a half a million or so delivered, the Ranchero lived in a tiny patch of the shadow cast by its true truck cousin, the ever-massively-popular Ford 100 Series pickup, which has so far been the choice for over 32,000,000 Ford buyers. Who actually needed to haul stuff.

Pete Turner - car wash sign

2009-11-25T00:29:00.016-06:00

(Click the image for a larger view - large file)

This blog's about “cars” but it’s also about photography and the esthetics of the craft (art). Sometimes.

I took this picture at a BP gas station (but you knew that) where I stopped along Rte. 2 in Western Illinois. It really doesn’t matter where it is, because it could have been taken anywhere.

When I was coming up as a photographer, one of the sensations in the relatively new and disrespected field of color photography was a guy named Pete Turner. If you are into fine art photography, you know Turner. I really like his work.

One of his most famous images is of a trash can on a beach. It was recently featured on the cover of a very expensive new magazine about fine art photography called simply “Color”. You can see it here. (Actually, Turner frequently photographed car/truck-related scenes...)

When my father-in-law brought me the “Color” magazine, I managed to dial up this image from the very slow memory chip I call my brain, and looked it up on the hard drive of my PC.

As a photographer, you will notice the saturated, flat color and the subtle shadow across the rough block texture, the color difference between the direct and reflected sunlight, the reflections on the blue surface, the composition that cuts off the objects in the lower left of the frame, and the seam in the sign that bisects the letter “s”, which is what I originally noticed.

As an observer of the world around you, you may also notice the weathering of the adhesive letters that textures the marketing message of the graphic. Can a car wash keep my car from aging?

(And isn't that post in the corner in Shell colors?)

Classic gas station design has always relied on flat, smooth areas of brand colors against white. The ceramic coated metal plates that used to sheath the buildings are long gone, but the style has proven its effectiveness.

Anyway, I like the picture.