There were a number of OT Hemi cars present - I wouldn't want to show the car, but who doesn't like a neat, polished Hemi? Elephant motors deserve respect. This really neat little mid-20s Dodge Modified was running but could stand some tidying up and fine tuning. It was for sale for $11,500 ONO which seemed like a bit of a bargain to me. I took half a dozen pics of this little baby - it had some good details used in the build. Little SBC in such a small car woulda moved along pretty good None too original copy of the John Milner Coupe from American Grafitti. It was well done and I bet a ton of fun. There was show judging so some of the guys had their extra touches like the AG poster
This is the Buick we saw driving down I-55 the previous day. It looked just as nice up close as it did cruising the Interstate. Nice car. This neat California Highboy Streetrod looks like an older build – it was a well done car, still had its Cal reg and looked like it spent quite some time on the highways. Traditional 70's / early 80's look There were some burnouts - about half a dozen car, static, spinning the tyres on a thick steel plate, with heavy concrete barriers near each spinning wheel. The 'contestants' got to spin the wheels for probably 15 seconds. It seemed a bit tame really. Google 'Motorvation burnouts' and look at some You Tube videos of Aussie style burnouts - no tyre survives, but they all died giving joy to hundreds, if not thousands.
Thanks for the trip mate , I have just read the whole thing and enjoyed your travels very interesting and humorous.....
Dang you dad-bud. By the time I travel as far as you as your influence is pulling me my next trip to Texas will be entering from the east.
After the burnouts, we came across this very clean Olds Futuramic with the OHV Rocket motor And this other 1960 Cadillac 4-door hardtop sedan. Very nice And this really neat looking 1957 Ford Hardtop - for sale, but a bit spendy for me
Thanks for that good captain. We've still got more than two weeks to go, and I've got lots of photos still to post - most of them car related, rather than Capitol Buildings, etc. I'm glad you've enjoyed it so far.
Yeah, well, sorry about that Six Ball. Today, we went into Kansas, which is the last of all the 50 US States that we have visited since the mid 1980s. It feels a little hollow right now - we realised a few years ago that we had visited a good number of states, then we worked out how many and decided to visit the rest. It took us a few years and a few visits, but now we've done it. Not sure what we'll do next now. I guess we'll have plenty of time to mull over on it. As for how to get to Texas, there are plenty of ways, if you ask me.
Tidy looking Model A Coupe streetrod - nicely done This wicked sounding Chevy II G***er was just idling along the street. It was loud – shake yer guts loud. The guy was having a lot of fun. It was very neat and well finished Downtown was chock-a-block full of cars and people – I am sure the organisers would have thought their event a big success. Good for them. Everyone was having a good time.
Patinaed 62 Biscayne with a mean cammy sound. Guy and his girl were havin’ lots of fun, and were pretty happy to have their pic taken. They described themselves as camera *****s. Not a lot of bucks in the car, but still looked good. This big 605ci 850HP Hemi was squeezed tight into an early 60’s Plymouth Valiant, making it look like he has brought just about enough power. But then again, when is just about enough ever enough? Too neat for a rodent rod, but, traditional................??? ???
Really nice restored 56 Victoria And this 1950 Chevy custom was extra nice - no excuses required with this one. Great finish, clean, straight. Looked terrific This Deuce Highboy looks just a good in the daytime as at night. If I had enough bucks or talent, it would be mine.
This neat chopped Model A highboy coupe was 'hiding in plain sight'. Not many people spent much time looking at it, but it is a really nice little car Mild custom 51 Ford Convertible – driver standard but looks like a heck of a lot of fun. Sat just right and looked 'the bomb' Mucho Caliente. ............................. mucho
This little Nash Metropolitan was really nice and clean. Love it Finally, this nice looking 61 Buick Le Sabre Hardtop
Day 37 Springfield IL to St Louis, MO Well, we headed off the next morning on the relatively short trip to St Louis, only about 100 miles along I-55, hoping to visit the Gateway Arch and nearby attractions. Along the way, some corn was being harvested It may or may not surprise some of you to know, but geez, there is a shipload of corn grown in the USA. Many shiploads. Many many shiploads. It must be just about the biggest crop grown in the US (by area), because it is grown over huge areas in many, many states. Over the past week, we have seen more and more corn being harvested, We wanted to take a photo of some harvesting. Just like we wanted to take a photo of the Gateway Arch from the Illinois side of the river. We looked at a couple of ways to get to the river, but really felt we were in the wrong place. The east side of the river left us worried - more than half the houses had been demolished, most of the rest were obviously uninhabited and we just didn't feel safe, so we got back on the freeway and headed over the bridge. Spotted this view, with all the foreshore work.
smart move. b-t-w; I've been watching this since the beginning. Thanx for showing me many places that I too want to visit.
Thanks guys, we just weren't sure - we knew we were a long way from Ferguson (knowing about the troubles that have happened there over the past few months), but didn't want to stretch our luck anyway. When we finally got over the river, virtually all of the east end of Downtown was shutdown, blocked off, full of cops and detour signs everywhere. It turned out that there was a baseball game and an NFL game on at the same time. On top of that, the Gateway Arch was all being renovated and access was nil. Every parking space for miles around was full, so riding the lift to the top of the Arch was a no-go. Bother! So, we 'wandered around' the area just north of the city. We were amazed at the desolation, urban decay and utter lack of care of large swathes of land which in any other city we had visited (other than Detroit) would have exceptionally high value, being so close to the city centre. We drove around and decided to head out of town and see how far out we would need to go before this decay abated. We randomly selected a road (kinda by Braille, really) and just kept driving. For mile after mile, it seemed that 3 out of 4 houses had been demolished, and more than half of what was left were clearly abandoned. The few people we saw appeared to have little to celebrate about their lives (just my view). We still felt a bit uneasy compared to how we had felt in Springfield IL, but wanted to still have a look around. We still figured that maybe the further out we went, the better it might get. Looking ahead, we saw what looked like smoke signals on the horizon. As we got near, lots of cars were parked along the road and eventually crowds of people showed ahead. The reason for the smoke signals became more obvious as we got nearer.
Every dozen or so cars in the traffic going either way stopped and did a burnout - ranging from "Tuh" to "not bad". There were so many people there that we didn't think there was any risk, so we parked the car and wandered back to try to find out what was going on. Apparently, it was some annual event held by a Rat Rod / Chopper fab mob. They had a loud rock band and hundreds of people in their forecourt and factory. Out on the street, a few guys were wearing high-vis tops and were 'directing traffic'. At about the same time as we got there, a cop car showed up, with its lights flashing, but no siren. The one lady cop sat in the car and did nothing. Just sat there. One of the high-vis guys went over and said a few words, then the burnouts started again. It was surreal. Back home, if the wallopers turned up and burnouts or any other display of fun happened, people would be arrested, cars impounded and it would be splashed across the 5pm news. The noise just continued.
Some of the cars parked there had influences of rodent droppings impacting on their appearance, but quite a few were good looking. This chopped and channeled A Coupe was generally pretty well done without too many geegaws. This flapper disc finished 40 Chevy Coupe had some ratty features but looked good enough to carry it off. And this Studebaker g***er looked the bomb. Built for fun and fast times
This barn or field-find finish chopped A Coupe looked pretty good And this 48 Ford Coupe looked great. It sat really good, finish was great and the interior really set it off. The guy in the Buick Hardtop behind told me it was a fresh build and ran really good - BBC. I liked this one a lot. The Buick was driver quality according to its owner, but I would have said it was a little better than that. It looked good enough that anyone would be happy to own it.
Parked inside was this A Tudor with some attention to detail paid. It really stood out a**** all the rodents You can see the crowd that had gathered, and the burnouts continued. This one was noteworthy - the guy just kept spinning the wheels (in front of the cop car) until the tread delaminated from the tyre carcase and sections of tread flew high in the air. Naturally, to rapturous applause and cheering. The road surface was left smouldering as the smoke cleared - still the lady copper sat in her car. It seemed that as long as it didn't get too badly out-of-hand, allowed the traffic to p*** without toooooo much restriction and nobody got hurt that the police involvement wouldn't increase.
We finally decided we had spent enough time there and went back to the car. Just as we got in.................. The guy with the G***er Studey decided to take it for a dance. He drove it down near where we were parked and turned around. He had a bit of room in front of him and gave it a little bit of a blapppp, it lifted the front wheels a mile off the ground, and ........ and busted the front end as gravity did what it always does. Gravity can be a cruel mistress. We left before the inevitable flatbed or trailer was needed to remove the stricken car. We continued driving NW and turned off towards the south to avoid the airport, etc. Driving back into St Louis, we came across more areas of deterioration, just the same as to the NW The area around the many hospitals seemed like a small oasis in the scorched earth surrounding the city centre. One intriguing individual surprised us with his unique fashion sense Wear your shirt backwards is something of a fashion statement - I don't know if it is going to take the world by storm, but if it does, you can say you saw it here first.
That was Shapiro's so that means you were driving up Natural Bridge, which explains the miles of blight. It was a cool area 60 - 70 years ago, but it's only a little better than the east side of the river now. You saw the worst of the area for sure. Ferguson is actually much better than the areas you drove through. Glad you made it through the gauntlet.
Day 38 - St Louis MO to Kansas City MO/KS We were 'disappointed' by St Louis - I'm not sure what we expected, but the level of inner city decay was just astounding. We decided to head off early the next day, but wanted to visit Motoexotica, a dealer I have seen on eBay who have lots of cars. It was a 20 minute drive to their Fenton headquarters. There we saw a wide range of cars. Many OT but also many that were HAMB-friendly. Here's a few This 1958 Studebaker Golden Hawk was a real gem. Not perfect but very nice. I would love to have this little baby and the 1953 Hudson Hornet Club Coupe – also very nice This was neat too - listed as a Chrysler Now, just in case anyone's wondering...... I have no relationship with Motoexotica - I think their cars are generally sort of OK - all of them have flaws yet all of them carry premium prices. I just figure they must be negotiable in their pricing or else they rely on the theory that "there's one born every minute" and they are able to attract their share.
1959 Chevy Impala Hardtop with Continental Kit This Buick Convertible was really nice - again, not perfect, but very very good And this Packard Convertible was in similar excellent condition
I really like these 1957 Lincoln Continental Mark IIs. They were a very special car in their day. This one is a pretty fair sort of driver quality looking car And this 1941 Super Deluxe Convertible was in really good condition Homemade one-off custom called Atlantis – was styled in the 1930’s Euro-decadent manner. Well done but OT. It had a bunch of really neat details and finishes
Very nice looking 1962 Dodge Polara Convertible next to a Bright Metallic Pink 1961 Buick Le Sabre (a bit too gay) Not far from their headquarters, they have another workshop of around 2000 sqm or 20,000sqft, filled with more cars, including; Really neat 1962 2-door Corvair. Very high quality resto - it looked as good as new Lovely 1956 Buick - very very nice
I never used to like these Mark IX Jaguars, but over the last few years I have warmed to them a little. They have the 230 odd CI DOHC Jaguar six which is a great looking and good running engine and there is actually plenty of room inside, which is unusual except for the very largest Euro cars. OK, enough of the non-US cars.......... This 1941 2-door Ford sedan looked pretty streetroddy but was pretty clean Neat 1960 International Harvester Carryall was in really excellent condition after a great restoration
1954 Chevy Bel-Air 2-door sedan - looked good Really nice looking 1941 Buick Coupe - they had another one same year, same body style, same colour, just not quite as nice, but nearly OK, that's enough of the cars. I've filled the last couple of dozen posts with car photos. That was just a coincidence - it could have been a lot more downtown pics, or national parks - they lie ahead fairly soon.
We left St Louis after some retail therapy for Mrs DB and headed west towards Kansas City. We were happy to get away from St Louis, feeling sympathy for those that live there. Repair of the cancer that has gone through the inner city is likely to take a couple of generations, but will wait until someone can make a lot of money doing it. Government alone can't do it, and those who live there now have shown they won't or can't do it. Ah well, such is life. The road to Kansas City was uneventful and only took a few hours. We got there around sundown And KC at sunset
The Jalopy Journal
