Featured Art & Inspiration The Friday Art Show.....

A sign just finished for the Detroit Autorama and an unusual lamp base: a rough casting of a 110 cu.in Offenhauser engine painted for a friend who has a few midgets; 2 with Offy engines.Hi Jef f!

 

Nice to see a hand lettered sign in our digital world, good job.

 

Just got the T-shirt artwork last week for our 2025 Hot Rod Hundreds from B-Scott Studios. The 33 Plymouth is out of Kansas and the Cameo is out of Missouri and are both regulars on our reliability runs.

 

from this:
to this week's art work: 1955 Cameo Carrier
Hello,

We lived in the Westside of Long Beach in 1955. Our neighborhood was all working class homes/families. So, there were trucks and station wagons, as well as sedans for the single car family dad to go to work. The other vehicles in the neighborhood were a station wagon for stay at home moms and work trucks.

The work trucks were for gardening services or delivery trucks associated with local businesses. There was a slew of trucks from the fleets located in the warehouse section of our mixed business/single family home districts. Most of the gardening services pickup trucks were usually loaded with equipment and if one looked closely, as careful as possible during loading/unloading, those trucks were work trucks with a scratch or a ding here and there.

But, in one portion of our neighborhood, there was a single 1955 Cameo Carrier, a white pick up truck. A guy drove it everyday, but not as a gardening equipment truck. It was too nice of a truck with the new styling and although the bed was larger, the cost was also there. So, for most a single families, a truck bed was for carrying stuff not fitting inside of a station wagon. Easy access to the flat bed and secure enclosed tailgate kept the “stuff” inside.

The names of the trucks were given by automotive writers as they saw a need to separate the trucks from each other. Most early trucks had a step to allow “stuff” to be placed closer to the cab. But the rest of the flat bed was enough for most to have an area to cram more stuff inside.

Jnaki

When the Cameo Carrier came along, most were utility trucks. The trucks in our old Westside neighborhood were those old utility pick up trucks, until the 1955 Cameo Carrier came along.

“The Cameos have been called the first-ever “luxury” pickups, and while that might be a stretch by modern pickup standards, the Cameos were certainly a step up in style and design from anything blue collar truck buyers had seen before.”

“The trucks had an abundance of chrome — for pickups, anyway — styling borrowed from Chevrolet’s passenger cars, and their slab-side fenders were decidedly different from anything else on the truck landscape. Not only were the rear flanks flat, they were constructed of fiberglass and lined with a traditional steel and wood cargo box.”

The guy who owned the truck lived down the street and was always parked in his driveway. Never in the time we lived there from 1953 to 1998, did we see that truck loaded with “stuff” in the back. My brother always like the truck and wished it were ours to carry around parts and when building our SBC motor(s) had access to such a cool truck. But, that white cameo carrier remained pristine until we moved out of our old house.

The cost of a new Cameo Carrier was way above a normal truck and for most, not worth the extra money spent for the same utility that trucks offered at the time. It was anywhere from $500 to 800 more was a lot at the time.

A nice lowered rake and custom wheels was a good looking custom truck.

So, as teenagers without an unlimited cash flow, that more expensive Cameo Carrier Truck was beyond our means. We made do with rental trailers to haul the motors and large parts for our builds and projects.

Before air shocks, even the heavy duty rear shocks got lowered with “stuff” in the back.

Note:
For our future coastal surf adventures, perhaps a enclosed carrier not with a camper shell, but a complete design built into a Suburban style station wagon.

The Cameo Carrier was converted into a Suburban, the tall cab and rear area was lowered a slight bit and made a proportionate body style. Not your typical Suburban.

Again, with kids, surfboards and beach stuff, the rear would be slightly lowered with the additional weight. But, at least we could sleep comfortably as the rear area would allow full stretch out sleeping in a protected environment. We could even have a real full mattress instead of a blow up air mattress. Ha!

For our hot rod needs, the open bed of a truck would have been nice, but not much in the security end. So, not having to leave the truck parked anywhere sight unseen was a problem. In a station wagon, in this case, a custom Cameo Carrier Suburban, at least one can lock it up and be fairly safe for security reasons. We were headed for a station wagon or if there was such a truck, wagon, such as a Cameo Carrier Suburban it would have made a nice push/tow vehicle for our 671 SBC Willys Coupe. YRMV

Happy Valentine’s Day…

 

Happy (FAS) Friday to everyone, and also wishing a very Happy Valentines day to everyone's Hot Rod Sweethearts as well!
Thanks from Dennis.

​

 

An oldie, happy Friday !

 

Celebrating our 50th Valentines Day together TODAY!

 

Showed this one before, but in honor of Valentine's Day here's a jewelry box I made a few years ago.

 

Congratulations
Dan

 

Kind of reminds me of Marie Barone’s sculpture.

 

Happy Valentine Day!

 

This is an oil painting my mom did 30+ years ago…but I digitally added my own touch to it recently.

 

random stuff today...

 

I count one alien.

 

Pretty romantic going to the grocery! LOL Congratulations, Joe

 

Congrats Ron.
It's been 42 years with my sweetheart and best friend.


I got nothin' for Valentines Day...so I'll stay with the Cameo theme with a little "pink"

 

Happy Friday, Happy Valentine’s Day and Happy President’s Day weekend! That about covers it.
Prepping work for Autorama so only old stuff for now…



I’ve been tinkering with a new painter program since I bailed on Adobe. This is a simple sample as is the pistons above. I’d whipped that one out rather quickly before bed last night. Still a bit shaky on the line work so I need to see if there’s a better way to bend lines, ha ha!

 

Thanks all!

 

Not sure if this fits here or not, but it’s a hand-painted sign I recently did for me and the wife’s RV. Working on a show card for my avatar now.

John

 

Man I miss my cab over

 

Cool Henry J I got 46 valentine's days with my darling under the sun!
Pikes peak down hill on the fire roads crazy fun back in '18. There was an s-10 pickup behind us about a 100 ft down.