My A-Bombers OSW & Custom Car trip to Sweden

My fantastic wife Esther gave me the best Bithday present ever. She bought me a plain ticket to Sweden and made all the arrangements with my friend Wolf (Tinwolf here on the HAMB) for me to stay 5 days with him and visite the A-Bombers Old Style Weekend, and many more custom car related things.
And I had no idear about it untill she told me a week before I would leave.
Monday evening I returned home and was picked up by Esther and my two and a half year old son from the airport here in Amsterdam... the perfect end of a PERFECT trip to Sweden.

Here are some of the many photos I took during the visite. I hope you enjoy.

My good friend Wolf picked me up from the airport in Gothenborg with his fantastic 51 Mercury custom. In the passenger seat sat Janne Kutja who had come in on Wednesday. I sat down in the backseat of this heavily chopped merc and was in 7th heaven right away...




Checking out all the unfinished welds etc...




Rear view thru the mucho laid foreward rear window and past the Hammers sign...




Before we would go home with Wolf to have a good BBQ we stopped at the shop of Janne (not Janne Kutja) who has been working on a fantastic early style 1949 Mercury custom for many years. He and Wolf did all the metal work on it and the whole car is in bare metal, and looks absolutely stunning.




The grille is made up from 1951 Mercury bumper guards...




Restored Monteray steering wheel




A set of painted (ever been plated) NOS Appleton S-112's




Custom made rear window glass and Gene Winfield custom bubble taillights...





Wolf took this photo of Janne on the left, me in the middle and Janne Kutja on the right. Thank you Janne for showing us your great Merc and telling us some fantastic stories about it.




On our way home we stopped to get some food for the BBQ....




The parked Merc and getting ready for some good food.
Another great guy Pekka Wizzard (the famous Pinstriper from Finland) and his family came over to pick up his work trailer and joined us for diner.




After dinner we drove off to the A-Bompers site to see what was going on... a half hour drive...




Some great cars had already arrived and tents etc where put up in the camping spots.

 

At the gate this wild Hudson Gasser welcomed everybody...




Fantastic customized 1957 Lincoln from Sweden




Great combination for a perfect camp...




Customs, Rods and bikes everything was there already and more where ariving all the time....




Kent Vikmo (JB) one of the guys that organize the event (hats of for these guys!!!) arived with his perfect 1940 Mercury. Thats Kent with his Merc and Wolf admiring it in front of the tent where all the food was prepaired for the weekend.






After that it got to dark to take more photos.. we stayed for a while, then left home to prepair for a full day on Friday....

Wolf made a phone call to Janne who was staying 10 minute drive for his home to get ready for the pick up.




First car we spotted was this mildy customized Hudson with Spotlights and Olds Hubcaps. and great looking paint and chrome




Wolf did a quick clean up on his Merc... look at all the unfinished welds on the top.








This was one wild looking and sounding rod from germany. (think it was built in Sweden) (edited) Well now I know its was not built in Sweden but it was built by Alex Schieder at his home in Germany!






Lots of bugs on the screen




This great looking chopped custom Buick four door drove all the way from the Netherlands...

 

You dont see to many customized 39 Chevy's.. this one looked good but was a bit rough, and the sunfisor...???







OK this will be OTB... but I had to include it. Not allowed inside but parked in the parking lot was this Tiki themed home made woody Citroen with bamboo grille, matt gray paint with metatflake flames from the Netherlands...




It was so fantastic to finally be able to see Kents 1940 Mercury in real live, and be able to walk around it. Wolf chopped the top on this one... he is one hell of a metal man.






Pekka had set up his booth and was bussy pinstriping and selling his goodies all weekend long






same 1957 Lincoln as we saw on Friday. This one too had to be parking in the parking lot since the end dat for entering is 1956... This one was soo nice though.











Looking for some more period correct accessories at the many booth




Great looking mild custom Caddy...

 

Hot Rods.... this one was very nice




This roadster was built to perfection.












Great looking 1949 Caddy with sectioned doors.....











This wild looking Gasser delivery made plenty of noice when it arrived...




Great looking mild Lincoln custom with satin white paint and metalflake silver top.






Dressed up till perfection...




Another parking lot beauty...






Late in the afternone Wolf, Per Webb (RPW) and me went out to get a pizza.
per took some really great photos with his camera hanging outside the car...

Thats Per on the left and me on the right.



The road from and to the A-Bompers site was a perfectly paved road with plenty of curves and hills... with some fantastic scenery

 

another custom that Wolf did some work on. He formet the sheet metal around the rear windo wto make a perfect flow from top till trunk.








This unfinished 1940 Buick had a great looking Padded top. Perfectly shaped.















I was happy to find this great looking strawler. I had seen photos of it before. It turned out the owner/builder was from the Netherlands as well. We talked about it for some time.




The whole body was made out of stainless and if you look carefully you will see what he used for the lower rear corners...




Never thought you could use a stainless kitchen sink for something so good looking as this...






Chrisman's Ford catching the last bits of sunlight for the Friday... It was really great to meet you in person!

 

Great interior in this model A...






Some cars where too load for some...













Wild.... but I would like to see the rear window re-instaled and some more traditional looking tires and hubcaps.




Good looking four door Packard custom from Finland






And a better look at the Hudson Gasser at the gate.




It was a real pleasure to meet Keith Weesner who was at the show looking at the great cars and selling his merchandice.
Her he is checking out this good looking once four door Ford HT.

 

Edgars 51 Ford has a mild chop later model Ford grille and a lot of work done to transform it form a rusted four door to a good looking two door.








Great looking mild Olds custom




Saturday everybody was all hyped up for the world famous A-Bombers Hill climb....






Getting ready to leave for the hills....






The parking lot of the Hill Climb ussually bring some cars that dont go to the OSW.... This 1957 Chevy Gasser was one of them.












Perfect mild 1950 Mercury custom

 

Nah... I dont think so...




Janne Kutja and me walking to the starting section of the hill climb.











Pace car for the test run




And we all know who that is with the huge smile on his face!!!



And the race is on....





More smiles...






These guys from the Netherlands where really pushing it....






This one sounded so good... and was very fast




Waiting for round two




Back in the parking lot





This one really looked good

 

And so did the Dutch Buick in the sunlight and nice backdrop









On the way to the OSW site we stopped to get a pizza...






Pekka held a great seminar on custom cars






I was very happy to see this 1951 Merc had arrived after the hill climb...












From Norway

 

Another ex four door... the patina is fake...

 

Awesome stuff as usual Rickster, just been looking at my friends stuff from the show, I'm sure he'll be adding some soon!!

Thanks for sharing.

 

Very cool

 

On Suday we went to Lars Hellgrun and his brotther Janne to look at his collection of Dave Guymond built Custom Buicks.... WOW

Lars is giving directions to drive to the garage....

 

I'd kill for this Lincoln.

 

wow some really awsome rides.

 

Lars also had found this great Barris Kustoms product...



And the third Buick.. .a 1950 Model.















Sectioned Caddy Bumber Guards... so nice

















A nice shot of Wolfs Merc with the lights on... I took this on Sunday evening...




Thanks to Wolf for beeing the perfect host, thanks to Janne Kutja for hanging out with. Janne and Lars for showing thiere great custom cars and above all my wife Esther for making it all possible!
This was one hell of a time in Sweden!!!!!

 

Great pictures and a cool story Rikster

 

I'm stunned.

 

awsome,
thanks for sharing
Zach

 

Nice pics and a great story. Thanks!

 

Holly Crap ... never knew that there was such great lookn iron there !!!

 

Rikster...you are a LEGEND!!! Great coverage. Thanks heaps.

That event KILLS anything we've got going on here....and many other places too I suspect. Thanks for the peep!

 

excellent post rik! great seeing those beautiful cars.

_T

 

Thats it I am moving to Sweden!

 

Wow. Great coverage - nothing like seeing customs on the road. Thanks.

 

Great pics, thanks for sharin.

 

Me too.

Great post.

 

That's a cool pictorial there Rikster, you'll have to come over the UK's Hotrod Hayride next year!

 

Now I hate Swedes even more, what a great event and thanks for the coverage