The Swedes do Route 66 & VLV10 in a '58 Bel Air

Meet and Greet the Swedes- SoCal is happening today! It's not too late, come on down!

Thanks,
Kurt

 

Hey all
As we're having a computer failure, the posting hasn't been possible for the last couple of days, I'm writing this on a hotel PC, so we just want to say we'll be posting the remains of this adventure when we get back to Sweden. The Meet and greet was fabulous today and we want to say a big thank you to those nice people who showed up, we love you guys. We made it to Santa Monica pier saturday evening, and it was with mixed emotions we parked on the pier, all three of us cried a little as this was the end to this glorious adventure. More to come later.

 

Thank You for taking the time to post your "trip of a lifetime". At times it was as if I was with you guys. I can't wait to hear more. Have a safe trip home.

 

Magnus, Klaus & Cindy,

Great meeting you guys yesterday @ the Lindbrook Bowl. Glad to see you and hear all the great stories. It sounded like a trip of a lifetime. Congratulations (on it all). Hope to see you in Sweden sometime. Take care and safe travels home.

Rob and Nina

Here's the pic Nina shot - Klaus, Kurt (Sgtlethargic), Cindy, Magnus, Kimberly, John (Timebomb) and Rob (60'Coupe)

 

Same here- I had a great time, and I believe everyone else did too. I'm guessing the picture that man took for us didn't turn out well. Joe (HudRodz) isn't in the picture either because he left before that. The Swedes and I ended up dining at the cafe. I needed to hang out a little longer before driving home. By the way, Klaus is Danish and has lived in the U.S., Cindy is American (originally from New Jersey), Magnus is Swedish, and they all live in Sweden. Have a good trip home.

Thanks,
Kurt

 

Okay, here we are again. Sorry for the delay, but the flat top computer decided it didn’t want to connect to the internet about a week before the trip ended so the next few posts are being posted post trip! Ha Ha ... say that three times fast!

Thursday, April 12th. Driving through the Mojave desert during VERY strong winds (50-60mph) was not too treacherous on Route 66 but as you can see from the picture there was a horrible 40-50 car/truck pileup on I40 East because the wind caused an horrific dust wall. CHP had closed I40 in both directions but we were safe and sound on the mother road. Some people opted to drive on Route 66 too but they zoomed past us as if we were standing still and we found ourselves virtually alone on the road. Then we hit “civilization” again in Barstow and enjoyed the yesteryear buildings, signs and best of all cars spotted here and there. We stopped at the newly restored Wig Wag motel and took a few pics and chatted with the clerk who was enthralled by Belle and didn’t seem to know much about buying an old car but his enthusiasm was great. We ended Thursday in Claremont CA.

Friday morning, April 13th (and NOTHING bad happened to us on this "dreaded" day!) we spent the day at the NHRA museum and toured SoCal Speed Shop. The NHRA museum was chock full of amazing cars. The one that seemed to have caught all of our attention was Ed Iskenderian’s ’23 Model T Roadster. We took a truck load of pictures and an hour and a half of video. We bought a few t-shirts, a cool jacket and a Wally Parks signed NHRA garage sign (reproduction but “weathered” to look old). Then we drove down the street to SoCal Speed Shop. After buying more flat stuff in the shop we had about an hour to kill before we could take the tour of the shops. Okay, that needs a little explanation ... in Arizona we were nearly bursting at the seams – suitcases and Belle. So Magnus said we can only buy flat stuff from now on! Back to killing the hour ... the receptionist at SoCal recommended this great Mexican restaurant a few blocks away. We pulled into the back parking lot and there were two Pomona cops sitting in the parking lot. One of them said “nice ride” and we responded with the appropriate thanks. He said “you drive that all the way from NJ?” and Klaus said “yup and we flew all the way from Sweden to drive it all the way here!” We got to talking outside the restaurant door and the other cop said, “are ya into rockabilly music?” We looked at him and thought DUH?! but said sure we are. He said there’s a rockabilly show at the Glass House tonight. We asked who was playing and he didn’t know so he started calling some people right there in the restaurant. While we were eating our delicious Mexican food a fourth Pomona cop showed up and got our names and put us on the guest list! How’s that for protecting and serving?!

When we went back to SoCal Speed Shop, we were guided around by a very cool sales guy (can't of course recall his name at the moment). We got to see all the shops where the hot rods are constructed. We were asked to stay together and at least Klaus and I had a very hard time doing that because we were looking in all the nooks and cranies of every shop. We got to meet Jimmy Shine who was working on a custom '57 gasser. Man that thing was SWEET! He was an incredibly friendly guy who answered every one of our questions with paragraph answers instead of just a yes or no. If it wasn't for the sales guy pulling us away from his work area we might still be standing there talking to him! Great guy - Jimmy Shine! We got to see the original Lime Time (under plastic of course) and Jeff Beck's '32 5 window. And an incredibly built '32 Raodster for a "big wig" who shall remain nameless but man, it was totally sweet!

We ended up not going to the show, mainly because we were driving up to Lancaster to visit our favorite resident Swedish/ American couple, but a little had to do with the fact that it was the Necromantics playing and we didn’t think we could manage a whole night of punk/psychobilly music. So we headed up to Lancaster for a BBQ with Martin and Amber. We had a great time with our old friends and made some arrangements for shipping Belle in Long Beach.

More to come.

C K & M

 

Did you go back to Sweden already???

 

Saturday April 14 we left Martin and Amber’s in Lancaster mid morning and headed east and south back to Route 66. We passed some great cars in route back to Route 66 on the 138. There was even a southern “ghost town” looking area right smack dab in the middle of the Antelope Valley. That gasser (picture) was just a sittin’ right in front of a fairly old gas station waiting for us to admire (and has been for at least two years according to Martin). We picked up the mother road where we left off in La Verne CA. We drove ourselves nearer and nearer to our destination through each town leading into LA. People were honking and yelling out to us ... You’re Almost There! Once in LA proper we got a little lost because our turn by turn didn’t segue into the general directions again and we missed a turn onto Sunset Blvd (aka Cesar Chavez Blvd). Some kind driver who wanted to know “how much?” for Belle pointed us in the right direction and we found ourselves once again on the Mother Road. We met an old lady driving the mid sixties white Stude on Santa Monica Blvd and honked the horn and probably scared the be-jesus out of her! She didn’t seem to get our excitement – it was probably her daily driver and has owned it since it was new. Oh well, different strokes for different folks!

Finally, we found ourselves in Santa Monica, the excitement mounted, we were less than 5 miles from our journeys end! We took a left onto Lincoln Boulevard and another left onto Olympic Boulevard and we could see the Santa Monica sign! I was the first to get emotional, the moment my eyes laid sight upon that glorious sign. As we drew nearer I could hardly contain my emotion. Klaus, who was driving on this Saturday afternoon, looked at me with a tear in his eye. I jumped out of Belle to capture on viedoe Belle in front of the arch, and as I did there was an SUV with two ladies in it who saw me jump out of the back seat with the video camera and tears running down my face and asked me if I was ok. I replied “yes, we made it!” Pointing to the pier and then the back window (Santa Monica or Bust Via Route 66 2007 Swedish Spring Break). They screamed congratulations and honked the horn. The sign in front of the pier said that the lot was full but I told Klaus to drive into the parking lot anyway. They’d let us in if we tell them what we were doing. But it turned out that the lot wasn’t full and even better we parked right in front! Then it was Magnus’ turn to get a little emotional, but just a little cuz he’s a Viking, dammit! We took some pictures at the entrance of the pier and then walked the pier to the end and tossed off Jim’s house keys – that’s a story in itself. Then we strolled back to the restaurant at the beginning of the pier and had ourselves a great meal and several drinks toasting our monumental journey.

We tried getting a room at the Holiday Inn right at the Piers entrance but of course there was no vacancy ... not even for the three Swedes ending their 30 day journey on Route 66.

As the sun set on Santa Monica ... we were all a little sentimental! Our journey was complete! 5,300 miles of pure American Fun! Thanks for following our journey! Each and every one of you were with us the entire way!

Cindy, Klaus and Magnus

 

Most excellent!!

 

Sunday, April 15th. We stayed at the Dunes Inn on Wilshire Blvd Saturday night. We arose to meet the beautiful sunshine of a Southern California morning. We loaded the car for the last time and man were we thankful for that small favor! The boys had that packing down to a science ... in the beginning it took about 20 minutes to pack and on day 26 it was down to a measly 6 minutes with time to spare for goofing off.

We headed down Wilshire Blvd to the Bob’s Big Boy for some breakfast and then we hit the Petersen Museum. Amazing Dioramic displays on the first level. Simply fantastic! The Ford showroom from 1931-32 was incredible. The level of detail was phenomenal - everything down to the asphalt flooring added ambiance to the ground floor displays of the museum. Everything imagineable including a Duesenberg! Which, by the way, is the first time any of us had seen a Duse in real life! Wow! Then up to the second floor. Up the escalator ... and there stood a burnt orange ’63 Chrysler Turbine car, fantastic! One of the show stoppers was Rita Hayworth’s ’53 Series 62 Cadillac from the mid 50’s. There was also a late 50’s Dodge Dual Ghia in the convertible section of the museum. Then it was a mad dash for the Ed “Big Daddy” Roth exhibit. I say mad dash because we had 20 minutes to check out the entire exhibit before we had to be in the car heading south for the HAMBers Meet and Greet in Anaheim Kurt had arranged for a 1:00 start. It was an awesome display of the master’s work! We never thought we’d ever have the good fortune and pleasure of seeing the Beatnik Bandit in person and wow, was it worth the wait to see. There was also a nearly complete collection of his Rat Fink sculptures and a vast array of his original prints on display. We also had the pleasure of seeing the Outlaw, Surfite, Mysterion (Replica built by Mark Moriarity), the Rotar, the Road Agent and several bikes Big Daddy built. We left kicking and screaming, but we had to leave nonetheless.

Two hours at the Petersen proved not enough for these avid car enthusiasts, but we had a date down in Anaheim and you know or have heard about SoCal’s traffic ... it’s insufferable!

Even more to come ... stay tuned to this bat channel!

Cindy, Klaus and Magnus

 

So off we go (Sunday afternoon) south towards Anaheim from the Petersen Museum to meet the HAMBers at the Linbrook Bowl in Anaheim. Kurt (Sgtlethargic) drove down from Simi Valley in his ’61 Mercury Comet. Cool, cool, cool! Damn, that thing is PROPANE powered ... we never thought we’d see the day. Then Joe (Hudrodz) made it to the lanes in his ’47 Hudson Truck. SWEET! Then John (TimeBom) and his lovely wife, Kimberly, showed up in their sweet ’51 Chevy, built by John when he was just a strapping young lad! We talked in the parking lot for a couple hours building a great thirst ... and finally went into the bowling alley where we didn’t bowl ... we drank in the bar! Mmmm those Corona’s went down nice and smooth! Then Rob and Nina showed up in their ’60 Caddy ... and man alive she was a peach the caddy I mean not that Nina was not one too but I don’t swing that way! They had been to a prior engagement so they met us in the bar and we only saw the Caddy in the dark! Damn! What an amazing day. If you weren’t there and live in SoCal ... shame on you or at least your loss! We had a fantastic time with these 6 people ... sure was the icing on the cake. When we pulled into the parking lot of the Bowling Lanes we had driven 5,434 miles in sweet Jersey Belle! Alas, we had to part ways ... being Sunday night around 9ish. Kurt, Magnus, Klaus and I had a needed bite to eat in the bowling alley’s café. Then we headed southwest towards the John Wayne airport where we would bunk for two nights until our flight back east.

Monday morning Magnus and Klaus headed north again for some new shoes for Belle and a set to put in the trunk for Lady Luck. She also got her aching legs adjusted with an alignment before dropping her off in Long Beach for the long ship ride to her new home in Sweden. The boys called Joe (Hudrodz) who kindly offered chauffeuring talents in his cherry (ok ... it was turquoise and white) Chevy Station Wagon (which is, by the way, for sale). I finalized our flight arrangements and snoozed a little in the hotel room. Along with reorganizing the MASSIVE amounts of trinkets we had purchased along those 5,343 miles of excellent journey. Klaus rang me up and said we’ll be there in 30 minutes to go to lunch with Joe and his fantastic kids, Blaize and Riker. We drove to Huntington Beach where the Coppa’s reside. Had lunch at the Ruby’s at the end of the pier. Then we bought even more stuff (flat stuff!!!) in the cool shops in Huntington Beach. Then Joe’s wife, Kristen, joined us. We had something called Starbucks Coffee (the whole time we were traveling Route 66 we thought Starbucks sold meteorites or something similar since they were on nearly every corner of every town of America!!!) (naw, just joshing! We knew it was coffee, we were born at night but not last night!)

Then we were invited to Joe’s house for a BBQ. We sat in their beautiful garden sipping Pacifico beers and swapping story after story. Poor Joe had gotten NO sleep after his night shift the night before and he dropped us off at our hotel near the airport around 11:00 pm. His next shift started at 2:00 am! I hope you didn’t fall asleep on the job Joe! But thanks again, a million, for the amazing hospitality!

We made a few last minute suitcase arranging and got our clothes out for Tuesday morning and then hit the sack, exhausted again!

Just a bit more now ... stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of the Swedes do Route 66 and VLV10 in a '58 Bel Air!

Cindy, Klaus and Magnus

 

Kurt, the only picture we took of your Comet was totally blurry - can you send us one, please?

Rob and Nina, we didn't get a single picture of the Caddy ... if you don't mind, please send us some! She's a beaut!

Thanks again for a totally awesome day and it was great to meet you all!

P.S. John and Kimberly ... I'm still so sorry for giving you a beer bath! John, maybe you should try not saying such funny things when people have their mouth full of beer! Cindy

 

Tuesday was traveling HELL! Cindy remembered our flight time out of John Wayne wrong so we arose BEFORE the crack of dawn just to wait around for an extra hour and a half for our flight! ARGH! Then we boarded our plane to Chicago where we would have a medium sized lay over, till we boarded our flight to Philly. We were lucky that the Noreaster taking hold of the east coast hadn't bombarded Philly with a foot of snow, they only got a lot of rain and strong winds! Thank sweet baby Jesus for that! Bread and Butter! Smitty (Gearhead55) picked us up at the airport in his double nickel and we roared back to our Jersey hotel, also known as Jim’s house. Dropped off our 50,000 suitcases (or at least they weighed that much!) and then headed to Stan’s barn for one last get together with our east coast pals! Spike (hotrodphotos) and Mrs Spike and Little Spike made their way again all the way from the southern most part of PA on a school night. Redd (ReddHottArtwork) and Lisa drove from almost the southern tip of Jersey, Jersey Pete (aka Justin), Calvin Klein Garden Gnome (CKGG aka Andy) and Mark (I think that’s his name) showed up. Nicole, Professor Ouch and Scott showed up after their radio show, Sgt Smudge (aka Louis) made his appearance and then proceeded to crack us all up all night. We gave a picture slide show of the trip until the flat top battery decided it had had enough and died on us and then we proceeded to drink yummy Yuengling beers until 1:00am (remember, this is another school night for everyone else!!!) and then we parted ways shortly thereafter, but with a plan to meet for breakfast Wednesday morning. Jersey Pete drove us back to Chez Jim where we passed out from exhaustion.

Wednesday morning we met Scott, Redd and CKGG at the IHOP in Cherry Hill. Then we did some more shopping – this time for necessities like Pantene conditioner and girly stuff Cindy can’t get in Sweden), bought ANOTHER suitcase ... and returned to Jim’s to pack the last suitcase and wait for Pork Chop to chauffer us to Newark for our flight to Sweden. We arrived at the airport a whopping 5 ½ hours before our flight left but killed the time in the Chili’s in the airport for 2 ½ hours with Pork Chop (an amazing tattoo artist out of Almighty Ink in Asbury Park) drinking Margaritas, Bloody Marys and Beers and eating a little more good American (Mexican) food! Our flight from Newark with without incident but none of us slept too much. It’s hard to sleep on a plane! Then we landed at Heathrow only to have to walk down a jetway staircase to an awaiting coach that took us to the terminal (way too much air traffic in and out of Heathrow!!!). We somehow made it through security with their strictly enforced ONE carry one bag (Klaus and I had 5 together that we somehow combined into ONE each, only Magnus was smart and traveled lightly with the carry ons!) We had some coffee and a bite to eat at the Café we drank beers in just a short month before that and waiting for the boarding of our flight to Copenhagen Denmark. We arrived in Denmark about 3:30 pm on Thursday and took the train to Helsingör Denmark and then took the ferry to Helsingborg where we caught a mini van taxi to Magnus’ house. We were greeted by a very happy Martina and Emma (Magnus’ family) and Martina’s sister and niece. We ate a delicious dinner and then Klaus and I drove home to Klippan. It took us 6 trips up and down the stairs to the second floor of our apartment complex to get all our bags upstairs and then started unpacking our suitcases! A much needed shower was next and then we shared a bottle of wine (like we needed anything to help us sleep!!!) and then we crashed our extremely missed bed. We slept for 14 hours and 45 minutes, then had some good Swedish coffee and a light breakfast and then attacked the rest of the unpacking.

It’s good to be home in Sweden after such an amazing journey. We’ll be high for a long time to come, that’s for sure! Thanks to everyone we’ve met along the way, the people that made our trip so extraordinary and went out of their way to make our trip a once in a life time vacation! You HAMBers ROCK!

We just want to shout out to Ryan, creator of the Jalopy Journal and the HAMB ... THANKS MAN! You’ve created not only a forum for car nuts like us but you actually created an insurance for us while we were traveling the mother road! We felt secure in the fact that if anything, God forbid, happened on along the way, that someone out there on the HAMB would have run to our aid and helped us out in the event of car trouble or the likes! It was security knowing that if anything should happen ... 10 people would have showed up, or if they couldn’t they would have sent their friend or uncle or best friend to help us! That’s an insurance that is priceless! And we just wanted to thank you!

I guess until we do something else spectacular ... we’ll see ya when we see ya! Take care everybody!

Cindy, Klaus and Magnus

 

To everyone at the bowling alley it was nice meeting you all, sorry I had to split so soon. Out of all of the HAMB gatherings I've had to pass on I'm glad I made this one. The Swedes are some real good people, my family had a great time meeting them. By the end of the night it seemed like we had known each other for a long time. Their knowledge in American cars amazed me. My home is open to you guys any time. Keep in touch.

Joe

 

Hey all.
I hasn't been around when Cindy and Klaus wrote their conclusion upon the trip, so here's my thoughts. We asked ourselves several times, what's been the best so far, and I always answered meeting all the people along the way, and I still think that. I mean whitout this forum, and the invitations following our posts, this trip wouldn't been as exciting as it was. Period. From the first meet outside Chicago, arranged by Mike Zenor, to the last Meet and greet arranged by sgtlethargic, oh and of course the party in Stan's amazing barn, I couldn't dream of meet such nice people. Not an angry face along the way, just folks who opened up and invited us to their shops and houses. For a car nut, it has been incredible to see you guys, and you really made this trip worthwhile. So, see you all in Sweden? You have a place to stay.
Magnus.

 

Hey.
Couldn't resist to write some notes about the Chevy coming to it's new home, although Kuztomklaus already made a separate post about it. Got the call last week that the car is in Gothenburg harbour and can be picked up in Varberg on friday. So my best friends Cindy and Klaus tagged along and we found Jersey Belle at a towing company outside Varberg. Somebody asked if we got jumper cables, but I said thay won't be necessary, crossed my fingers and the damn thing started immediatedly!!And nothing was dented or missed, all the schtuff in the trunk was there, so everybody was smiling. Then I couldn't resist to take her to the drag races at Mantorp park, even om New Jersey license plates.... Not legal but I was so eager to drive her. And at Mantorp I had to tell the story from the trip over and over again. People couldn't believe we drove it across America without any problems. So far it's been as reliable as you can ask for and I'll hate to sell her, but there's always new cars in sight, and it will give me opportunity to visit some of the people we'd met all over again.

Ohh, we slept in it at Mantorp, so we callled her Bel Air Hotel
Keep in touch.
Magnus

 

Thanks for the follow-up, Magnus. Good luck.

 

Mannn, you three slept in it- in your own country- but not while on the road trip here? That is funny for some reason.

Thanks,
Kurt