Friday, November 5, 2010

Rat Rod


Up early in Los Angeles. We're on our way to KTLA for a live TV interview. Sorry for the quiet week. We spent most if it in Vegas. I can see why people call it Lost Wages, Nirvana.

We were there for the SEMA Show - a huge specialty auto exhibit. A hundred-thousand so called gear heads turned out to show off their cars and specialty parts and services. That's a lot of gear heads. There were thousands of cars. Lamborghinis, old-school muscle, even Bentleys dressed up as taxi cabs. It was a good look at car culture down here.

Alex was in his element, hanging around with other car lovers. Jay Leno was there, who apparently owns about 100 cars. Alex tells me he has around 140. Although I think only a few of them still turn over (Alex guesses about 20). The rest are yard decorations back home in Yellowknife. Alex's son, Curtis, calls them junk. Alex disputes that and calls them collectibles. I've seen the yard, it's hard not to agree with Curtis.

With Alex's collection of beaters, it's no surprise which car was his favourite at the show. There was an absolutely hideous looking, gnarly old station wagon parked in the middle of a sea of polished-up show cars. The wagon's owner called it a rat rod. A hot rod engine in a rat of a car. It would not have looked out of place as one of Alex's "collectibles" out in the yard.

Ok, off to Sunset Boulevard. Have a good one.
Loren

1 comment:

  1. After talking to Alex I can understand where he is coming from. I too have that addition of collecting cars. Like myself and the thousands of other gearheads (petrolheads) that flock around SEMA that dream about the time that our projects will look like that. But here's the thing.....enter the RATROD, the budget way of building your project. Believe me with a bit of skill and a large collection of parts you can produce something eye catching. Hence the gold mine of Alex's backyard.

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