You Never Know What You'll Find

Great photos!

I'm pretty sure that the mystery Italian is an OSCA, built by the Maserati brothers after they sold, well, Maserati.

Yeah, we have stuff like that all the time out here.

Lane has nailed it.

Lane, your prize is one of those little brass things that falls out of carburetors and rolls across the floor when you strip them down to clean them.

Stan, you should drive out here to visit more often.

How about I just move there and be done with it. 

Most amazing find......all of those Lord of Darkness cars and I did no see any trailers, so they must of started.

Looked like a GREAT show! Nice shots!

~WB

Much like Mitch, I went to a car show of sorts on Saturday, but at Wray Schelin's Pro Metal Shapers, not too far from where I live.  Wray is the most amazing metal worker I have ever met (and I've met a few good ones, too!), PLUS, he regularly runs classes in metalworking techniques.  He just moved his operation into a 12,000 sq. ft. building, essentially tripling his space and says he's already growing out of it.   Chris and I drove out there in Pearl, as Wray had asked for a bunch of classics and Rods for a mini car show.  Probably 40-50 showed up while we were there, and here are a few of my photos:

All of his metal shaping of larger panels starts out here, with a hollowed out tree stump and a BFH with nylon impact surfaces:

Then, he moves on to English Wheels, all of which he built from scratch:

He also has a series of different types of power hammers for either stretching or shrinking metal.  Along the way, he also uses metal forming tools like bead and crease makers, or bead rollers for the edge (like around wheel wells).

There's also a whole lot of old machine tools like here, mostly to maintain his metal-shaping tools, or to make special jigs and dies as he goes along:

Over on the other side of the building, this is what appears to be a Revere Runabout, being reconstructed as part of a series of classes that Wray is running.  First the driver's side:

Did you notice that panel shaping buck in the foreground of that last picture?  The one that looks suspiciously like a big hunk of tree??  Also, look farther down the building and there is a LOT of very curvy car bodies down there being worked on.  And then you wander around to the other side of the Revere Runabout:

Just to compare both sides of that really cool boat tail:

This guy was wandering around after he rode out there with me.  Some of you oldies may remember him, although he's gotten a few years older. He got to drive Pearl home and had this grin even before I handed him the keys.

Lots of other projects underway, mostly by class members, with a preponderance of early Jaguars and other oldies with swooping fenders.  Wray specializes in 3-D, multiple compound curves (think a Jaguar XK120 or maybe a 356 Speedster) with a VERY ingenious way of capturing compound curves to enable easy duplication:

Outside, at the car show, was a line-up of Hot Rods from my home town, Grafton.  Charlie Padulla (of Charlie's Rod Shop) drove his flamed '33 Ford Coupe (much like the "California Kid's" car, but with a white-bearded "Santa Claus" driving), sitting next to Dennis O'Brien's '34 Ford Panel truck, sitting next to Lee Robinson's '32 High Boy in flat red paint with a lot of pin striping.  All of these cars have been owned by these guys since the 1970's.  Charlie and Lee used to hang out with my brother, and Dennis worked with and for me at a couple of computer companies.  Dennis' Panel truck has something north of 500,000 miles on it as a Hot Rod!   He hits a LOT of meets and shows yearly promoting his business; "O'Brien Truckers", the largest provider of aluminum car club plaques left, and was just named the NHRA and NSRA "Manufacturer of the Year" for supporting the Hot Rod Hobby.

So Mitch is right - You never know what you'll find at some of these shows.

Gordon, it's amazing how far some of those old-time racers would go for an advantage on a left-hand oval track.

Wow he's even got a 289 FIA Cobra there--from the bodywork done to it it must be an original aluminum car...

Great photos!, guys

Hey Gordon, see if you can cajole Chris into joining us at Carlisle next year.  I haven't seen him in years.

Mitch:  Snorted my tea on that one!

Yeah, we walked over to the Cobra and were looking at it and I noticed a bunch of rivets on the inside - Tapped the fender with my wedding band and "Click"!  Sure enough....metal.  So was the 550 Spyder farther down.  

In fact, other than Pearl, the only other fiberglass car there was this Kaiser-Darren, of which I'm told there is only a handful left ('cuz they didn't build very many in the first place).  Lane:  You may see a baby blue one of these in your neck of the woods - the owner lives on Hilton Head or something.  The doors are "pocket doors" which roll straight forward into the front fender when you open them.  All of the Kaiser-Darrens were custom made for their prospective owner - whatever you were willing to pay for, you got.  This one was a hundred point restoration with absolutely zero ripples or distortions in any of the surfaces.

I always wondered if they had overheating issues with that tiny grill.

I guy in my home town in N. CA had one of these in the early to late 60's. I never knew what it was as a child, but I knew it was cool. He did not live in a pretentious part of town, so I suspect he was a regular guy. Some of the worst car makers had some of the coolest designs. 

Goombah Lane wrote:  "I always wondered if they had overheating issues with that tiny grill."

Shoot, no........It don't take much to cool a Briggs and Stratton engine.....