sewlow
Bitchin' Stitchin'
I love car shows. I have since I was a little kid. I have seen icons of the custom car world. Both the vehicles & the personalities. Shook hands with George Barris, A pic with Foose. Watched one of my best friends paint one side of a vehicle while Gene Winfield (the 'King of Fades') painted the other. (it had to match!) B-b-q & beers after.
Seen the Beatnick Bandit, Mysterion, A la Carte, The Uncertain-T, The original Batmobile, Cadzilla (with the matching H.D.'s)( one of my all time favs!) & many others. And not just in their most recent appearances, but the first or second time they were on tour. I'm talking the 60's, here.
I like the big shows, & the small specialty, invite only shows. Concours shows. Saturday night locals-only shows. Wednesday night shop tours. I don't really care.
I like to see how some people can take a vision, an idea, without even a rough sketch of what they want to do, & create masterpieces. I like not only the finished product but seeing the process, the steps, sometimes taking years to achieve an end result. The inginuity, the engineering, the details. And the budgets. From near zero (sometimes the coolest cars) to the open checkbook builds. (I LIKE those guys!) When I work on some of these vehicles, & I can see the passion the owner has for it, I feel that it's a priviledge to be invited to be part of their creations. It's more than just about the $$$.
5 months of the year,Friday night, Saturday &/or Sundays, I'm at a show or race of some sort.
Because I've never been to SEMA, I can't say for sure, but it seems to me that it's about 'spectacle'. Nothing wrong with that, but as long as the big corporations are involved, I could see it being a showcase for a lot of products, being created for a market that didn't exist until that product was created. Instead of supplying a 'need', they're creating a 'need'. It's about marketing. It's about the $$$. To me that takes the passion out.
But it's the 'one-offs' that I'd be there to see, even if it's from a big corporation or a small 1-3 man shop. Once again, it's the thought, the idea, & the subsequent follow through of engineering & development, & production, that would be the draw for me. The engineering of a vehicle taken to it's extreme. Some of the smaller companies marketing can be hilarious & brilliant. They don't suffer under the constraints of a large corp. Although, some of the smartest automotive young minds were, and still are, hired by the big corporations. Without those guys we wouldn't of had things like the first sbc, or the LS motors of today.
But at the end of the day, I'd be sitting somewhere off in the back, sucking back a brew or two with the other guys (& girls) with the busted knuckles.
And while I think that the best a vehicle could ever look is when it's doing the purpose it was built for, weather it's drag racing, turning corners fast, climbing a hill that no vehicle has a right to be able to climb, long distance highway hauling at speed in comfort, or cruising under the lights on a hot summer night, I still love car shows.
Seen the Beatnick Bandit, Mysterion, A la Carte, The Uncertain-T, The original Batmobile, Cadzilla (with the matching H.D.'s)( one of my all time favs!) & many others. And not just in their most recent appearances, but the first or second time they were on tour. I'm talking the 60's, here.
I like the big shows, & the small specialty, invite only shows. Concours shows. Saturday night locals-only shows. Wednesday night shop tours. I don't really care.
I like to see how some people can take a vision, an idea, without even a rough sketch of what they want to do, & create masterpieces. I like not only the finished product but seeing the process, the steps, sometimes taking years to achieve an end result. The inginuity, the engineering, the details. And the budgets. From near zero (sometimes the coolest cars) to the open checkbook builds. (I LIKE those guys!) When I work on some of these vehicles, & I can see the passion the owner has for it, I feel that it's a priviledge to be invited to be part of their creations. It's more than just about the $$$.
5 months of the year,Friday night, Saturday &/or Sundays, I'm at a show or race of some sort.
Because I've never been to SEMA, I can't say for sure, but it seems to me that it's about 'spectacle'. Nothing wrong with that, but as long as the big corporations are involved, I could see it being a showcase for a lot of products, being created for a market that didn't exist until that product was created. Instead of supplying a 'need', they're creating a 'need'. It's about marketing. It's about the $$$. To me that takes the passion out.
But it's the 'one-offs' that I'd be there to see, even if it's from a big corporation or a small 1-3 man shop. Once again, it's the thought, the idea, & the subsequent follow through of engineering & development, & production, that would be the draw for me. The engineering of a vehicle taken to it's extreme. Some of the smaller companies marketing can be hilarious & brilliant. They don't suffer under the constraints of a large corp. Although, some of the smartest automotive young minds were, and still are, hired by the big corporations. Without those guys we wouldn't of had things like the first sbc, or the LS motors of today.
But at the end of the day, I'd be sitting somewhere off in the back, sucking back a brew or two with the other guys (& girls) with the busted knuckles.
And while I think that the best a vehicle could ever look is when it's doing the purpose it was built for, weather it's drag racing, turning corners fast, climbing a hill that no vehicle has a right to be able to climb, long distance highway hauling at speed in comfort, or cruising under the lights on a hot summer night, I still love car shows.
