2012 Detroit Autorama - Basement's Best Hot Rods Bottom floor, everyone out! In the far corners of the grand Cobo Center convention hall, escalators carried you down... Down to an area where mortgage size dollars were spent on... mortgages! It's a place where hot rodders and their buddy who could weld hooked up with a dude from work who knew a painter then banded together to make a custom car they could all be proud of. Then Friday night, or Tuesday or whenever they'd terrorize the streets and strips. They're loud, rough and built with the true spirit of, "My Ride is Me". Down the escalator, a birdseye view of the basement turned into a closeup of the "Voodoo Hellion" and the Voodoo Kings car club. In the trophy area, I saw a, "Best Car Club" trophy, so the area clubs bring out their best and put in the extra effort on the setup too... I got tired of seeing thin white rope-like barriers. Dig the custom machined pieces here. Next door was the Brothers Custom display. Why this nasty black coupe (shiny paint and all) with a supremely...

2012 Detroit Autorama Not Ridler Contenders?   I took alota pictures at the Detroit Autorama. I had too...  at first, as I mentioned in the Great 8 Ridler Contender story, I didn't know which of the MANY fine rides at the show were actually in the running for the big award, the Ridler. So... I snapped away. No harm done cause that gives me a great reason to highlight the Autorama's "Not Great 8" hot rods and customs and let you decide if they shoulda been included. That'd mean one of the chosen Great 8 cars would have to go, so you decide... Did the judges pick the right cars? Leave a comment if you have an opinion.   Keep in mind, if any of these cars have been shown before, they're automatically out of the Ridler competition. If anyone knows specifically why one of the following weren't included, please let me know. (I'll speculate too)   As always, click to see the full-size photo.   Not Great 8 - 2012 Detroit Autorama's Best   This 1933 Hot Rod Ford coupe owned by Gregg and Jodi Blackford was built,...

2012 Detroit Autorama Ridler Award Contenders More fun than the republican primary! Vote for your favorite below.   Can't get enough of the Autorama? Check out these other stories: -- Here's the winner! Skip ahead and see the Ridler Winner -- Damn Great, but Not Great 8 – Detroit Autorama’s Best -- Going Down – Basement Best at 2012 Detroit Autorama   It's about time. I've been grabbing photos from friends for long enough. It's time for a personal account of the hot rods and custom cars that make up the Detroit Autorama, especially the best of the best, the Ridler cars. For the 60th Anniversary of the Detroit Autorama, the competition is extra tough... Fact is, I couldn't figure out what cars were the "Great 8"!   Rules for the Ridler are pretty simple: The cars should show: Creativity, Engineering and Workmanship. (What they don't mention is that the winner typically shows all three of these in a way, most likely, never seen before or done in a way that'll cause mouths to hit the floor) Just a few other rules, the Ridler contenders must be showing for...

For the past 4 years, Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational has been bringing out the best of the best for real road-proving competition. Directly after the SEMA Show in November, chosen vehicles drive out to Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch in Pahrump, NV. Each year, the competition has gotten hotter. Click here to see a 2-minute teaser on Optima's YouTube Channel! This coming weekend is the first chance for you to see the action of all four catagories up close and personal on SPEED. The special's premier will be this Saturday, February 25th at 2 p.m. ET. In addition to the Saturday, Feb. 25 airing, the 2011 OPTIMA Invitational is scheduled to re-air on SPEED at the following times: ·         Sunday, Feb. 26, 2012 at 3 a.m. ET ·         Sunday, March 11, 2012 at 2:30 p.m. ET ·         Saturday, March 24, 2012 at 11 a.m. ET If you catch the action, let us know what you thought of...

Hot Rod & Custom Car Photography - 1936 Ford Pickup Download this hot rod pickup for your desktop. It's a big file, so give it some time... I get some cool shots sometimes too! I just posted the combo of Coby and Tim Sutton's beyond sick 1937 Lincoln Zephyr photo which is a shot, of a caliber (get it?) I aspire to create some day. Through some luck, good timing and maybe a developing eye for light, I got this shot of my friend Jim Ramirez's hot rod pickup. I knew this hot rod 1936 Ford pickup in suede blue paint with a really tough looking spade pinstriped on the door. That's going back to 2008, the first year I covered the LA Roadster Show. His pickup has changed! Last year, Jim parked in the suede palace, but this year, he's outside sip'n Tecate's with his car club pals the Throttle Kings. One thing you can count on with the Throttle Kings, their hot rods evolve... and they don't have air ride! From back in 2008 at the LA Roadster Show: Closer to present day... here's some other shots of Jim's...

Courtney Force of John Force Racing Team     Hard work pays off...     It's working for MyRideisMe.com to get me access to the best, bar none, funny car and drag racing team there is: John Force Racing for this interview.   It's also working for Courtney Force. Sure, she's got a leg up as the daughter of 15x funny car champion John Force, but do you think he's the type of guy that'd throw his beautiful daughter into a 300 mph funny car without her wanting it? Earning it! No way.   So learn a little more about Courtney and driving 300 in this video. Thanks! [youtube]http://youtu.be/v6SPxrlpqhM[/youtube]   Behind every great driver is a great team. Here's Courtney's crew: Thanks for letting me poke around all day...

Drifting at it's best in the mountains of Poland Story courtesy of Drift.ro It was mid-September, 2011, and something big was about to go on in Poland, in the small mountain resort of Karpacz, near the border with the Czech Republic. The usual quietness of the whole area was about to be heavily disturbed as preparations were being made for the 4th Round of the Polish Drift Championship, currently seen as one of the highest rated drifting championship in the whole of Europe. The event had been stirring up quite some interest in Europe in the preceding month, as the course layout was going something never witnessed before in the history of Official Drifting Competitions. It was no racetrack, but it was a street course. More exactly, the event was going to be unfolded on what every drift fan would recognize as being : the Touge. An almost 1km long track, set up at the base of the mountain, going up using two narrow lanes, winding all the way up to the finish line. In two days, more than 25,000 people attended to the event , and it is...

James Hetfield's 1937 Lincoln Zephyr Speechless. Hetfield showed two amazing rides at the 2012 Grand National Roadster Show. This is one. Unlike the photos I usually take, when I review them, I'm not moved like I was seeing the car first hand. Not, NOT true with this piece from photographer Tim Sutton with finishing by Coby Gewertz (of Church fame). Even more amazing? They were giving these away! Did you get one? So I asked Coby about the poster and how it was made. (Alert! Learning opportunity here...) Here's what Coby told me... Transforming a Hot Rod Photo: Rick Dore called and said he needed someone to design a poster for James' Zephyr in a hurry. I agreed to do it after hours from my day job under the condition that he had decent photography. It needed to be done in 3 days so they would have time to get it printed in time for the GNRS. He sent me 3 pics Tim Sutton had taken for Rod and Custom and away I went. I retouched all the reflections out of the car, added a new one, changed the...