Cars painted by stencil artist John Grider

1948 Cadillac Hearse. Dallas., originally uploaded by broken crow.

John Grider is an incredible artist based in Minneapolis who I've written about before, tangentially. I first saw his work on canvas, and then he branched out to huge murals on house walls. I was looking through his Flickr photostream this week, and found that lately he's been decorating cars... like this '48 Hearse, bedecked in a pile of red skulls.

If you like that, he also used his trademark goat design to embellish vans and cars, including a Saturn that looks like my old car! Except that if my car had featured a paint job by John G., I would not have sold it.

Lace Starliner custom painted hot rod

This amazing hot rod paint job was laid down by using two different lace patterns (one for the center, another for the side panels) as stencils. The owner plans to display the finished product at the Grand National Roadster Show in Pomona. I think it would be worth the trip just to see this car!

Look at the message board for notes and more beautiful close-up shots. (Link, Link, and Link)

found at BoingBoing.

TomTom Saves Christmas

TomTom One, originally uploaded by Ludo2Besac.

My wife gave me the TomTom ONE Portable GPS Vehicle Navigator for Christmas this year. It is the perfect gift because I am always getting lost on the road. I configured it right away (with "Tim," the British male voice, because he sounds a bit like The Current DJ Mark Wheat) and we left the house to run some errands.

My TomTom had an opportunity to prove its worth on that very first trip. The roads were icy and slick. A recent two-car crash was blocking our freeway entrance ramp. The TomTom immediately charted a new route, and Tim's soothing voice guided me through Minneapolis' East Bank neighbourhood and back to the road. It was a GPS miracle!

2008 Dodge Challenger

2008 Dodge Challenger, originally uploaded by jalopnik.

If the Charger, Camaro, and Challenger are the main contenders in the new "muscle car wars," then I'd declare this one the winner. I'm enamored with the sleek styling on Dodge's concept 2008 Challenger. You might say that it moves the muscles of my heart.

There's actual information about this car at Jalopnik and Allpar.com.

Citizen Police Academy: week 5

Under Arrest, originally uploaded by Curtis Perry.

I was not able to attend this class because of my business trip to Vegas. I was very sad to miss a speech by Chief Harrington on Community Oriented Policing, and most of all, the SWAT section. Fortunately I am still allowed to graduate even if I miss a class or two. Stay tuned for posts on subsequent classes.

2007 Dodge Charger Daytona RT

2007 Dodge Charger Daytona RT, originally uploaded by Roadsidepictures.

While I was driving to work in the pre-dawn darkness of Minnesota winter, a ray of green light caught my eye. I had to exceed the speed limit just a tad to see what it was, but my disregard for traffic laws was handsomely rewarded when I beheld the 2007 Dodge Charger Daytona R/T.

I liked the "Sublime Metallic Clear Coat" color, the stripes, and the low-profile spoiler on the back. But then I passed him and sadly discovered that there's something about the front end that makes it all fall apart. I couldn't put my finger on it at first. It's too high and too round. In a word, I guess, it's just too darn modern to truly recapture that classic muscle car feeling for me.

New car

This is my new car, a metallic blue Saturn Ion, from the first year of production. It's pretty nice. It's taller than my old Saturn, and it feels more spacious without seeming significantly larger. There are some great features that were missing in my old Saturn, like a CD player and power windows. The remote keyless entry feature alone was worth the price of admission.

It was running perfectly until I decided to test its subaquatic capabilities. Our streets flash-flooded during a big thunderstorm and I drove my new car into a puddle that turned out to be the depth of my floorboards. Of course my engine died. My wife ran down the street in pouring rain and got in the car to steer while I pushed it out of the intersection. Two weeks and several hundred dollars later, it's in almost as good condition as when I bought it.

I put off this post for a while because I didn't have a lot to say about this car. Now that I've seen it through this disaster and the subsequent healing process, a bond has formed between us. I love my car!

Nickel Dickel Day

This year was my first time attending Waconia's annual Nickel Dickel Day celebration. It was good times all around. When we arrived, I noticed a sign for a book sale and of course that had to be our first stop. Here's what $3 buys you at the Carver County library:

• 11 hardcover books
• 9 paperbacks
• 1 video cassette tape
• 3 compact discs
• 2 LP records
  

There's a flat price for whatever you can cram into a grocery bag, so some of that is filler. But, I also found some books from my to-read list. It was a great start to a great Nickel Dickel Day! Then there was a car show. Here are two Mustangs and a Thunderbird.

Old car

I'm not just getting rid of bicycles from our garage. Oh no. Not even cars are safe as we separate the weak ones from the herd, to make room for the next generation of occupants. The latest casualty was my longsuffering Saturn SL-1.

It was a good car. I got it halfway through college and drove it five years, and I drove it hard. I hit one other car and one fire hydrant. They do sneak up on you. My worthy steed was starting to show signs of age, and recently the engine overheated, leaving me stranded along the side of the freeway. Last weekend I traded it in for something a decade newer and with half as many miles on the odometer.

This post is dedicated to my loyal SL-1, that carried me so long, and so far. I am grateful for it. But I won't miss it too much. My next entry will be all about the new hotness.

Love Bug in the Car Craft lot

One final photo from the Car Craft Summer Nationals weekend, because this little VW Beetle was too cute not to share.

Car Craft: the child seat custom AMX

The color of this car was the first thing that caught my eye. It's a different shade from the factory green for American Motor Company. I joked that if I ever buy a muscle car, it will have to be this color because that's the only way my wife would approve of it. Most cars, I snapped a photo and moved on, but I liked this one so much that I took a look inside and saw the best modification of the day.

I don't know much about engines and all that mechanical stuff, but this is something that I can appreciate. I spoke with the owner, who told me that this was a custom design. I can't say enough about how great this is, so I'll let the picture speak for itself. The only drawback to installing this in your car would be that the utility decreases dramatically if you don't have a child to put in it. Maybe by the time their kid outgrows it, I will have a reason to buy it for myself? What do you think honey?

Bonus: here's a look under the hood, in case any car geeks drop by. Shiny!

Flame on! Car Craft paint critique

If you're going to embellish the paint job on a muscle car, you have two options: stripes or flames. It's not so important which one you choose, as long as you make sure to get it right. Stripes seem relatively easy. On the other hand, painting a decent flame job must be really difficult, since there are so many crappy ones out there.

This Chevy Nova features unusual placement of flames on the trunk lid, but at least they look somewhat respectable. It should go without saying that I enjoy this shade of orange, since I chose it for the background of my blog.

The flames on this Chevelle SS 396 are a step up. Note the overlapping patterns and a complementary blue fading to black. I also like how the solid front side runs parallel with the lines of the car, rather than extending all the way to the grille.

Using green as a contrast color is very effective on this car, especially when combined with the evocative swirls of 'smoke' against a flat primary color. A solid lime green border makes it look sharp, not sloppy.

Here's the back of the same car. Notice that the flames cover only a small portion of the body, whereas too much coverage would be a mistake; the complicated pattern works best as an accent. Also observe the flames on the inside of the door, which I assume to be custom-stitched leather or vinyl. Nice!

Car Craft Summer Nationals

On Friday I went to the Car Craft Summer Nationals show with my dad and little brother. It was a loud, fast, fun time. This '69 Camaro RS/SS was the first photo-worthy car I located upon entering the fairgrounds. Bumblebee, is that you?

I think my new favorite pony car might be the Dodge Challenger. This '73 model is the color of poo, and I still love it.

Here's another Challenger of unknown vintage. The hood is conveniently labeled, in case you couldn't tell that it was cut for a shaker scoop.

It wasn't too long before I started to feel like I was just seeing the same cars over and over again ("look, there's another Camaro"). As a result, this made truly unique cars shine through all the more. During the whole day, we only saw three or four AMC cars, and every one was a standout. Dig the fuchsia paint job on this classy Javelin.

Vehicles at the show were primarily either musclecar-vintage or souped-up ricers. Here's one that stood apart from the pack. From the outside, this 1950 Chevy Bel Air would have looked right at home in the Back to the 50's show. In fact we saw several cars at that show that were almost identical, except for the giant tank of nitrous in the trunk.

The Chevrolet Chevelle Super Sport. My dad was on a quest to find this car, because he owned a '72 Chevelle SS back when he was in high school, during the heyday of muscle cars. Either I took a photo of the wrong car, or he was misinformed, because near as I can tell this looks like a 1970 model. We later did see a '72 Chevelle, although this one was not a SS:

Blue '72 Chevelle, neither super nor sporty. (More photos to come.)

Transformers

The new Transformers film is an extended ad for cars (except when it's also an ad for the armed forces). Nowhere in the movie is this more blatant than the scene where Bumblebee upgrades from a second-generation 1970s Camaro into GM's fifth-generation concept car. The problem? I think the original F-body car looks way cooler than the new model. Judge for yourself.

Rusty old early '70s Chevrolet Camaro: totally awesome (image from Altered Spaces)

Fifth-generation Camaro prototype: arguably not as awesome (image from Jalopnik)

This movie is rife for drinking games. If you are lucky enough to see it in a theatre with a bar, as I did, I recommend taking a drink every time someone yells "no no no no no" or beats you over the head by describing something as "more than meets the eye." The dialogue really is that bad. Having a pint of Blue Moon at hand seriously enhanced the experience for me between fight scenes.

For the record, I actually enjoyed this movie. The plot and hammy acting were exactly as sucky as I anticipated, but the giant fighting robot action exceeded my expectations. There are just not enough movies about giant fighting robots. And with robots that transform into cars, well, not even Michael Bay can screw that up.