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oselatra · 6 years ago

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Vacationing? Don't just nap

Do yoga with a goat, or sharpen your knives, or learn to kayak.

A weekend away can be a time to nap and read, but it can also be a value-added vacation, one where you aren't at home, someone else is doing the cooking, and you're doing something you always wanted to do. Like downward dog with a baby goat on your back. Or kayaking. Beginning stone carving, anyone? Or being able to answer the question "Is that Penstemon cobea I see before me?"

Weekend workshops, where you can work in some learning with your off time, can be found all over Arkansas. Some include lodging, like Heifer Ranch. Others are for campers or day-trippers or just-marrieds who want to add a certain je ne sais quoi to their escape to their honeymoon in Eureka Springs.

Let's start there.

Eureka Springs School of the Arts Eureka Springs

For two decades, the Eureka Springs School of the Arts, now located on 55 acres northwest of Eureka off U.S. Highway 62, has been an arm of the arts scene that defines the quirky mountain town. It offers dozens of different workshops that run from one to five days year-round, including many weekend classes.

A taste of what you can get during an ESSA weekend: In October alone, two-day workshops in felting fibers, silver ring-making, tool sharpening, beginning blacksmithing and plein air watercolor painting were offered (plus a four-day workshop in enamel and fold-forming copper). In November and December, there will be classes in watercolor technique, watercolor greeting cards, beginning stone carving, ceramics and digital photography.

Some instructors, like metal artist Sarah Doremus of Deer Isle, Maine; cowboy boot-maker Lisa Sorrell of Guthrie, Okla.; and steel sculptor Victoria Patti of Arvada, Colo., travel to ESSA to teach. Others, of course, come from Eureka, such as woodworker Doug Stowe, who was a co-founder of ESSA and was named the 2009 Arkansas Living Treasure by the Arkansas Arts Council, and weaver and beader Eleanor Lux, another co-founder and Arkansas Living Treasure.

The myriad metalworking workshops — including beginning blacksmithing, welding and bladesmith classes — fill quickly. ESSA's woodshop, which includes three rooms, recently hosted a "rendezvous" for 48 woodworkers from across the nation, Faith Cleveland of ESSA said.

Cleveland said classes appeal to both career artists and people who just want to try their hand at basketmaking or calligraphy or stained glass or paper mache. She suggested that interested folks sign up early, though it's sometimes possible to get a seat on a day's notice for the impulsive vacationer; class size varies according to medium and instructor. Prices also vary according to medium, from (for example, from previous offerings) $75 for a Saturday tool sharpening class to $130 for a Saturday-Sunday watercolor class to $370 for a Friday-Sunday class in stone carving. You can sign up for classes online at www.essa-art.org; a 2019 course catalog is due out at the end of November.

Arkansas Craft School Mountain View

Everyone knows Mountain View is where you go to hear music, clog and buy little native plants, but it's also a good place to learn to throw pots, make beads, paint big and take advantage of other art classes at the Arkansas Craft School. The school's in a historic building right on the square, within walking distance of lodging (discounted for students), lunching and antiquing and is open year-round. Marketing Manager Aly Dearborn says the staff works with prospective students on customizing workshops as well as making its own schedule of offerings. "How we differentiate ourselves from the Folk Center is that our instructors are geared toward opening people's creative ideas, to make traditional art forms into contemporary pieces of art," Dearborn said. Weekend classes this fall have included an introductory course in glass bead-making with Sage and Tom Holland; digital photography; "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" for people who think they can't draw; bladesmithing; basket-weaving; and a dip into the culinary arts, with Dutch oven cooking with Phyllis "Cooking on the Wild Side" Speer. Dearborn, who came to Mountain View from California, said all sorts of things attract people to Mountain View — the beauty of the Ozarks, fishing in the White River, etc. For her it was the feeling of going backward in time. When she arrived, she said, "I wondered if people were in costume or actually dressed that way. It's a very, very interesting place."

Come as you are; classes run $150 to $350 depending on the course and the materials. Learn more at arkansascraftschool.org.

Arkansas Canoe Club

Two weekends out of the year the Arkansas Canoe Club rents out riverside campgrounds and offers classes in kayaking and canoeing, taught by volunteers who love to paddle and want to show others how to be safe on the water.

The School of Whitewater Paddling, which was called Canoe School in the days before kayaking became king, is the first class of the year; it's held over a weekend in May. The campground at Turner Bend on the Mulberry River (off the Pig Trail, aka state Highway 23) is reserved for students and instructors. Luke Coop, Canoe Club president, said this is a class for folks to learn "the basic skills you need to run a river safely" — strokes, how to read a river, how to catch an eddy in and peel out of it again, how to paddle upstream without fighting the current. Instruction starts Friday night with a talk from the instructor, then it's on to the tamer Little Mulberry or a flat section of the Mulberry on Saturday to start. Students should bring their kayaks, solo canoes or tandem canoes, though the Canoe Club can provide them; Coop said there is also a standup paddleboard class. Coop said new technologies that have made solo canoes "shorter and more playful" have led to a resurgence in canoe popularity.

Though the school is in May, Coop said the weekends can be cold. He remembers one with snow and sleet. Unlikely, but be prepared. Saturday wraps up with a fish fry and live music.

The School of River Paddling is the second week in June on the Spring River. Students camp at the Riverside Resort 11 miles north of Hardy, off U.S. Highway 63. Like the paddling school, lessons are on basic skills; they begin on a lake at Mammoth Spring State Park. The Spring River is not as challenging as the Mulberry, with Class 1 and Class 2 runs, and participants may bring recreational boats not made for white water, such as sit-on-top kayaks.

Registration for schools begins in early March. To take a class, you must be a Canoe Club member ($25 for a family of four). Schools are $80, and include camping fees. Fees go to the Canoe Club's conservation fund and to the purchase of river gauges.

Registration links, detailed class information and requirements and river levels can be found at arkansascanoeclub.com.

Arkansas Native Plant Society

You may have checked off all 415 bird species on the Arkansas State Bird List. Or the 102 (or so) on the dragonfly list. But, unless your name is Theo Witsell*, it's unlikely you'll ever be able to claim you've seen all the native plants.

The Arkansas Native Plant Society, however, can make sure you see lots of them, thank to its field trips organized throughout the year and at its annual meeting.

To familiarize yourself with the Native Plant Society, go to anps.org and click on the link to its newsletter, Claytonia. First question: What is Claytonia when it's not a newsletter? Why, it's those little white flowers that are the first to spring up in your lawn in spring, and which you might call spring beauties. Already you have learned the name of a plant, which means when you see the little flower you will really see it (because the eyes can't see what the mind doesn't know).

What better way to see something rare in June than to accompany the society on a jaunt to learn about glades? That's what the society did earlier this year, when folks joined Ozark glade expert Joan Reynolds on a trip to Devil's Eyebrow Natural Area in Benton County and the North Dam Site Park near the dam on Beaver Lake in Carroll County. Glades are special places, thanks to their geology, and the day-trippers learned about endemic Arkansas bedstraw, daisy fleabane, hairy wild petunias, purple-flowering Ozark calamint, Arkansas beardtongue, Ashe junipers and such. Even the names are intriguing, so imagine the appeal of seeing these special Arkansas plants growing happily in the wild. The online Claytonia newsletter outlines upcoming trips, such as the Nov. 2-4 fall meeting at the Harmony Mountain Retreat on Smith Mountain in Newton County, which includes hiking in Arkansas's wildest county; and Saturday winter tree ID trips — you've always wanted to be able to ID a tree when it doesn't have its leaves on, you know you have — Dec. 8 on Kessler Mountain in Fayetteville and Feb. 16 at Smith Creek Preserve in Newton County.

*Theo Witsell is an ecologist with the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission and has an encyclopedic knowledge of the state's native plants.

Rick's Dive 'n' Travel Center

Little Rock, Hot Springs, destinations abroad

Before you can swim with the fishes — in a good way — you've got to learn how to breathe underwater. You can do just that over a weekend with the instructors of Rick's Dive Shop.

You'll start out, however, on weekdays in Rick's pool at 2323 N. Poplar St. in North Little Rock (though there are special, accelerated classes for out-of-towners one Friday and one Saturday in the year). The weekend fun comes in at Lake Ouachita State Park, where Rick's teaches two-day open-water dives on Saturdays and Sundays. Folks stay at Mountain Pine or Hot Springs Village or even camp, and kids as young as 10 can participate with parents; certification is to 60 feet. Advanced weekend courses include night dives, search and recovery, and some underwater navigation. Weekend classes are limited to 16 divers; two instructors handle eight divers each, but only four are in the water at a time for safety's sake. Rick's provides regulators and tanks, but recommends would-be-water-world explorers bring their own mask, snorkel and fins. Then, once you've earned your flippers, you can accompany Rick's divers to places like Cozumel and Little Cayman Island in the Caribbean. Classes cost $475, which includes classes, pool and open water dives; a fall special reduces the price to $400. Find out about other offerings at ricksdivecenter.com.

Dave's Retreats Perryville

When Dave Lowe retired to Perryville, he decided to volunteer at the Heifer Ranch of Heifer International. One way he helps Heifer is to offer weekend retreats so that the lodge at the ranch can produce income even when Heifer doesn't have events scheduled. Here's what he's learned attracts people to Heifer: quilting and yoga with goats. Hence the thrice-yearly quilter retreats, where quilt-makers gather to work on their creations at personal workstations in a roomy workplace with cutting tables. The quilting retreats include two nights lodging, seven meals in the lodge's dining hall and 24-hour access to the quilting area for folks who like to stitch all night. Coming up: The "Winter's Eve" retreat Nov. 30-Dec. 2, "Lambs-a-poppin' " April 5-7, 2019, which coincides with the birthing of lambs at the ranch; and "Spring Fling," which is also a scrapbooking retreat, May 17-19, 2019. The retreats cost $195 (or come Thursday for an extra $60). The yoga retreats, taught by yoga instructors from Arkansas and Missouri, aren't all asanas: They include classes in meditation, cheesemaking, essential oils, massage and more. The "Goatalicious" session, April 26-28, 2019, will include two slow vinyasa sessions with the baby goats, who'll nibble your hair while you're in child's pose, along with other yoga classes. "Goatastic," May 3-5, 2019, comes with baby goats and gamboling lambs; as does "Goat-A-Rama," May 31-June 2. Yoga retreats are $275 and include two nights in the lodge and six meals (vegetarian and gluten-free are always available in the dining hall, which Lowe promises serves delicious food). There are extras — massages for $40, green tea meditation, goat walking, animal admiring and shopping in the Heifer International Shop. Some folks just come for the weekend to be at the Ouachita Mountain foothills Ranch with the goats, lambs and shoats. Bedrooms may be shared or private. To find out more, go to davesretreats.com.

Vacationing? Don't just nap

#Vacationing? Don't just nap

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itsworn · 7 years ago

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Customs were Red Hot—In More Ways than One–During an Eventful 1957

Kustoms.

What a year this was for George Barris, starting with unprecedented media exposure and concluding with the disastrous shop fire that nearly put the planet’s best-known customizer out of business. George calculated damages to be a quarter-million dollars (equivalent to $2.2M now). Sure, the shop was insured for anything short of acts of God—one of which the courts determined to be exploding transformers, thereby relieving both the electric utility and insurance company of responsibility. Claim denied, the King of the Kustomizers had lost most of his shop and a dozen unpaid-for projects. No wonder he wanted to walk away without completing the Ala Kart that helped save the company with back-to-back wins as America’s Most Beautiful Roadster.

Full-custom pickups were all the rage out West, where the major magazines were produced. Prior to the fire, two radical trucks and reoccurring coverage in Petersen publications helped propel Barris Kustoms to new heights this year. Afterwards, those plus a third pickup helped keep the rebuilding company alive by touring car shows and media outlets. All three trucks were lucky to survive the night of December 7, for entirely different reasons. The Ala Kart was under construction in the only unsinged section of the building, saved by brave firefighters. The company truck, Kopper Kart, was on the way home from a Portland show. Rod & Custom magazine’s Dream Truck survived only because a fried transmission bearing delayed Editor Spence Murray’s delivery to Barris by one fateful day. Instead of unloading his pickup for additional custom work the next morning, Spence loaded his camera and recorded the devastation. All eight of his surviving frames appear for the first time in this series installment.

There’s a whole lot of George himself on these pages because (A) his creations had such an influence on the hobby and (B) Pete’s editorial staffs devoted such a disproportionate percentage of film and pages to the flamboyant self-promoter. Besides the black-and-white car features and how-to articles we remember from HOT ROD, Rod & Custom, Car Craft, and countless “one-shots,” Barris customs were often featured in full color by Motor Trend and particularly Motor Life. Collectively, in any given month of 1957, up to a million subscribers and newsstand buyers were bombarded by Barris projects. Much of that film was exposed by George himself, a skilled photojournalist who wrote out the accompanying stories in longhand, on legal pads. He was both a cover subject and a cover photographer.

Customs were red-hot in 1957, and young Dean Jeffries was another big beneficiary of Petersen exposure. Pinstriping cars built by Barris guaranteed magazine credits and introductions to Petersen staffers. Following his mentor’s path, the photogenic youngster furthered his own fame by participating in how-to articles on customizing and painting. Dean even brought a pretty model to the party: High-school-sweetheart Carol Lewis alternately appeared in print as a blonde and brunette. It was Carol’s famously flamed-all-over ’56 Chevy that Jeffries rescued after rushing from a nearby restaurant to unlock George’s burning building. Carol’s car and his own customized Porsche, which had been parked at the curb, were the only vehicles saved from the all-too-real flames.

Besides the geographic advantage of proximity to Petersen Publishing Co. headquarters, Jeffries, like Barris, shows up in so many behind-the-scenes outtakes because he was at the center of a scene that sold magazines. It didn’t hurt that young Dean was liked and befriended by those carrying notebooks and cameras, as easygoing a guy as George was polarizing.

As for the preponderance of young women in this series installment, we can offer no such explanations—only previously unpublished snapshots from the road, a teeny-tiny percentage of the spontaneous snapshots intended to bring smiles to the “lab rats” processing film back home in Hollywood. It’s about time the rest of us enjoyed them.

A dozen customer cars and most of George Barris’s building were incinerated before firemen extinguished a nighttime blaze ignited by a transformer explosion in the back alley. As Editor Spence Murray reported in the next Rod & Custom, “When sparks reached the paint area—blooie! Up it went.” The heat melted the considerable lead in a finished ’54 Merc custom that was here for upholstery only. That job was done; Bobby “Chimbo” Yamazaki was expected to pick up his car this very day. The new Imperial belonged to a forgotten oil-company executive. Spence evidently filled all 12 frames of a 120 roll on the premises, though the partial film strip containing Negs One through Four was discovered missing when their turn came for digitizing. The other seven surviving images were scanned and appear further into the layout. (Sixty-one years after the disaster, Barris fan Brad Masterson operates Masterson Kustom Automobiles on the same Lynwood, California, property.)

Most of the images on these pages were captured by this quartet of Petersen staff photographers (clockwise from top left): Eric Rickman, Al Paloczy, Bob D’Olivo, and Colin Creitz. The first two hired, Rickman (1950) and D’Olivo (1952), remained with the publishing company until retirement.

The all-time-ultimate barn find would be James Dean’s infamous Porsche 550 Spyder—which looks nothing here like the wreck in photos from the accident site and subsequent storage in Cholame, California. Rather, George Barris folded a sheet of aluminum over the ripped-open driver’s side, welded it to the stripped shell he acquired from a Porsche racer, then toured this exhibit at shows and traffic-safety exhibits for three years. A pallet held up the mangled chassis. In Lee Raskin’s book of photos shot by Sanford Roth on Sept. 30, 1955, between Dean’s hometown of Sherman Oaks and the accident site, Jeffries is said to have watched Barris Kustom workers “beat the aluminum panels with 2×4’s to simulate collision damage.” It was last seen in public around 1960. In subsequent interviews, Barris alternately insisted that the car vanished from a sealed truck or a sealed railroad car. (See James Dean: On the Road to Salinas.)

In late January, the first fire to strike a famous hot rod shop consumed part of Ak Miller’s Garage and most of his El Caballo II, the Hemi-powered sport special originally intended for the Mexican Road Race (cancelled in the wake of seven 1956 deaths), now being prepared for Europe’s Mille Miglia less than four months away. Ak’s employees and buddies were rebuilding before the ashes cooled. Tinsmith Jack Sutton rolled out a second custom skin for the modified Kurtis 500-X sports-car chassis. In May, Miller became the first American driver in the first American car to start the famous Italian road race. (See Mar. ’57 Motor Trend; Apr. & July ’57 HRM; Nov. ’11 HRD.)

Barris and Jeffries led a caravan of customers to NorCal for the big winter shows in Oakland and Sacramento (“No trailer queens yet,” quips historian Greg Sharp). Car Craft Editor Dick Day followed the Kopper Kart into the studio of NBC’s Sacramento affiliate to shoot a sequence of George hyping the eighth Autorama. His radical ’56 Chevy was voted Most Spectacular of the National Roadster Show and earned an Outstanding Award in Sacramento. This is an outtake to the lead photo in an Aug. ’57 CC article, “Make Your Car a Movie Star.” (Also see May ’57 & June ’58 CC; June & July ’57 Motor Life.)

George Barris and Dean Jeffries couldn’t resist the toothy mouth of this sporty roadster during Autorama setup. The kustom kingpins were shopmates and close friends before the relationship gradually soured over conflicting claims to projects that became particularly famous (e.g., James Dean’s Porsche and the Monkeemobile). They remained estranged at the time of Dean’s 2013 death, at age 70. George passed away two years later, at 89.

While in Daytona Beach for NASCAR’s acceleration trials, HOT ROD repaid Plymouth for the donor car by displaying Suddenly in a local dealer’s showroom. The name and number were inspired by the factory’s futuristic ad campaign for ’57 models: “Suddenly, It’s 1960!” Editor Wally Parks and Tech Editor Ray Brock flat-towed the Hemi-powered sedan from L.A. behind Brock’s ’54 Olds. On the beach, Wally’s 159.893-mph average was the fastest two-way flying mile ever recorded by a stock-bodied American car. (See Sept. & Nov. ’57 HRM; Nov. ’11 & Mar. ’16 HRD.)

Carroll Shelby (left) and mechanic Joe Landaker pulled double duty at Daytona, entering John Edgar’s Ferrari 410 Sport in both the straight-line acceleration trials and the first sports-car race staged during NASCAR Speed Weeks. Rough sand on the usual road course forced a venue change to New Smyrna Beach airport for an SCCA-sanctioned event financed by bandleader and racing buff Paul Whiteman, “The King of Jazz.” Shelby’s victory here was among 19 straight wins this season. The 24 Hours of Le Mans was another in the incredible streak.

Lucky Shelby won the race and got the girl, too: Model, actress, and Daytona trophy queen Jan Harrison would become the second Mrs. Shelby (of seven!) in 1960.

Never before or since has any particular powerplant impacted a motorsport like Cliff Bedwell’s unblown Chrysler did on February 3 at Lions Drag Strip. Back-to-back blasts of 165.13 and 166.97, fully 9 miles per hour faster than any reputable speed to date, got all fuels other than pump gasoline banned overnight, literally: Santa Ana announced its ban the next day, followed by Lions and most other SoCal tracks. NHRA went gas-only for the 1957 Nationals (then nationwide in ’58). SCTA introduced a dozen gasoline classes intended to wean lakes racers off of nitromethane. We thought that HRD had published every file photo from that fateful day until we recently stumbled onto this lone frame on a roll labeled “1932 Ford Coupe.” Though driver Emery Cook and engine-builder Bruce Crower developed the barrier-busting combination, Ed Iskenderian’s saturation-ad campaign convincingly credited a “fifth cycle” of combustion unleashed by a cam that Isky rebranded as the 5-Cycle Hyperbolic Crossflow 7000. (See Oct. ’57 HRM; Nov. ’11, Mar. ’14 & Mar. ’16 HRD.)

Had Norm Grabowski not succumbed to cancer in 2012, at 79, news that his iconic roadster pickup recently resold for $484,000 surely would’ve stopped his heart. Man and machine were captured during setup for Oakland’s ninth National Roadster Show.

At a March office party, Racer Brown received one of the countless custom greeting cards that Tom Medley drew for colleagues on special occasions. HRM’s popular Tech Editor was quitting the publishing racket to open Racer Brown Camshaft Engineering, specializing in hardcore-racing applications.

Just when we started to accept that every archive image of these T-buckets together at the Santa Ana Drags had surely been published at least once, the late Wally Parks gifted us this shot from the staging lanes. Contrary to erroneous reports in publications including HRD (ouch!), this was not their first match. They’d previously raced at Saugus Drag Strip, advises Tommy Ivo, who claims both wins. They never did again. After Roy Brizio Street Rods finishes restoring Grabowski’s T to its Kookie Kar glory, we’ll look forward to an overdue reunion. (See Apr. 20, ’57, Life; June ’57 HRM; Aug. ’57 CC; Mar. ’16 HRD.)

“Notice how far back the motor was in the car,” says Ivo (left). “I was killing them in Street Roadster class until the next-fastest guy noticed one day at Lions. You couldn’t have more than 10-percent setback. When they finally measured, I couldn’t even run Competition Roadster, which allowed 25 percent; I had to run Tony Waters with his fuel roadster! Well, that was the end of that. My crew guy is Dick Henman. His shirt says ‘Tom,’ so it must be one of mine. That roll bar was attached to the Model A frame with 3/8-inch bolts. I wonder why I had a rag in the end of the header. Maybe I was afraid of ants getting into the motor?”

We e-mailed all three outtakes from the Sunday that Life magazine visited Santa Ana Drags to 82-years-young TV Tommy, who called in fellow Road King member Jim Miles, 85, for assistance identifying the sharp dressers. (“Jim is older, but he hasn’t had as much tire shake!”) Ivo pointed out the white Road Kings club shirts, adding, “If guys wanted to be part of the pit crew, they had to wear white pants, as well. Going right to left, Larry Sutton is standing next to me, Dick Henman is on the passenger side, Ron ‘Reggie Rughead’ Rayburn is next to him, and between them, in the rear, are the head and shoulders of Dale Nordstrom. The others are spectators.”

You’re looking at a 1950s version of the two-story tower complex, fully portable. C.J. and Peggy Hart’s beater hearse contained the homemade timers for the Orange County Airport taxiway that magically transformed into Santa Ana Drags on Sundays from 1950 to 1959.

A crowd gathered at Hollywood’s Competition Motors, the German-car importer and repair shop renting space to Von Dutch, for what looks like the unveiling of El Caballo II’s pretty paint. He’s standing to the right of owner-builder-driver Ak Miller (in airman’s jacket), beneath Dutch’s “wailing” wall art. A month after HRM’s Eric Rickman captured the scene, the car landed in Europe for what amounted to a 992-mile shakedown run. In a postrace letter to HRM from Italy, Ak listed the mechanical woes that made him the second entrant to drop out—well after prerace favorite Stirling Moss, whose brake pedal fell off eight miles from the start. (See Mar., Apr., May & July ’57 HRM; Mar. ’58 MT; Nov. ’11 HRD.)

No staffer got backstage as often as Motor Trend lead photographer Bob D’Olivo, who excelled whether shooting vehicles or people, especially celebrities. Bob was on the set of This is Your Life the day that singer-actor Tommy Sands was lured to the hit TV show by his parents. Among the teen heartthrob’s surprises was an enlarged gold record commemorating a million-plus sales of his hit 45, “Teen-Age Crush,” presented by a slick label guy while Mom and Dad posed approvingly.

Here’s one interesting photo that we can be 99.99-percent positive has never been printed. Extremely rare among archive images, double exposures resulted from staff photographers becoming distracted by something—or someone—and failing to advance the film roll between shots. Another pose of Barbara Martinez in a setting that the late Gray Baskerville might’ve called a “beachin’ background” ultimately ran on CC’s racy “Coming Attraction” page, teasing an upcoming tech article about the “reversed-rim wheel, the latest styling craze on the Pacific Coast. Starting out on pick-up trucks, the trend to wider tires has been taken up en masse by the custom car fraternity. Cost for reversing wheels generally run [sic] between 4 to 5 dollars. Chrome plating costs approximately fifteen dollars a wheel.” (See Oct. & Nov. ’57 CC.)

After what must’ve been a very long day of multiple outfit changes in three different photo locations, Barbara Martinez seemingly has had enough of that chrome-reversed wheel and her photographer, CC Editor Dick Day.

Former teen supermodel Sandra Dee had just landed in Hollywood when Bob D’Olivo photographed the aspiring actress reading an April 30 Los Angeles Mirror-News article that opened, “She may be another Elizabeth Taylor.” Indeed, Sandra soon became world famous for a movie role based on author Frederick Kohner’s young surfer daughter, Kathy, the real-life Gidget. (Last time we visited Duke’s Restaurant in Malibu, longtime-hostess Kathy Kohner-Zuckerman was still greeting customers near the beach that her story made famous.)

“Most businesses try to hide their mistakes,” goes an old journalism saying, “but we editors publish ours.” Not all of them surface in print, however: This sequence is the first we’ve seen or known of R&C’s company truck colliding with a ’54 Ford. In the final frame of Spence Murray’s roll, he was photographed from behind by someone using the Editor’s own camera.

Sorry, we have no results for the Triumph TR3 at Santa Barbara’s May road race.

Prankster Eric Rickman apparently put the pretty lady up to grabbing an unsuspecting Wally Parks from behind. She may or not be dancer-actress Cyd Charisse, who made a parade lap of IMS with the Borg-Warner trophy in the Indy 500 pace car.

For its third iteration, the ever-evolving R&C Dream Truck sprouted distinctive fins from Ohio’s Metz Custom Shop. The project pickup’s much-publicized “wide-base” wheels sped the nationwide transition from modified hubcaps to chrome rims. (See May ’57, Mar. ’58 R&C; Mar. ’58 HRM; July & Nov. ’57 ML; ’58 HOT ROD Annual.)

MT Editor Walt Woron must’ve been a fearless road tester to climb into one of these homemade contraptions for a Nov. 1957 cover story subtitled, “We Flew … and Drove … the Flying Car!” The inventor, described as a former Navy pilot and engineer, had built and flown three production models since unveiling a prototype at Robert E. Petersen’s 1951 Motorama show. The detachable wings and tail folded into a 400-lb. trailer. A reported half-million-dollar investment to date was “supported by wife Neil’s beauty shop, and selling stock at $100 a share,” said MT. Powered by 320ci, 143hp, air-cooled Lycoming engines, they reportedly reached 100 mph airborne, with a range of 300 miles, while topping out at 67 mph earthbound.

It’s a tough job, but somebody had to pose those “Coming Attraction” models smiling at us from the last inside page of every CC. The Mar. ’58 edition identified the blonde as, simply, Miss Virginia Bell, but historian Greg Sharp recognized a famous ’50s stripper known as “Ding Dong” Bell. Along with an extraordinary number of poses, staff photographer Al Paloczy’s film rolls contained a feature on painter Dick Jackson’s custom T-bird.

Television was still relatively new, but Barris had already mastered the medium. We can’t read the engraving on a trophy purportedly being presented in this Los Angeles studio in October, but suspect that George was promoting an upcoming custom show in nearby Alhambra.

Scallops were seen everywhere this year, including on the playground where pioneer custom painters Jeffries (center) and Barris (right) joined Joe Zupan’s ’56 F100 and John Chavez’s ’55 Olds for a Motor Life shoot. We didn’t find any of Al Paloczy’s aerial shots in our incomplete 1957-’58 ML collection, but both customs did eventually appear in sister titles. (See May ’58 HRM; June ’58 CC.)

Robert E. Petersen had plenty of reasons to celebrate a year that sent newsstand sales and subscriptions soaring to new heights. MT Editor and apparent bunkmate Walt Woron got the candid shot during a November tour of European automakers.

Junior’s Fiery Memories (As Told to Greg Sharp)

Hershel “Junior” Conway was still painting for Barris when it happened. December 7, 1957, was a windy, rainy night. The wooden roof was of course soaked in paint, solvent, and thinner. Boxer Archie Moore’s magnesium-bodied, Raymond-Loewy-designed Jaguar burned, as did Jayne Mansfield’s pink ’55 Jaguar XK-140. George wanted to pack it in afterwards—go get a job somewhere—until his then-fiancée, Shirley Nahas, convinced him to stick it out and finish the Ala Kart for the 1958 Oakland show. So, the building was rebuilt and extended to the sidewalk. That’s where Lloyd Bakan opened an accessory shop, Wilfred Manuel did upholstery, and Dean Jeffries painted and pinstriped. In the process of identifying pictured vehicles and people for these captions, Junior revealed or confirmed details that only an insider would’ve known. —Greg Sharp

The chopped ’41 Ford coupe with hardtop styling is a total mystery. George owned the ’56 Continental Mark II in the foreground, originally painted “Sam Bronze,” now pearlescent white. The ’36 coupe in the background belonged to Ron Guidry of the Long Beach Renegades (soon to be named CC’s Car Club of the Year for 1958).

Junior was stumped by the ’56 T-Bird and the full-fendered ’32 roadster getting quad headlights. Imagine the view of the busy shop’s activity from those second-floor apartments!

Jay Johnston’s latest revisions to “Chimbo” Yamazaki’s evolving custom included canted quad headlights, a ’57 Olds bumper-grille assembly containing two Edsel grilles, ’56 Buick taillights, and Cadillac bumper ends. Note the charred interior of Ron Guidry’s ’36 coupe and, just beyond, a ’51 Ford that sat outside after sectioning, awaiting an owner who never returned.

Junior remembered the ’41 moving outdoors years earlier, abandoned by someone who failed to pay off the chop job. The Imperial was brought in by the president of an oil company.

In the first frame, customizer Jay Johnston (left) and longtime Barris employee Curley Hurlbert observe Archie Moore’s melted magnesium Jaguar. The ’54 F100 is the Wild Kat of Martin and Morris Srabian, a radical custom featured posthumously in CC (June ’58). After the shop rafters burned, a heavy-duty engine hoist further lowered the cab’s lid. (Wouldn’t we love to dig through that pile of parts?)

The post Customs were Red Hot—In More Ways than One–During an Eventful 1957 appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

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