Inspiration - The Search for Animal Chin

I spotted this while walking down Lyon's Blvd in Newhall.

I wonder if Jenni, Steve and Fred Nelson ever found him.

Inspiration - Toyota ShopTalk April 1971

Shop Talk was the magazine for Toyota parts and service managers.  This was the first (and possibly only) issue.

The first article was on my dad racing in Baja.  It's a pretty good read but I'm a little dissapointed that the full page psychedelic image wasn't his Toyota.

Simple Solution

Beer Koozie Camera Case

The Banquet Bronco

1972

The "Banquet Bronco" has recently been rediscovered and found a good home.  The story goes, that in the earliest Mexican 1000, NORRA promised a banquet at the end of the race.  So, Vic Abruzzese donned a tuxedo at the start so he'd have something to wear for the festivities.

Tom Duffy, Vic Abruzzese and margaritas - 1969

The Bronco sporting an extra tall air filter - 1970

burned top hat - 1969

It raced from 1967 -1977 which is quite a testament for one vehicle.  It's now being restored and hopefully will see Baja again.

A few of my favorite things

I love the cars in Santa Clarita.  Everyone seems to have a mid life crisis tucked away in their garage and there's and amazing variety.  It's refreshing to walk into a parking lot a see cars like this.

I didn't get a picture of the hot rod station wagon a couple spaces away.

inspiration - batteries of my childhood

Inspiration - Rod&Custom, August 1969

I picked up this 1969 copy of Rod&Custom magazine on ebay.  With the cool green model T on the cover - I'd remembered seeing it when I was a kid.  Like a lot of other stuff, my folk's copy was lost in the Harris fire.

For a hot rod magazine they dedicated a ton of space to the 69 Baja 500.  The first paragraph is almost illegible.  A long run on sentence with some hip lingo thrown in.  It reminded me that Hunter S. Thompson didn't operate in a vacuum.  There were plenty of people whacked out of their minds writing. Thompson just did it well.

The article's long, luckily there are plenty of pictures to go along with it.  There's also a short article on the "Norra Car Show" which I might get to later on.

This was one of the few races the Toyota Fj40 wasn't zebra striped.  Duffy/Younghusband finished fifth in their class doing the 500+ mile race in 18 hours 38 minutes. 

While looking over the magazine I really admired the amount of hand lettering going on.  You really don't see enough of it anymore.

Inspiration - Toyota Topics Winter 1970

I found this tucked into an old Mini Bike magazine.  I must have "borrowed" from my dad years ago.  Most of his magazines were lost in the Harris fire so I'm glad I saved this one.

The article on the 1970 Mexican 1000 is okay.  I really wish I had original copies of these photos.  Maybe I can track down Charles Nerpel.

sweet Toyota related comics.

Inspiration - Aesthetic Influence - Catavina

Inspiration - old photos

Kenny Younghusband my dad's co-driver and best friend

George Plimpton

me

inspiration - abandoned hotwheel

Found this while walking with the boys today.

Inspiration - old gallery pencils

I came across these while cleaning my desk.

Pencils from two now defunct galleries.  One of the earliest solo shows I had, "teach me to love" was at Deep River back in 1998. 

I did a series of fake fur under vinyl paintings documenting Captain Kirk's relationship with himself.  Like George's it suffered from closing right before the internet really broke so there's not much information online.  I did find a review by Doug Harvey and a collection of the show announcements.

Two years later I was looking at early video games, geometric abstraction and had the final show at George's appropriately title "Game Over."

Inspiration - Rough Rider 100 poster

I came across this  poster for the "Borrego Rough Rider 100" in my folks work room.  One of my sisters ran this race.  I really like the dune buggy graphic and might need to make it a t-shirt for the boys.

inspritation - old sticker

After dealing with an inverted shackle today, I feel like I'm an honorary member of the Torture Team.

Inspiration - Box of Treasure 3

More from my dad's little box of racing treasure.  Dash plaques from the 1968 through 1971 Mexican 1000.  Three from the Baja 500 and a few from the Mint 400 (they were all the same so I picked the one that looked like it had been peeled from the dash).

I'd love to put them on Car 23 but it seems like something that could be lost in the middle of the desert (which is what probably happened to the 1971 Baja 500 plaque).

Inspiration - THE CONDOR

If there is any car other than a zebra striped fj40 I would want to race in the Mexican 1000 it would be "The Condor."  As a kid, it was one of my favorite vehicles and how could someone not love a giant four wheel drive RV with a big hippy mural on it's side.

This incarnation was the "Debbie Special."  I'm not sure but I think Condor Motor Coach might have run an unpainted one at some point.

I found a couple other images online

and a pretty good article on it in an old "Field and Stream" .  I wonder what happened to
the beast, it would be great to restore the car (and the painting) to it's former racing glory.

Inspiration - 80s new wave ads

I came across this ad about 10 years ago and it cracked me uo.  With the resurgence of skinny jeans it might be funnier now.

Well, except, ten years ago people might have remembered who Kajagoogoo was.  It's impressive that Wrangler put their ad budget into a joke based on Kajagoogoo but then again it was the 80s.  Even X and Oingo Boingo were doing ads for Budweiser.  So it sort of makes sense.

The ad came from the June 1984 issue of the British magazine "The Face."  I bought it back when I was doing work about mods and modernists.  It had a pretty good article "Mods; the class of 84 hits the trail of 64." 

But, looking at it now, the real treat was "Gang Wars: Welcome to LA; Sudden Death in Olympic City" and it's handy list of "Gang Slang"  

This was two years before NWA formed - I wonder what British new wavers thought of it at the time?