Luke Ray, the man behind the best Hot Rod Culture magazine there is – Fuel – and not to mention one of the creative hands behind crankandpiston has packed his bags and jetted across the Pacific to the good ole USA. Rather than gabbering on any longer we will let him take up the story.
I’m not even a couple of days in, and it’s been a pretty eventful trip so far. Max Grundy and his family are kindly putting me up for a few days while I have a look around and find my feet.
A pleasant surprise this morning was when Goshu from Moon Eyes turned up at the house to pick up some art pieces from Max. Max is donating some of his work to an auction Moon are running to raise money for Red Cross Japan.
The first visit out in the suburbs of LA was to Walden Speed Shop in Pomona, run by Bobby Waldon. Bobby and his crew are putting out some pretty special projects, and the workmanship on the metal work was execeptional. Bobby even ordered all our back issues on the spot, which was cool!
Next up was H&H Flatheads in La Crescenta, run by Mike Herman. We dropped in as Max’s Mercury is having some work done in the shop. A great opportunity to see the place, and check out Max’s car at the same time.
I saw this old Mercury Cougar parked outside and asked one of the guys inside about it.. he said his Dad bought it brand new in 1971!
I’ve never seen anywhere with so many engine blocks laid out together in a yard.. at least a couple of hundred, and then piles of all the parts to go with them.
Mike also runs Navarro Engineering, a company that’s been around since the 1940’s and Mike took over a while ago.
Max’s Mercury is awesome.. fingers crossed it’s going to make it to Viva Las Vegas next week.
Last stop for today was Autobooks Aerobooks in Burbank. I’ve heard so much about it, I had to go and check it out for myself. So much great material in there, I can see why Jay Leno goes in every Saturday..