Elepent

Hot Wheels display at the Petersen. Yes, they're mounted on that awesome orange plastic track!

Of course, Los Angeles is a car-guy’s paradise.  The weather’s friendly to old vehicles, and there are twisty mountain roads and speedy freeways and slow-n-low cruising spots within an hour of one another.  The streets are filled with equal numbers of everyday exotics and awesomely-preserved daily drivers, and if I tried to shoot them all we never would’ve gotten anywhere.  This is one of the few places where you’ll see a Maserati Quattroporte or Lamborghini Gallardo in the wild, however.  It’s definitely one of the few places where you’ll see those cars sharing space at the traffic light with original Austin Minis and Volkswagen Microbuses.  Mercedes is a common nameplate in the area, both old and new. Continue reading

Preparing the Crimson Haybaler for front-line duty was simple; part of the reason we chose the Ranger was its simplicity.  It was inexpensive because TLC was needed, however.  I installed a new starter and fuel pump and the little truck runs just fine now, albeit a bit loudly and not quite so prettily, thanks to a missing exhaust and the guerilla modifications we had to make in order to tow it (see below).  We’ll set about turning it into the Ultimate Toad in the coming months. Continue reading

Continue reading