I May Be On To Something

I've always loved buildings, I've always loved wheels. I've never thought about it in this way exactly, but I have also had a special fascination with homes that go. Building and designing compact, movable living quarters such as campers and mobile homes require clever packaging and often times modular, multi-purpose fixtures, all of which are things that I strangely take pleasure in figuring out. More often in the case of RVs, people can hire designers and builders to specially construct a vehicle to their needs on top of an existing chassis. This process is called coach building, a practice more common decades ago for personal cars but mostly reserved today for larger vehicles. More on this at the end of the post.

My earlier attempts at "not-quite coach built custom bodies" from nearly eight years ago might not have turned out to be very elegant but alas, I have made some improvements to my craft:

New cover photo for the blog? I think so. 

Car Spotting in Ann Arbor

With all of the bike stuff that has been going on lately, it may no longer be apparent that I am first and foremost a car guy.  Well, I have had some of these photos rolling around in the "New folder" folder on my desktop and it's about time I share some of the cars that have caught my eye over the past few months.  All of these were taken with my cell phone so please excuse the poor quality. 

I also managed to stumble across a car show so be prepared for a long post!

1980-86 Ford F150 short bed, 4-speed manual

The Most Perfect Vehicle I Have Ever Driven

The title says it all.  Earlier this week, I rented a U-haul to go pick up my new Raleigh and some other bikes to flip.  My weapon of choice was a 2014 Ford F-150 with a single cab, 8-foot box, and a 5-liter V8.

Despite my love for them, I had never driven a pickup truck before and was extra cautious about letting the rear end swing out since it had snowed the previous night.  Soon, my confidence increased.  It was so much easier to control than the Chevy Volt I'd driven at work a couple times.  I have no better way to say why than to make a list.  Keep in mind that these are my opinions and nobody is paying me to write these things.

1949 Mercury Coupe and 1956 Ford F-100: The Quintessential Customs

It is common knowledge in the car community that the 1949-1951 Mercuries, along with their Ford and sometimes Lincoln counterparts, are some of the most popular, if not most sought-after custom cars.  Starting at the time when these cars were new, people started shaving, slamming, and repainting the curvaceous bodies to be sleeker, lower, and more beautiful.  Most of these customs were more focused on appearance than on speed, although raising performance was not uncommon.  Today, a quick Google image search of "49 Mercury" will yield many more customs than stock, restored vehicles. With the popularity of the cars among hot rodders, it's no wonder that the '49-'51 is the most replicated Mercury in small scale models.

Cardboard Trucks

Cardboard, paper and have been my main building material ever since I was just a few years old.  Scrap was always readily available and Mom bought a huge pack of construction paper back in the day that must have lasted eight years.  I'd make rudimentary three-dimensional models of things like telephones or vehicles from my favorite cartoons and then try to color them with Crayola markers.  Scotch tape was just about my favorite office supply and I used tons of it.  Sadly, I think I have tossed most of those things before going to college. I don't seem to have taken any photos of them either, which is pretty uncharacteristic of me.  I also remember, in second grade, constructing a saggy, crumbly, five-foot long model of the new 2002 Ford Thunderbird entirely out of construction paper.  I reinforced the wheels with popsicle sticks like I'd seen my mom do on other crafts but that didn't help the rest of the structure much.  When my parents came home that night, we didn't have anywhere to put it so I dismantled it and kept the steering wheel and column which I still have today.  For the record, I was never interested in, nor have I ever been good at origami.

Slowly, the construction paper turned into cardboard and Scotch tape became duct tape or hot glue.  More of my crafts started having a more functional or practical purpose.  I made portfolios for artwork, boxes to carry gadgets, and gridded trays to carry Hot wheels cars.  This skill with paper and cardboard comes in handy pretty often and it is nice to have in the studio classes at the architecture school.

The Day I Lost My Marbles: 1965 Ford F-100

For a long time now, one of my dream cars has been a '65 Ford pickup.  I tend to appreciate low-cost, easy-to-work-on, old American cars more than exotics and imports.  I figured that if I was to work on cars and build stuff for myself when I grew up, I'd need a good tow vehicle.  Having been a Ford fan all my life, I naturally had an eye for the F-series trucks, one of the best-selling vehicles in the world.  After many years of gathering knowledge, I realized in middle school that my favorite was the curvy '56 model but that quickly changed to the more capable, more powerful '65.

I sometimes look for cars for sale just for fun.  I can spend entire nights just clicking links and drooling over things I won't be able to get.  One night, I came across an all original '65 Ford F-100 that was red-orange with a white roof, had a 352 c.i. V8 engine, and was slightly weathered.  It really struck a chord in me and even though that particular truck was sold years ago, that image was cemented into my mind as my dream truck.

LEGO 1965 Ford Pickup

In the summer of 2013, I combined two of my favorite LEGO vehicles: the 4404 Land Busters pickup truck and the Technics 8285 Tow Truck.  I took what I felt were my favorite features of both sets to build a roughly-1:12 scale model of a 1965 Ford F-250, one of my dream cars.

The boom was the most complex part of the truck.  I did not disassemble that part.  

The Land Busters pickup shown before suspension was taken.  

"V4" engine was swapped for a carbureted V8.  More on this one later; it has suspension once again.