VLPR
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Vintage Torque Fest 2013
Well a few of us made the long haul up to Torque Fest this year and with the snow and rain. Yes snow in May!! Friday it rained all day long and not that many cars our people where at the show. Sat turned out to be a great day and it only rained for about 10 min the whole day. The car count was way up and there was a lot of people. The art auction was a succes and raised a lot of money. It was a fun time like always.
VLPR
VLPR
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
GREASERAMA 2013 IS MOVING !!!!
GREASERAMA 2013
We're Moving!
Well, last year was supposed to be "The end of the world as we knew it", according to the Mayans. We are still here and emerging into a new era of GREASERAMA.
... In the early years our venue started out as small get togethers at a park in Lawrence, KS. As we started to see the gathering of like minded people, we needed to come up with a larger venue for the GREASERAMA as it was now going to be a full on Punk Rock car show in Kansas City, and El Torreon ballroom became the venue for 2001.
We had a very fun, roots style, show there for our friends and interested parties for 4 years. We realized that there were more out there that dug the same culture of Punk Rock, Hot Rods and Art because we started to buy permits to close off city streets to encompass our little show rather than it just being in the parking lot.
After growing beyond our closed off street parameters we decided that it was time to take the show to the next level and a great opportunity to move into a new venue, The Boulevard Drive-In. This allowed us to create something totally new for 2006, a car show in a classic drive-in theater that would allow us to play cult and B movies to our spectators for evening entertainment.
Well we have had a great 6 year run at this location. We are on the verge of reaching the 1000 mark for registered car entries and space has become an issue again.
For 2013 the GREASERAMA caveman emerges to a new world and I am happy to announce that we are moving the show this year to the Platte County Fairgrounds, just north of Kansas City in the small town of Tracy, MO (only 15 mins from the Boulevard Drive-In). We believe that you will find the atmosphere pleasant with plenty of elbow room for all in attendance.
As the show progresses and grows, we find it hard to decide on an area that keeps the vibe with the uniqueness of GREASERAMA. Many people don't like change. We don't like change. Many of the old timers wish we still had the show at the El Torreon. We miss it too. We won't have movies this year, which will be a bummer to some people, but stay posted for new forms of entertainment and additions to the show. This year will include a show car display in an enclosed, air conditioned venue, a huge vintage swap meet area along with a bigger, better band line up and some unannounced excitement that you will find out as we get closer to Labor Day Weekend.
We are staying focused on our roots, Punk Rock, Hot Rods and Art. The show will always stay focused on the dreams that our founder, Punk Rod Todd, had envisioned.
We continue to grow and welcome anyone that wants to experience a Kowtown Custom GREASERAMA, the Midwest's only Punk Rock Car Show.
Please be patient as things are progressing each day. Stay tuned and look for updates on www.greaserama.com
We're Moving!
Well, last year was supposed to be "The end of the world as we knew it", according to the Mayans. We are still here and emerging into a new era of GREASERAMA.
... In the early years our venue started out as small get togethers at a park in Lawrence, KS. As we started to see the gathering of like minded people, we needed to come up with a larger venue for the GREASERAMA as it was now going to be a full on Punk Rock car show in Kansas City, and El Torreon ballroom became the venue for 2001.
We had a very fun, roots style, show there for our friends and interested parties for 4 years. We realized that there were more out there that dug the same culture of Punk Rock, Hot Rods and Art because we started to buy permits to close off city streets to encompass our little show rather than it just being in the parking lot.
After growing beyond our closed off street parameters we decided that it was time to take the show to the next level and a great opportunity to move into a new venue, The Boulevard Drive-In. This allowed us to create something totally new for 2006, a car show in a classic drive-in theater that would allow us to play cult and B movies to our spectators for evening entertainment.
Well we have had a great 6 year run at this location. We are on the verge of reaching the 1000 mark for registered car entries and space has become an issue again.
For 2013 the GREASERAMA caveman emerges to a new world and I am happy to announce that we are moving the show this year to the Platte County Fairgrounds, just north of Kansas City in the small town of Tracy, MO (only 15 mins from the Boulevard Drive-In). We believe that you will find the atmosphere pleasant with plenty of elbow room for all in attendance.
As the show progresses and grows, we find it hard to decide on an area that keeps the vibe with the uniqueness of GREASERAMA. Many people don't like change. We don't like change. Many of the old timers wish we still had the show at the El Torreon. We miss it too. We won't have movies this year, which will be a bummer to some people, but stay posted for new forms of entertainment and additions to the show. This year will include a show car display in an enclosed, air conditioned venue, a huge vintage swap meet area along with a bigger, better band line up and some unannounced excitement that you will find out as we get closer to Labor Day Weekend.
We are staying focused on our roots, Punk Rock, Hot Rods and Art. The show will always stay focused on the dreams that our founder, Punk Rod Todd, had envisioned.
We continue to grow and welcome anyone that wants to experience a Kowtown Custom GREASERAMA, the Midwest's only Punk Rock Car Show.
Please be patient as things are progressing each day. Stay tuned and look for updates on www.greaserama.com
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Punk Rod Mike's trip to Viva Las Vegas!
Well went to Viva Las Vegas with my good friend Jimmy. We have been wanting to see this show for awhile. It was a pretty good show but I would have to say Greaserama is better but I am biased. Had a GREAT time!! There was also a second show at the Stratosphere called Rat City Ruckus. Which we did not even know was going on until we got to Vegas. It was smaller but we got to that show early. Enjoy the pics.
VLV Best of Show!!
THE END!
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
The snow is melting (kinda) its time to start thinking GREASERAMA #13!!!
Hard to believe that in only 6 months GREASERAMA #13 will be in full effect! This year is gonna be exciting and some great new news for this year's show! Stay posted or keep your eyes open at www.greaserama.com for all the details.
What I can share with you is that this year should be a fun theme and since last year was the end of the world as we know it according to the Mayans, now it is time for man to reemerge from his cave dwelling to invent the wheel which in turn became the first Hot Rod!!! Thats right it's a caveman theme for 2013, because chicks dig cavemen and cavemen dig cavewomen even moreso!!!
Get your furriness on!!!
What I can share with you is that this year should be a fun theme and since last year was the end of the world as we know it according to the Mayans, now it is time for man to reemerge from his cave dwelling to invent the wheel which in turn became the first Hot Rod!!! Thats right it's a caveman theme for 2013, because chicks dig cavemen and cavemen dig cavewomen even moreso!!!
Get your furriness on!!!
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Back when kids shows were real and so were the hot rods!
Gumby was cool, but Granny was cooler! Check out the 6 deuce set up and they are burnin' rubber too!
Monday, January 21, 2013
Learning a craft from a youngster that grew up surrounded by the best.
Towards the end of 2012 I had the pretty neat experience of getting my hood for the "War Machine" punched on a piece of history, Ray Farhner's louver press, down at Wild Child's shop. I hooked up with Justin Greene, the son of a Kansas City icon in the Hot Rod/Chopper world Jim Greene.
Justin is a true cat and is keeping the vision of the original Wild Child's story alive and reincarnated by restoring the original Wild Childs custom shop here in Kansas City. His pride is huger than life. His vision is clear and it will be just as if the tradition of this shop was like it was back in the day. His attention to detail of where the history of the shop came from is meticulous. When most people would take and old shop and try to revitalize it, it would be gutted and what was old would be thrown out and all new would be put into place. Justin has taken the approach of being a hot rod archeologist by opening every box, unearthing every heap of what may appear as junk and saving the history and preserving it for the next generations to see and learn from.
This is where me as a 46 yr old hot rodder, took a lesson from a 20 something youngster and I realized that this kid "gets it".
I talked to Justin and was telling him I wanted to louver my hood on the Model A, he jumped right on it and said, "Well I still have Ray Farhner's old louver press down at Wild Childs, just let me know and we will do it." So I took him up on the offer. I meticulously took the hood and laid out the lines for the louver pattern I wanted. I went down to Wild Childs and met Justin after he told me he got the louver press dusted off, fired up and everything was working just like it did back in the day. The unique thing to this story was as I pulled into the shop's driveway I saw an older 70's Vette that had at one time some crazy paint job on it but looked like a majority was sanded down and primed over. It was like a show car that had been in storage for years and someone decided to start reviving it back in the day, it go put on hold and now it was just being driven around???
As I walk in with fellow PR Dave I realize that Justin is in there talking to an older gentleman with long snowy white hair and a scraggly beard that matched. As I get closer I realize that it is Justin's dad, Jim Greene, the original "Wild Child." I am introduced, Jim shakes my hand and in turn I feel like some childhood kid shaking his major league baseball hero's hand. Here is the interesting part that I realize what kind of man created Justin's personality and love for everything Hot Rod, Chopper and Kustom paint jobs. Jim is asking Justin about if he had the dyes set up right, if he made some test punches, etc.
Jim looks at my hood and asks me about my guide lines and pattern I had drawn out on the hood's bottom side. I had taken the utmost care and measured 3 times and made sure I thought that I had given attention to the detail that would be needed in punching a hood. Jim looked at me and asked me, "Are those lines dead on?" I said, "I think they are pretty damn close." This my friends was where I learned that there was a true masterful art form in punching louvers that I had never anticipated. Jim then looked at me and said."Damn close doesn't get it in punching louvers correct." "Justin check those lines and make sure they are right before you ever begin." Jim then walked off, got in his car and left. Justin and I then started to set up for the louver process to begin. The phone rang and it was Jim asking his son if he checked over my lines and made sure they were dead on. I was at first just saying to myself "Sheesh, really?" Well so we began. The first louver was punched. I then thought the process was just going to be Bam Bam Bam and one row would be completed. Oh no, one louver was punched, the hood was pulled out and then it was reviewed with a square and tape measure to make sure that it was in perfect position. Justin looked at me and said, " I may be a bit OCD and paying too much attention to detail here but if the first one is off, they then progressively get worse and worse. This is when I started to learn that Justin had been taught by the best and the pioneers in the louver punching business. So I sat back, let Justin do what he was taught and aided him when he asked.
So my pattern consisted of a total of 74 louvers in three rows on each hood side. This process took over 3 1/2 hours. At first I was like, "Wow I wasn't anticipating this taking so long and that it was going to be scrutinized like a diamond cutter creating a beautiful gemstone." Justin looked back at me and educating me again and again during the process, but the moment that I "got it" was when he said he was taking pride in this old shitty Model A hood because this car was going to be around longer than he and I would be on this planet. Bam! that hit me like a baseball bat hit to the head! I then stepped back and thought I was a youngster to the Hot Rod world compared to the pioneers, but this kid may have gotten the grasp and cherished it harder than I ever did at his age.
The real joy was this last weekend I got a call from Justin and he said that he and his dad, Jim wanted to come down to our garage and see what we were doing. Jim Greene wants to come down to our garage? Well Hell yes!! So as I am working on my Model A I hear footsteps approaching and it is Justin and Jim. Jim asks me if this was my Model A and I replied "Yes". He then tells me of one of his first hot rods he built that was a chopped '32 Sedan. I tell him that I am very familiar with it and that his car was the inspiration for the build of my car. He looks at me with not much reaction as Jim is an older guy now and does not show much emotion. Well it must have touched him in some way because he wanted to see the hood that Justin and I did and he looked over it in fine detail and put his stamp of approval on it with a "You did a good job Justin." He then started to walk around to see what we were doing and so I gave him a tour. The best moment was as he looked over our projects and creations, he stated "It is good to see that you guys are building the stuff that I used to do, nobody is doing that anymore." That was the highlight of my time in the garage. The moment that an icon gave credit.
So Justin, thank you for your hard work. Every louver is lined up exactly with the louver before, after and along side its other counterpart louvers in the hood. I now look at every louvered hood today and I know what it takes to make a unique dye, set it up right and make sure that the pattern is dead on. I am honored to have the 1st hood punched after all these years and to know that the last person that ran that machine was Ray. Wild Childs is in good hands. It will be kept in its traditional ways of doing business and craftsmanship rather than someone taking it over for the name and bastardizing it like some did with the iconic Von Dutch name. You have my praise and my support in any way you need be to keep your dream of Wild Childs alive and headed in the correct direction.
Justin is a true cat and is keeping the vision of the original Wild Child's story alive and reincarnated by restoring the original Wild Childs custom shop here in Kansas City. His pride is huger than life. His vision is clear and it will be just as if the tradition of this shop was like it was back in the day. His attention to detail of where the history of the shop came from is meticulous. When most people would take and old shop and try to revitalize it, it would be gutted and what was old would be thrown out and all new would be put into place. Justin has taken the approach of being a hot rod archeologist by opening every box, unearthing every heap of what may appear as junk and saving the history and preserving it for the next generations to see and learn from.
This is where me as a 46 yr old hot rodder, took a lesson from a 20 something youngster and I realized that this kid "gets it".
I talked to Justin and was telling him I wanted to louver my hood on the Model A, he jumped right on it and said, "Well I still have Ray Farhner's old louver press down at Wild Childs, just let me know and we will do it." So I took him up on the offer. I meticulously took the hood and laid out the lines for the louver pattern I wanted. I went down to Wild Childs and met Justin after he told me he got the louver press dusted off, fired up and everything was working just like it did back in the day. The unique thing to this story was as I pulled into the shop's driveway I saw an older 70's Vette that had at one time some crazy paint job on it but looked like a majority was sanded down and primed over. It was like a show car that had been in storage for years and someone decided to start reviving it back in the day, it go put on hold and now it was just being driven around???
As I walk in with fellow PR Dave I realize that Justin is in there talking to an older gentleman with long snowy white hair and a scraggly beard that matched. As I get closer I realize that it is Justin's dad, Jim Greene, the original "Wild Child." I am introduced, Jim shakes my hand and in turn I feel like some childhood kid shaking his major league baseball hero's hand. Here is the interesting part that I realize what kind of man created Justin's personality and love for everything Hot Rod, Chopper and Kustom paint jobs. Jim is asking Justin about if he had the dyes set up right, if he made some test punches, etc.
Jim looks at my hood and asks me about my guide lines and pattern I had drawn out on the hood's bottom side. I had taken the utmost care and measured 3 times and made sure I thought that I had given attention to the detail that would be needed in punching a hood. Jim looked at me and asked me, "Are those lines dead on?" I said, "I think they are pretty damn close." This my friends was where I learned that there was a true masterful art form in punching louvers that I had never anticipated. Jim then looked at me and said."Damn close doesn't get it in punching louvers correct." "Justin check those lines and make sure they are right before you ever begin." Jim then walked off, got in his car and left. Justin and I then started to set up for the louver process to begin. The phone rang and it was Jim asking his son if he checked over my lines and made sure they were dead on. I was at first just saying to myself "Sheesh, really?" Well so we began. The first louver was punched. I then thought the process was just going to be Bam Bam Bam and one row would be completed. Oh no, one louver was punched, the hood was pulled out and then it was reviewed with a square and tape measure to make sure that it was in perfect position. Justin looked at me and said, " I may be a bit OCD and paying too much attention to detail here but if the first one is off, they then progressively get worse and worse. This is when I started to learn that Justin had been taught by the best and the pioneers in the louver punching business. So I sat back, let Justin do what he was taught and aided him when he asked.
So my pattern consisted of a total of 74 louvers in three rows on each hood side. This process took over 3 1/2 hours. At first I was like, "Wow I wasn't anticipating this taking so long and that it was going to be scrutinized like a diamond cutter creating a beautiful gemstone." Justin looked back at me and educating me again and again during the process, but the moment that I "got it" was when he said he was taking pride in this old shitty Model A hood because this car was going to be around longer than he and I would be on this planet. Bam! that hit me like a baseball bat hit to the head! I then stepped back and thought I was a youngster to the Hot Rod world compared to the pioneers, but this kid may have gotten the grasp and cherished it harder than I ever did at his age.
The real joy was this last weekend I got a call from Justin and he said that he and his dad, Jim wanted to come down to our garage and see what we were doing. Jim Greene wants to come down to our garage? Well Hell yes!! So as I am working on my Model A I hear footsteps approaching and it is Justin and Jim. Jim asks me if this was my Model A and I replied "Yes". He then tells me of one of his first hot rods he built that was a chopped '32 Sedan. I tell him that I am very familiar with it and that his car was the inspiration for the build of my car. He looks at me with not much reaction as Jim is an older guy now and does not show much emotion. Well it must have touched him in some way because he wanted to see the hood that Justin and I did and he looked over it in fine detail and put his stamp of approval on it with a "You did a good job Justin." He then started to walk around to see what we were doing and so I gave him a tour. The best moment was as he looked over our projects and creations, he stated "It is good to see that you guys are building the stuff that I used to do, nobody is doing that anymore." That was the highlight of my time in the garage. The moment that an icon gave credit.
So Justin, thank you for your hard work. Every louver is lined up exactly with the louver before, after and along side its other counterpart louvers in the hood. I now look at every louvered hood today and I know what it takes to make a unique dye, set it up right and make sure that the pattern is dead on. I am honored to have the 1st hood punched after all these years and to know that the last person that ran that machine was Ray. Wild Childs is in good hands. It will be kept in its traditional ways of doing business and craftsmanship rather than someone taking it over for the name and bastardizing it like some did with the iconic Von Dutch name. You have my praise and my support in any way you need be to keep your dream of Wild Childs alive and headed in the correct direction.
 |
| The original and unchanged Wild Childs |
 |
| Ray Farhner's louver press |
 |
| 74 louvers all in a row and precise as hell |
The last louver punched by Justin
 |
| You don't get guests like this in your garage very often-Jim Greene |
 |
| My inspiration, Jim's '32 chopped sedan |
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