Throwback Thursday and Brian suspends rational thought, and toys with the idea of creating a cool custom from an overlooked ride.The Nissan Cube isn’t exactly the first thing that pops into many peoples’ minds when asked “what late-model cars have some potential, custom-wise?” We can’t imagine that it enters most sane people’s minds for any reason, really. Yet, back in 2009, this was precisely what he was considering. You’re welcome.

You’re certainly familiar with Ford SVT’s Raptor. Introduced at the 2008 SEMA Show, shortly thereafter released as a 2010 model, the Raptor was a production version of a trophy truck – or at least as close as the average consumer would get. But what do you do when you scale something good DOWN?

A long- (and probably for the best) forgotten Progressive Rock assemblage who drew inspiration from Astral projection accidents, purple nurples and pre-Columbian history, Helium Submarine’s story is one of a tragic rise and fall. Today, we’re going to explore the final days of the band as never before, drawing from the surviving pages of Ashton Mung’s personal journals, and discover how something so brilliant could tumble so awkwardly to number two.

“Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival” –Winston Churchill
After thoroughly enjoying the movies, “Dunkirk” and “Darkest Hour”, I became fascinated with exploring the mental state of the British people at the time.this got me thinking about the final stages of the war, when Hitler pulled out all the stops in his quest to start chipping away at England. Let’s look at the technical side of how the British defeated Hitler’s V-1.

Being a custom painter for the last 25+ years kind of helped when I was taking a basic, somewhat clean ’72 El Camino that belonged to my Dad and built him a pretty wild hot rod and lied to him about the WHOLE project. It was a lot of work over a period of 4 years but it’s been fun watching the world’s oldest 15 year old have fun!

On a hot day in October of 1967, a test pilot climbed out of a white NASA step van and walked toward the silver B-52 parked in front of the hangar at the NASA Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California. He had made this walk many times before, but today was going to be different. The X-15 hanging under the right wing of the B-52 was waiting, surrounded by busy crew members doing their final pre-launch checks. Just a few hours later, they would all be tipping back beers at Club Muroc in celebration of a milestone achievement.

“The forbidden-ness of the place” is what made it “so compelling.” Greg Noll once said of his decision to surf Waimea Bay in November of 1957, around five years after Sam Barris chopped his 1950 Buick. How does surfing relate to a kustom car, much less have anything to do with designing hot rods?
Plenty more than you might think.

Each week, a popular TV show opened with the actual NASA footage of the aircraft crash that critically injures Colonel Austin. Every young fan of the show could quote the words that played out during beginning of each show. As a 10 year old kid, I would never have guessed that my paths would later cross with the guy who was actually piloting the aircraft in that famous NASA video. That’s right, I worked with the REAL Six Million Dollar Man, Bruce Peterson.

It was the car guy equivalent of having that friend stop by and immediately locate the missing half-inch socket that you’d been searching for hours to find. My belief that “all things are delicately interconnected” was vindicated once again, via a man I will never have the pleasure of shaking hands with on this Earth. His tragic loss of life would, some fourteen years later, play a part in giving me a fresh perspective on something. All through a few words typed onto a laminated card attached to a flag pole in a park.

In this second chapter of the Round Six series, “The Unsung Heroes of Motorsport,” Alex and Brian go behind the Iron Curtain with Grzegorz Zdzieszkocziewninski. Spotting his work on race day would be a breeze, but few outside of the fold would recognize how deep of a crease it has left on loads of drivers. Still, he’s not the sort to get steamed over it, he simply presses on. Meet the starched sultan of speedway signals, and learn how he went from folding overcoats to the pole position.