win some, loose some.

Chris's infamous 1962 Impala Wagon is for sale on ebay with only a few remaining hours to go. This car has been an icon for the Detroit Road Devils so it's sad to see it go, but it's to make room for a '40 Ford that Chris has been dreaming of for some time.

What makes it infamous you ask? Besides a lot of coverage in hot rod magazines and custom car rags, this car was in Semi-Pro with Will Ferrel as well as being featured in Motor City Motors TV show on the Discovery channel.

Here is literally the last chance to bid on this car. Do it up before you kick yourself hard

Sins of Steel Show (part 2).

I've just gotta sit down and type out my feelings on this show. I'm SO proud to be part of the Sins of Steel custom & Hot Rod show coming up on June 5th. When all the anti billet shows started popping up, rejecting the Boydmobiles and high dollar, gold chain dudes from the old style hot rods and customs show, there was an unforeseen backlash. This "backlash" birthed a new shitspawn known as the "Rat Rod".

Coined over 10 years ago now, this term "Rat Rod" has seen it's day in the sun and it's time to throw a cover over 'craptastic retrorides' with the halloween decor displayed upon the fenders and the Pringles cans that are being employed as velocity stacks! It's obvious to most of us who are around these cars what happened. When the high dollar cars became passe, the pendulum swung in the opposite direction. The next thing you know low buck rods became the rage and everyone and their brother was buying up old rusted pieces of crap to make a "rat rod". Websites popped up left and right and even Magazines were spawned with this esthetic being the focus.

What was gained by this happening? Not a damn thing!

Shows that encouraged traditional styled cars came to look like a scrap yard on show date. People went over the top with how shitty they could make a car or truck appear as bragging rights. No sense of style or history was even being considered when putting something together. It was if people took a bunch of jigsaw puzzles out of the closet, mixed them all together to make one crappy collage. Cars have been built so unsafe with ugly independent front suspension on a fender-less car. Street signs became the floor of choice as opposed to the craftsmanship of their ancestors. And the list of crap mods goes on and on. It's seriously ridiculous anymore.

Coupled with this was the 'Anti Trailer Queen' movement. "Drive your car" was what everyone chose as a battle-cry which gave us a little leeway on stone chips and some mud on a fender on show days. But then the inevitable happened; Rat Rods began showing up in trailer and on flatbeds because they were too uncomfortable to drive or were too 'craptastic' to be on the road. Time and again at shows across the country with the Anti Billet theme you began to see Rat Rods being unloaded the night before, sometimes miles away from the show so people could cruise in to the city limits in their Ratmobiles trying to look all bad ass. You guys aren't fooling anyone!

So now where are we? The pendulum has now found it's place back right where it should be, straight down the middle with all the classically styled customs and hot rods (notice, I spell custom with a c) The Sins of Steel show will be turning away the junk as well as the high dollar cars. It features 1964 and prior TRADITIONAL style rods and customs ONLY!

• No visible billet anything! Especially wheels!
• No 80s graphic, Night Ranger playing, big-haired pro-street cars
• No trailer queens - all cars must be driven in unless they are vintage drag cars
• No IFS on fenderless cars
• No mag wheels made after the 60’s
• Traditionally styled choppers and bobbers ONLY! (No fat-tired theme bikes)...
• But this show has a twist too. No "Rat Rods" either. It's bad for the scene to make something intentionally crappy just for the sake of being different. Let us harken back to a time when builders like George Barris and Gene Windfield were making customs nice! Hell, even good old Big Daddy Roth could make a sweet "art car" out of crazy stuff lying around and not just crappy welds on a rusted frame. Having a flat black car isn't saving you much money either. Lets face it, you can buy single stage paint for the same cost as a Hot Rods Flat paint by the gallon!

Build a car safe, build it nice, be proud of the work you do, and bring it out to Sins of Steel on June 5th

Catch Up!

It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks for me with little time to sit down and type anything out. Last week you saw BugSpray for my buddy Junebugs custom paint service and before that I put up some photos I took of the exotic super car GTX-1 Ford GT conversion that was done by my buddy Kip Ewing.

A few weeks back I showed you the sneak peak at the EXTEND-O-MATIC. Well, I just got mine in hand and let me tell you, the prints are fantastic! You can grab yours up from Volksrods.com

The Detroit Road Devils Support shirts are selling great too! We're already on our second run of shirts which sadly will probably be the last of this design. So if you liked the look of the support shirt, make sure you write to munro36@hotmail.com for info.

Torque Fest was this last weekend and a good time was had by all! Lots of great venders and folks who are all looking forward to next years event. Lots of my art work went into the advertising of the Torque Fest. The show posters that you may have seen in magazine and on flyers were being sold in an exclusive set of four 11"x17" posters in a collectors binder. All signed and number for $35. I still have some of these for sale so I'll be updating my website in the near future!

Also on that very same topic if you grabbed a copy of DicE Magazine #31, on page 31, you can see my 'Motor psycho" poster art advertising the show. I got a lot of great feedback at the show from kind folks who came up to tell me how much they loved seeing it. I also was the high bidder on the 7' version of it used to advertise the show!

Additionally, the Vintage Torque Bobber shirt was for sale in charcoal with discharge ink. I had to pick one of those up as well. I'm not exactly sure where to find them for sale online, but perhaps John has them at a show near you.

What Else? enough talking about what's already gone down, let's look at what's coming up! That being SINS OF STEEL Hot Rod and Custom show! Outside of just being excited for a first EVER 'no rat rods' show (thank you jesus!) I also got some opportunities to help out with the show. Photographing Brandon's built '50 Ford is always a pleasure to do which is being used in the advertising of the show, but I also got the chance to design one of the show shirts as well.

What else? Man, there is a lot more in the works. A few new identities in the works for businesses and car shows alike. The Big Red Rocket from France is about ready to release their album which I did the art one finally. I can't seem to find the time to update enough to keep you all posted. I'll be in California this weekend so over and out for now and see you at Sins of Steel if not before.

Latest crop of goodies

Latest and Greatest from Car-N-Art is local right here in the 313 area code. My good buddy and club brother Junebug has been painting up a storm in the last few months since the beginning of 2010 and finally hit me up to do his business identity. 'BugSpray' came from his old man who told him that would make a great name and we all agreed that it seemed to work perfect even in the sense that old hot rodders would paint cars with bug spray plunger cans.

For the ID we talked about something flashy like custom paint from the 60-70's and that was the direction to go with the lettering as well. Jason's business cards will actually be glitter vinyl stickers the same size and shape of a typical card, but can be put on anything. I did a mock up here with some different color schemes.

This project was relatively quick, though we began some time back with this simple variation which isn't far off from the end result.

And of course I didn't feel that I did enough illustration without doing up an actual June Bug for the card, but this didn't end up working out:

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Also, this weekend is Torque Fest in Iowa. I'll be there with Junebug selling posters, framed photos, matted photos, patches and t-shirts so if you are planning on coming out, this is a great way to save on shipping items, plus all of the photos are only available at the shows, so here is your chance to own a one of a kind piece suitable to hang in the house, office or the garage. I will also have a limited print set of all 4 Vintage Toque Fest posters signed and numbered 1-100 that will be for sale exclusively at the show, so here is your chance to grab them up. I know John already mentioned many pre-orders have been pulled aside. Look for the Car-N-Art booth and drop by and say hello and help me put some gas in the truck for the way home!

peace.

ewing inc :: GTX 1 :: Ford GT Roadsters

Vintage Torque Fest 2011?!

I know what you are thinking... a little early for a show over a year from now, but it's already in the workings for 2011 Torque Fest! The request came in and I did it. Since the icon car for the first Torque Fest was a hot rod, this time around John was looking to do a Custom and Bike. Enjoy the sneaky peak!

the Bike: Chopper HD with crazy springer front end.

The

the Custom: '40 Mercury Custom

The Berkley Chop Shops new Identity

Jason (aka Jay-bone) from the Chop Shop gave me a ring a few weeks back asking for some new business cards and I was just ready to place the order when I got the hook. "I want to update the look with the new cards" he said to me. So I got back to work stripping down the old logo to it's bare bones. Knowing that the type was going to remain the same I just wanted to get rid of the extra elements that were confusing the look of it. Bye bye rocket and pinwheel behind it.

The biggest part of the logo I struggled with was the shape that the text sat on. The original design that Jason was using was a knock off of the "Cars" logo from the movie. It resembled a 50's car badging which was cool, but how does it apply to haircuts?! From that logo I devised one that used the scissors as the V shape in the V8, but he also wanted a barber pole, a rocket, a crown, and a kitchen sink in the design. I talked him out of the kitchen sink after all and the last version of the logo was born in 2006.

So I got it down to basics and managed to fashion the badge shape into a comb which helped me a lot with it visually. I also hate tacking in extra elements for the sake of putting something there. Jason did want the crown in, so it's in the middle of the scissors now. Overall, it cleaned up nicely, like a nice hair cut to a logo revision should.

Speaking of revisions... After the smoke cleared on the Hunnert Heads-Up I found my design on the side of the road with the tires missing. Nah, the Chrome Czars went with someone elses logo, which is fine, but I sure could have used those header flanges for the Gow Cart! But the design lives on. I actually got two different offers for the design after I initially posted it and with a first come, first served attitude, I pasted the design along to John who wants to create stickers and t-shirts from it. Vintage Torque will be dawning this design now. Thanks John!