Rat Rod in Lake Havasu

John was driving by this tattoo shop during his visit to Lake Havasu and thought that it might make a nice little picture. It was kind of odd because he ran into another tattoo shop within 10 minutes of this on the other side of town that has a similar rat rod in front of it, also. It seems that the Rat Rod culture is entrenched in Lake Havasu. John thinks maybe Tracy should make her Studebaker into one of these....(frying pan to the back of the head says no way!)

Route 66 Museum

It appears to be a bit habit forming that every town that John visits, he searches for at least one Studebaker. The 12 hours that he spent in Kingman, Arizona, were well worth it when he found this wonderful bullet nose.

The location of the Studebaker is in the Power Plant Visitor Center, which is the home of the Route 66 museum. The staff welcomed John with a great smile and inviting greeting. They encouraged him to go in and take as many photos as he wanted. Pretty nice for volunteers that seem to genuinely love the museum. If you're into the Route 66 or just love to look at nice Studebakers, this is a must stop for you on your travels. Nice people in the entire building- I believe the county attorney's office is located in the same building and he might have possible held the door for me as I left the building. He even asked me if I enjoyed myself and invited me to return anytime....you just don't find these kind of pepole in every town. Trust me on this one.

The following is information off their web site:

Hours: 9-5 Daily (last tours admitted at 4:45) Address: 120 West Andy Devine Ave., Kingman, AZ 86401 / 928-753-9889. The Route 66 Museum is truly unique in that it is a museum of history, housed in the unique and historical Powerhouse building, located in the “heart” of the longest remaining stretch of the 2400 miles that was Route 66.
We are located on Historic Route 66 in the Powerhouse Visitor Center in downtown Kingman, across from Locomotive Park and a block from the Mohave Museum of History & Arts.
The Route 66 Museum depicts the historical evolution of travel along the 35th parallel that became Route 66. Our brilliant murals, photos and life-size dioramas capture each of the groups that have traveled the route that has come to be known as the Mother Road.

On a side note, John notice the swamp cooler on the side of this Stude. If you follow this blog, you know that this was one of John's favorite finds for our truck. Lo and behold, here is one on a Studebaker, no less. The man will never leave the house without it now!

A Few From The Road

John's work takes him throughout the state(s) and somehow it always ends up being the Great Studebaker Hunt. These Silver Hawks were discovered up north in Show Low. This was before the snow started!

This truck is at the famous TeePees in Holbrook.

Another view of the Show Low Silver Hawks. They were asking $11,900 for the blue '59.

Up close and personal. They were asking $12,950 for this '58.

Gotta love the TeePees and the truck. What a great "Route '66" moment! (You may notice the open door of John's truck in the background. It was so cold out that he left it open to better jump back into the heated cab!)

What a Great Studebaker Picture

Mark Thompson posted this picture on the Studebaker Truck Forum in memory of his grandfather, A.J. Conklin. We thought it was such a neat story that we decided to share it on our site. Mark listed the information about the picture as follows:

"My uncle Les Denton is in front of the Pickup. My uncle Bert Bennett and David Bennett are in front of the second truck from the right. The other person is an unknown farm hand. Picture is of STUDEBAKER trucks and cars owned by My Grandfather A.J. Conklin. 'Ready to go on custom combine wheat harvest 1958.' I drove the 57 3E40 in 1975 Harvest year. Last year my Grandpa had his wheat farm."

Thanks Mark for letting us share this photo and your story.

Refer To The Next Post for An Explanation...

Queen Creek Car Show For MDA

This afternoon, John took the truck down to Safeway for another fundraiser car show. Today's car show was to raise money for Jerry's Kids. John decided to enter the show about 10 minutes before it started. Tracy, Thayer, and Jilly met up with him later for an hour or so to look at all of the cars. This was the car that eventually one first place (people's choice).

Another view of the first place car.

This car was parked next to the truck. John was envious of the gear shift knob...he's always wanted a skull! (Tracy's plenty happy with the three speed on the column, thank you very much!). We all agreed that we like our shrunken head better, though.

The outside of our neighbor's car. It was a neat Buick with a lot of its original features, including a Kleenex box that the owner was once offered $900 for!

Another view of the Buick. It's a striking car.

This car owner's small daughter was going around offering to wipe down people's cars and telling them about her dad's auto detailing business. Talk about a great sales pitch!

The gentleman who owns this car has reportedly only driven it about 100 miles. He uses the trailer the carry, among other things, his dogs' beds (he has a miniature schnauzer and a yorkie). We were going to bring Ginny the corgi to the show tonight, but she got put in time-out at the last minute for digging in the yard.

This truck won third place.

John overheard this gentleman saying that he has his car insured for $80,000.

The owner of this truck talked to John for a bit, then decided to go home and bring his truck down to the show, too. We really enjoy meeting new people and hearing their stories. The owner of this truck bought this truck for $7000. Not a bad deal, considering that it has a front tilting hood and a new Chevy step-side bed.

Thayer's already planning taking the truck out for a drive on some future Saturday night. Never mind that he won't be able to get his license for almost 12 years... Jilly is his partner in crime, but at the moment seemed more interested in carrying on a conversation with the shrunken head. All in a night out for the Smith kids!

This Mustang won second place and got a lot of attention.

Another fine example of the ever-popular Mustang.

Once again a Studebaker is represented at a local car show. We're beginning to think that we're the only ones that drive ours to other local non-Studebaker events (just wait until Karl can go, too!). Thayer is always so proud to show off "My Dad's Studebaker!"

This '78 Corvette is currently for sale and can be yours for the bargain price of $11,000.

The Corvette has been in the family since it was purchased new and is now being sold to make room in the garage. The owners appeared to be very nice people. Oh, for the days when John pictured himself in one of these babies, dressed in Miami Vice garb, talking on his brick cell phone as he cruised down Speedway... Do you think he was Crocket or Tubbs?

Arizona Winter Studebaker Celebration

Saturday, January 17th, was the Arizona Winter Studebaker Celebration in Gold Canyon (just east of Phoenix). With temperatures in the mid to high 70's, it didn't feel particularly "winter-y," but the location was beautiful and we had a nice turn out. Here is Frank ("Frank41" on the forum) and Elizabeth van Doorn's gorgeous ride.

This Champ is a daily driver and was towing a "project car" that made Tracy feel pretty good about her Lark.

Malcolm Stinson was selling T-shirts (out of the back of his wagon) for the Antique Studebaker Club, which was also represented at the gathering. You can find out more about this club and their activities at their website http://www.theantiquestudebakerclub.com/.

Another beautiful wagon. John is definitely getting wagon envy.

This electric Studebaker was one of the hits of the meet. Even more exciting than looking at it was watching it drive down the road. What a fun and absolutely stunning vehicle!

We love the color of this Stude. It is an eye-catcher each time that we see it.

Trucks are obviously always a big favorite with us. Even better was driving side-by-side with this one down the highway! We turned a few heads on the US-60...

If John has wagon envy, Tracy has President envy. Any year. Really. This car, though, could make anyone drool. Talk about perfection...

An overview of the venue. The chairs set up were for George Gezelius's tech seminar on aligning your Studebaker front end that was scheduled for later in the day.

The Avanti Club was also well-represented. That's Denny Lockman in the cowboy hat, ready to share about his car.

A flock of Larks. Unfortunately, we didn't get a picture of John Pfingstag's ("allstateguy") Lark, which is coming together very nicely. Our favorite feature: it runs! :)

Hey, who does that handsome truck belong to? We were so hoping to get the "Vehicle Most Loved By Its Family Award," but apparently that one only exists in our heads! :) That's okay...we got a really awesome dash plaque to add to our collection.

More cars that actually received awards... :) It's not too hard to see why!

A view of our Winter Celebration neighbors. The truck must have been pretty comfortable seeing as he's parked next to a '60 Lark everyday at home (except this one was a VI and Karl is an VIII...oh yeah, and this one runs, too!). One of these days, little blue Karl will be there, too. It wasn't that long ago that we were telling ourselves, "One day, we'll bring the truck to a show like this!" With the help of our Studebaker friends, we are beginning to think anything is possible.

The Lark Lives After 10 years Of Silence!

He's alive! After dedicating an hour a night for countless nights to trying to get the Lark started, we finally had success! With a puff of smoke (okay, more like a mushroom cloud) and a blown out muffler, the Lark fired up...and wouldn't stop running. This, in turn, caused us to accidently wreck the starter as we tried to turn the ignition off and instead turned the key the wrong way. We eventually did get the Lark to stop (even disconnecting the battery didn't work...who knew?) and it will have to remain at rest until the starter problem is resolved. Thank you to all of our friends at the Studebaker Drivers Club Forum for all of their words of wisdom and support (refer to link below to go there). Without them, we would have never gotten this far. Not bad for a plumber and a housewife who know nothing about cars. By the way, does anybody know where the starter is?

http://forum.studebakerdriversclub.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=25506

Warhol, How Do You Like My Studebaker?

John took this picture and played with it a bit in photo shop. He is now thinking of getting it done on canvas. Tracy's only question to him was, "Do you have room for it in your office?"

Who knew? Avantis are kinda kool!

John and Tracy both have never been big fans of the Avanti brand; that is, until now! We have spent a little more time getting to know the cars and some of the fun things that go with them. For instance, did you know that you could get an Avanti in any color you wanted? And, as shown above, Tracy just fell in love with the Brady Bunch shag carpet! (John would like to say that's a joke, but it's not...as much respect as he has for artistic license, he's drawing the line at shag carpeting for the Lark!) The vehicle above also came with a nice cow catcher up front (the owner called it that, not us). We guess the point here is not to judge a car by your taste alone. It's really worthwhile to take a little time to look into both the car and the owners' histories that go into developing the total character of the vehicle.

Chitty Chitty No Bang Bang!

John has finally returned from being on the road for 2+ weeks, so of course we started right back to working on the Lark. Hey, we're excited about it, what can we say? John figured out the wiring and installed the ignition switch...the moment of truth had arrived. Tracy chose to be behind the camera and John crawled across the floor of the Lark to turn the key and see what happened. While the car didn't start, the engine did turn over...a very positive sign! A little fiddling and we tried it again...same results. After the third or fourth time of taking turns trying to start it, John turned the key and....silence. Nothing happened. What could possibly have gone wrong in a manner of minutes that would cause everything to stop working? We checked the battery, the connections...no luck. Finally, we got on the trusty Studebaker Forum and sent out our dilemma to the Studebaker experts (see link below). Only when someone asked us whether our car was an automatic did the light bulb come on over John's head. He went out to the car and checked...sure enough, someone (here's where the finger pointing starts) had bumped the car into gear. Once safely back in the park position, we were able to get the engine to turn over again...but we still have not been able to get Karl running.

http://forum.studebakerdriversclub.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=25422

Things that you find on the side of the road.

Found this on the way to Austin. Stopped to take a picture and talk to the owner but it appears that a meeting wasn't meant to be. I can just imagine pulling up to a gas station like this one with the Studebaker Truck. Now if we can only figure out how the pump works!