Chevy Bel Air – Duvall

02. June 2012 · Comments Off on Chevy Bel Air – Duvall · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: ,

Today we drove over to Duvall to go to the “Duvall Day” event.  I have to say I was totally underwhelmed.  They closed off all the roads into town so we had to park up outside of town and then walk in.  So we parked the car, and Lisa, Abi and myself started walking.  We reached a police road block as the cop was opening the road, so we ran (OK walked quickly) back to the car and drove instead.  And I’m glad we did as we were a good couple of miles from the center of town.  When we got there it was clearly over and there wasn’t much to see.  So we started for home.

On the way home we popped into Safeway’s and found the “Big Rock Classic Car Show”.  Lisa found us a parking place (no mean feat as there were loads of cars circling) and we went to look at the cars.  This really made the trip, there were some beautiful old cars there and I got lots of pictures.  The one captured below is a favorite of mine, it’s a 1957 Chevy Bel Air.  They really don’t make cars like this any more, it has a huge bench front seat and enormous rear fins on the wings.  The car is really very large (in size) and when you look under the hood it has a tiny engine, but I love it.  I don’t think you buy one of these to go fast, you get one to drive on a sunny day and cruise around town.

They had a blue one there too and you could buy a raffle ticket and win it, so I’ll let you know how I do – in fact if I win it you will probably hear me screaming for joy.

There is a great show on TV from the UK called Wheeler Dealers where two guys (Mike Brewer and Ed China) buy and refurbish old classic cars and sell them on for a profit.  In one of the shows they came to the US and brought a Chevy Bel Air and took it back to the UK.  They did an amazing job and sold a beautiful model for £16,000 making around two grand profit.  That’s around $24,000!  This is an amazing price, here a mint Bel Air can cost you as much as $80,000 – so if I don’t win one I’m not getting one.  Better keep my fingers crossed.

Apparently Master Chief misunderstood when Carter asked him if he wanted some orange.

Austin-Healey 100 – Redmond

30. May 2012 · Comments Off on Austin-Healey 100 – Redmond · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: ,

I’ve said this before but I love old cars.  I know that new cars are better made, more comfortable and go faster but they don’t have any charm, there is no passion or emotion in new cars, to me they are just boring.

Over the weekend we went to a car show in Woodinville at the Chateau Ste Michelle’s winery and it really wasn’t very good.  There were lots of new Porsches and Lamborghinis which had beautiful lines but weren’t my cup of tea.  Give me an old classic any day.  I’ve been working on James on this, trying to explain to him how character is important and I thought I was making progress.  He was really into old ’67 Chevy Impala’s with big V8s that look and sound fantastic, but he’s clearly moving on as he now likes modern Lamborghinis.

But I like cars like this Austin-Healey.  There were only around 14,000 of these cars made back in the early 50’s the the condition of this one was amazing.  I love the story around Austin-Healey’s, apparently Donald Healey created a one-off car called the Healey Hundred for the 1952 London Motor Show.  Leonard Lord who ran the Austin Motor Company saw the car and commissioned Donald to make a car for Austin, the result was the car below, the Austin-Healey 100.  This was made by Austin in Longbridge and the coach work was carried out by Jensen in West Bromwich.  It got it’s name because it could get to 100 mph which for it’s day was a big deal for a production model.

Remember that little bamboo plant I took to work?  Well it’s doing really well, largely due to the care and attention being given to it from Carter and Master Chief.

Old Truck – Redmond

25. May 2012 · Comments Off on Old Truck – Redmond · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

When you start trying to capture a picture a day you begin with a list of ideas, then after about 3 days you start frantically looking for something to shoot.  At first you only think about this every few hours, for example you’re at work and walking from one meeting to another and you ask yourself “oh what will I shoot tonight?”  Then, after a few weeks you become obsessed!  You’re looking all the time, in the middle of a conversation with someone your either think of something or see something and break off.  Then it get’s worse.  Eventually your friends and family start looking for you and you get emails and phone calls with ideas.  This is the pain of a picture a day – don’t ever try this unless you are out of work or a professional photographer.

When you do eventually see something, if you have a camera with you (and you should always have a camera) you should stop and take the shot.  Don’t tell yourself “I’ll get that tomorrow”.  Tomorrow it might rain, the subject may move, you may forget where you saw it…  I’m sure you get the idea.

So why am I telling you all this?  Well, the first reason is to save you the pain of ever trying this ridiculous New Years resolution.  The second reason is to tell you about this truck I found.

I was driving home and saw this old F150 parked up by the side of the road.  I say parked up, but abandoned might be a better word.  All around the truck were wild flowers and I thought the old rusty truck against the green trees, grass and flowers might look cool.  So today I grabbed my camera and tripod and popped out.  I parked up down the road from the truck and walked down the road with my tripod over my shoulder to the truck and took some pictures.  The pictures came out VERY green, but apart from that looked good.

After Carters success at painting last week he decided to try using crayons…

Jaguar XK150 Roadster – Redmond

18. May 2012 · Comments Off on Jaguar XK150 Roadster – Redmond · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: ,

I’ve mentioned before that I prefer older refurbished cars to new fast ones – clearly this is because I’m getting older and going super fast doesn’t excite me anymore (thank goodness).  If I was being honest I don’t think super performance cars have ever been my thing, I’m too much of a poser I guess.

I have also stated I love some of the old American classics from the 50’s, with their huge bodies and massive fins they are just so unaerodynamic and far away from today’s designs I think they look amazing.  Plus coming from the UK I only ever saw those old cars on TV so I guess there’s something attractive about that.

But my favorite car from last week’s car meet was interestingly an English model.  The Jaguar XK150 Roadster.  This car was just, well, beautiful.  I could have looked at this all day and did for a good 40 minutes.  For me it kind of merged the style of the old big cars of the 50’s and 60’s with the sweeping aerodynamic lines of a modern model today.  Plus I actually remember seeing car’s like this in the UK when I was very young and fell for them then.  This model was the predecessor to the E-type Jaguar, a model that received huge critical acclaim in it’s day but one I never really liked.

I talked for a bit with the guy who owned this and he told me he brought the car back in 1997 and finished the refurbishment in 2003.  He also admitted that he paid others to do all the work and he has always been too scared to work out how much he’s spent.  Clearly it was a lot.  Anyway, hope you like the picture, trust me when I say it doesn’t do the car justice.

Looking around my office the Halo dudes found some Insights Lego blocks and started to play.

62 Corvette – Redmond

14. May 2012 · Comments Off on 62 Corvette – Redmond · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: ,

Now I don’t know much about cars, but I know what I like.  Obviously coming from the UK I’m much more familiar with European cars as there really isn’t a market for US models as they are usually very big and drink a load of gas.  And petrol (that’s what they call gas over there) is around $10 a gallon.  So it’s very rare to come across a V8 – they’re far too expensive.  Also a majority of US roads are pretty straight and the suspensions are set up for going in a straight line at speed and then slowing to turn.  In Europe (and England especially) the roads are really windy (technical term), and well people drive a little faster there so the car suspension is much firmer and feels very different.

So why am I telling you all this?  Actually I’m not sure I wandered off a bit there but I did find something out over the weekend, apparently I really like old Corvette’s – who knew!  Now I’m definitely no Corvette expert but I’m gonna guess that this one was made in 1962.

There were all these cars in the town center and people were all excited over the Lamborghinis and Ferraris, and this Corvette was sitting in the corner all on it’s own.  Nobody was checking out the car.  At first I just went over to take a picture without loads of people in the way but it was beautiful.

Now I don’t normally do this but I took a couple of shots of this car and couldn’t decide which one to post, so in the end I thought I’d post them both.  Check it out, what a really beautiful machine.

Master Chief needed his hair brushed but wouldn’t sit still, so Carter came up with a clever way of holding him down.

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