Saturday, October 10, 2026
Goodguys Most Bitchin’ Award went to Angie Johnson’s 1980 Trans Am
Angie decided it was finally time to build the Trans Am she’d wanted since childhood. She and Alan first found a low-mileage 10th Anniversary ’79 Trans Am but ultimately decided it was too nice to modify. So, with the help of Boris at Street Machinery, they came up with an ’80 Pace Car model that was just right – decent, solid, and complete, but in need of bodywork, paint, and a lot of love.
“The 1980 Pace Car was the only year in which both Indy and NASCAR selected this car as their Pace Car,” Angie says. “The vision was to refine an already iconic Pontiac design, to maintain the integrity of the car, bring it up to date, and use both the 10th Anniversary and Pace Car aesthetics, as these were back-to-back years.”
The team at Johnson’s Hot Rod Shop began the update process with a Roadster Shop Spec chassis, giving the car a more modern performance front suspension, rack-and-pinion steering, a four-link rear suspension, Strange rearend, and Wilwood 14- and 13-inch disc brakes. The wheels are a nod to Pontiac originals and were designed and machined in-house at JHRS. They measure 18×8-inches in front and 19×9-inches in the rear and wear 255/45/18 and 265/50/19 tires for a slight hot rod rake.
“The 1980 Pace Car was the only year in which both Indy and NASCAR selected this car as their Pace Car,” Angie says. “The vision was to refine an already iconic Pontiac design, to maintain the integrity of the car, bring it up to date, and use both the 10th Anniversary and Pace Car aesthetics, as these were back-to-back years.”
The team at Johnson’s Hot Rod Shop began the update process with a Roadster Shop Spec chassis, giving the car a more modern performance front suspension, rack-and-pinion steering, a four-link rear suspension, Strange rearend, and Wilwood 14- and 13-inch disc brakes. The wheels are a nod to Pontiac originals and were designed and machined in-house at JHRS. They measure 18×8-inches in front and 19×9-inches in the rear and wear 255/45/18 and 265/50/19 tires for a slight hot rod rake.
’87 Chevy crew cab built by Ironworks Speed & Kustom has just been named the Goodguys 2026 Roadster Shop 4X4 of the Year
To deliver that, Ironworks began with a great foundation in the form of a RS4 chassis from Roadster Shop. This chassis is engineered for serious performance with a sturdy frame, long-travel front and rear suspensions, Fox shocks, a Dana 44 front and Dana 60 rear axle, and splined sway bars to deliver true off-road agility.
Ironworks enhanced that with Wilwood disc brakes aided by an IntekOtto electric brake booster, and then went old school on the rolling stock with 18×9-inch Pro Comp aluminum wheels wrapped in 37-inch BFGoodrich HD Terrain tires.
Friday, October 09, 2026
amazing that work trucks from this era still exist, and can still get the same work done
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1699432898848413&set=pcb.1699433232181713
Thursday, October 08, 2026
I didn't get things posted today, I heard from an ol shipmate right after I got home, and we ended up texting for a couple hours
some days I have a lot of spare time, and post a lot.
Probably most days, but not today.
Anyway, as long as I'm talking, I figure it's a good time to mention that a month from now is my 20th anniversary.
And this is my 66600 post. (Yeah, 666 and a couple zeros)
To let you know I'm going to have less spare time after my 20th anniversary.
It takes all my spare time, after work, before work, and on weekends. I've got a couple other things I want to focus on.,... like learning to play guitar, music theory, and make a couple books... maybe 3. One on my family tree, one on my favorite poetry, https://better-than-palgrave.blogspot.com and another on the history of my home town https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100095524357751
Life is too short, and none of us have any idea when the clock will run out for us. So, since I'm 55, have diabetes type 2 (recently acquired in Jan 2021) so I need to get to work on my other hobby interests while I still can, 'cause they are going to take a long time.
As for the poetry and history, the links above show I've got a really good start on those. I started the poetry project before I started this blog, and interrupted what was a good start, until I was done with this project. I have about 175 books of poetry, that I am about 1/2 way through and then putting the ones I like the most, in one book, means I never have to hunt through the 200 books to find them. If you ever look up the Ralph Woods Treasuries, or the Between the Bookends by Ted Malone, the collections of Tony Wons... you'll find a lot of great stuff, and I want to select all those and put them together in one book for myself.
The history of my home town will take a lot more time and effort once I'm old and retired and can get back to Michigan to pound the pavement to research it more.
I already spent about 12 months tracing out my family tree, and that's the majority of the work on that project, I just want to index, cross reference, etc etc so I can look up any last name to see if there's a connection with any other family last name.
So, learning to play guitar... I bought a couple guitars at estate sales, and facebook marketplace, very inexpensive, except for the Taylor... some local online auction and estate sale auction company never handles guitars, they mostly do companies going out of business... and they had an auction that was fronted by a 66 Ford truck, So I was looking at that, and a Taylor 110 acoustic was there... and a very old Ibanez. For the price of a new Yamaha.. it's a 2008 and likely never used. Long story, but I think they were both owned by a woman born in 1944... do the math, she was 64 when she got the Taylor, and the company she bought the strings for the Ibanez, went out of business in 1987. She owned a couple guitars she didn't play. I found her name on the Ibanez case, and looked her up. Amazing woman! I am guessing she's dead, hence the estate sale of her things... but I'm going to try and see if she's alive, to learn more about her, and the guitars... hey, you all know, I'm very curious.
Anyway, for the curious about guitars, I bought a 1960s Aria, 1960s Goya, 1960s Kawai, 1960s Ibanez, and 2008 Taylor. Models I can fill you in on later but all are big acoustic, no electric, dreadnaught size, or darn close to it.
I've wanted to learn to play guitar since I was 4... and heard so much cool music on the radio, like the Beatles, Beach Boys, Elvis, Johnny Cash, Eagles, Frampton, Patsy, Willie, and all the country and western hits, 50s music, 60s music, Motown, etc etc. and especially all the one hit wonders on 45s from the 60s and 70s
But poor families don't gift guitars. Damn shame, kids who are studying music, and playing guitars, and trying to do all the guitar music, don't have time to get into much trouble, often find themselves with cool girlfriends, cool friends, great teen age years of experiences, etc. I had my first guitar lesson last Saturday. It was nothing hard, but a very basic beginning, and I was STOKED afterward as I drove to get lunch, wondering if I'd win the auction on the Taylor and the Ibanez to make a hope for a REALLY good new guitar a reality
Hell, my grandma was so musically gifted she was given a scholarship to Intrerlochen for piano talent. She was so dextrous, she could type a hundred words a minute on a manual typewriter, she told me.
Wednesday, October 07, 2026
Prime Video, is making Jeremy Grows a Car: A Clarkson’s Farm Special.
“Alongside his very own Diddly leather interior and wool carpets, Jeremy will attempt to grow a crop of flax fibre and turn it into a revolutionary flax-composite – a sustainable alternative to carbon fibre
He has enlisted the legendary car designer Ian Callum CBE, founder of design and engineering firm CALLUM, the man who penned the original F-Type and the Aston Martin Vanquish
The new, one-off show will air in 2027 with Prime Video also confirming yesterday that series six of Clarkson’s Farm will also be released next year.
A dog was stolen from a trucker's can while she was in the station paying for the fuel
Arlene put the picture from that camera on a truckers' page that night. Then she parked and waited.
Two days later a driver named Hollis spotted a heeler tied to a fence at a rest area outside Oklahoma City, 260 miles east. He was headed the wrong way. So he handed Dutch up to a driver going west, and that driver handed the dog to another one in Elk City.
The third truck pulled into the Amarillo truck stop a little after midnight.
Dutch came down the steps of a stranger's cab, crossed the lot and went straight up into Arlene's.
Tuesday, October 06, 2026
Monday, October 05, 2026
Fritz Schiedel was a bit obsessed with making this Porsche 550A as light as possible for racing ( bought directly from Porsche competition director at Sebring in '58, never raced, a backup car for the new RSK) Thank you John!
I'm surprised he didn't swiss cheese the dash, but I get a kick out of the lack of decorative trim around the instruments, and the holes in the key? Awesome
An 18-year-old from was arrested after police said he stole a Star Brass steam whistle before it was stolen from the 1921 Cooke steam locomotive at Central Park in Sutherlin, Oregon. (thank you George! )
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