Racecars at the Desert Classic in Palm Springs

Book Review: McQueen's Machines, the cars and bikes of a hollywood icon, by Matt Stone, softcover edition

by the numbers
5 chapters
92 pieces of paper between the covers, none blank, none wasted

The form and layout are fine. There is so much to cover and space isn't wasted, only 6 pages are text only, all the rest are both pictures and text.

High quality photos, about half are new, and half vintage photographs. 100 black and white, 135 color

No complaints at all. Since it isn't possible to show a photo of every car, truck, bike, and airplane that Steve McQueen ever had, as I think probably half were likely never photographed, though I'd like to see more photos of the vehicles I don't think that is realistic to expect we will ever find a more complete collection of them than this book.

the chapters divide the book into McQueen's Garage, Screen, Track, Two Wheels, and Enduring Legacy

The 1st chapter covers the '53 Siata 208s, the '58 Porsche Speedster 1600 super, the '57 Jaguar XK/SS, the '63 Ferrari 250 Lusso, the '67 Mini Cooper S, a single photo of a 66 Vette tail and it's whereabouts are unknown, the '67 Ferrari 275 GTS/4 NART Spyder (one of 10 built), Jeep CJ that Von Dutch pinstriped, '69 Porsche 911S, the '52 Hudson Wasp, and has a more brief look and text about the '49 Cadillac series 62, the '57 Bel Air, the 50's 3100 series Chevy truck, and both a '57 and a '68 Ford truck.

Then only text to list the half track Army surplus that he left with Von Dutch in Arizona, a '51 Hudson Hornet, a 53 Allard with a hemi, a '49 Cadillac 4 dr, a '31 Lincoln Club Sedan, a '35 Chrysler Airflow, a '30 Cadillac coupe, a WW2 Willys Jeep, and 3 Packards: a '39 Super 8 four door sedan, a rare Super 8 convertible coupe, and a '40 series 120 convertible coupe.

Mentioned, and with a couple photos are Steve's airplanes, a '41 and '45 Boeing Stearman, and a 1930's  PA-8 Pitcairn Mailwing,

Chapter 2 goes into detail and photos about Steve's movies and movie vehicles, The Great Escape, The Thomas Crown Affair, Bullitt, The Reivers, On Any Sunday, Le Mans, and The Hunter.

Chapter 3 Focuses on Steve's racing before movies, and later in 1968 with the Hurst Baja Boots, in 1969 at Ascot raceway, and Riverside and Sebring in 1970

Chapter 4 gets into Steve's passion for motorcycles, showing photos of 20 of them, and talking about them in great detail.

A Honda CA77 Dream Touring, a Triumph 650, a '46 Indian Chief, a Husqvarna 400 Cross, a '59 Triumph Bonneville, a 1914 Indian Model F boardtrack racer, a 1919 Indian Daytona Twin racer, the 1929 Scott Super Squirrel that Von Dutch restored and I've featured before, a '64 Triumph TR6 ISDT, Honda CR250 Elsinore, 1921 Indian dirt track racer, and his WW1 era Harley Davidson, a mid 1910's Pope, and 1926 Fowler

Chapter 5 is brief, and talks about the legacy Steve McQueen has, how the Bullitt movie was merchandised into Bullitt Mustangs, in both 2001 and 2008 by Ford... how the image of Steve has been used in cool tv commercials, etc.

You finish this book knowing you've had a thorough look at how Steve McQueen's movies and racing combined with the lifestyle and outgoing nature of his racing and motorcycle off roading made him one of the few ultimate car guys. The ones who can buy anything, race - restore - or collect, and decide to have the coolest and most useful cars, trucks, bikes and things that aren't going to just be dusted off and left on battery minders.

Probably the best book you'll find on Steve McQueen's passion for vehicles. Enjoy! 

Max Grundy is now selling prints of the cool American Flag with the shift pattern

Men In Black 3 ( MIB3 ) is going to be another great MIB movie, and in this one, J and K ride motor wheels!

 Looks like they are strored under and inside the 66 Ford (Fairlane?) for quick deployment

Congratulations to "Ridesabike.tumblr.com" for getting a full page feature in Entertainment Weekly! And for making a book!

It sure is awesome to see another favorite of mine (on my blog list too) get media attention from the big magazines! I found Steven's site in Jan 2011 http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2011/01/celebs-photographed-in-candid-moments.html ... so it doesn't always take very long when you are puttting quality out there. Maybe someday I'll get a turn in that spotlight. (Hope!)

for a cool trip through celebs and hollywood stars photographed on bicycles: http://ridesabike.tumblr.com/ or
http://www.facebook.com/ridesabike by film critic Steven Rea:

Steven Rea has been an Inquirer movie critic since 1992. He was born in London, raised in New York City, and has lived in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Iowa City, Iowa. His column, "On Movies," appears Sundays in Arts & Entertainment, his reviews appear in the Weekend section on Fridays, and his blog, On Movies Online, can be found here. He is a member of the National Society of Film Critics.

He also curates the movie stars and bicycling photo blog, Rides A Bike.

  Email Steven at srea@phillynews.com

The Busted Knuckle Garage, cool gift and garage things for car enthusiasts

Here are just a couple cool things from the online store of Warren Tracey's small company. Warren used to have a bicycle shop, and deliver yachts among other jobs, but eventually got some signs like the above ones, made up and started selling them. His little side business soon took off, and you can browse through a lot of cool stuff at http://www.bustedknucklegarage.com

Thanks to my brother Mick, who saved my computer illiterate self!

Someone hacked my Gmail account and changed my password.

Once you don't have your password, there is about nothing you can do except waste time cursing Google for not  doing anything to help.

Google has a phone number
650-253-0000

They don't have anyone answering it. The first two option on the phone tree are for websites and cached Google result pages.

Option 3 is " customer service" and then the recording tells you that all you really need is to go to Google.com and get help there.

Believe me, there is nothing Google is doing to help with you getting hacked in their computers, with their Gmail system. No customer service, even though you pay for Android software for many phones, Droid phones, with Verizon and T-Mobile... will tell you frequently if your password gets hacked, and you don't have access to the password.

Your phone will remind you.

Droid marketplace... needs your password. Blog.... needs your gmail password to allow you to access you blog.

When you get hacked, and someone changes your password? You are so screwed. No more blog, no more droid apps in the marketplace, and your email contacts, and all your emails, and all your blog content... no longer are in your control.

As a friend, I don't have a lot to offer for advice. Try to get a backup of all your blog content so you can start over if you have to. Change your password to the hardest damn thing to hack you can imagine, then do that every month or so. I don't know if that will work, I just changed my password a month ago, and it was hacked and changed. No idea why, I can't see a thing that has been done. Good thing that the credit card I had used for years expired in January, and the number no longer works, because if any credit card info exists in any of my accounts with Google, it's that one. And annually they automatically charge me for storage of the photos on my blog

Get Mick to do whatever the hell he did to make that password reset happen. Oh, yeah, it wouldn't send a text SMS (whatever an SMS is) to my phone, a Droid (google software) with password help... because it had the wrong phone number.

I didn't give it the wrong phone number. Now that I have control of my gmail account again, it won't save my correct phone number. I don't hate Google, that would  be pointless. I just detest companies that are entwined in my email, phone, and blog, and don't have a phone number they answer, and they don't have an email address they will respond to. 

Turbonique liquid driven supercharger, Horizontal Huffer model C-4-AH is being sold by Jason, son in law of a distributor for Turbonique back in the day

email him at hoff909@yahoo.com , not me! 

The Blakely Special #52 was at the Desert Classic Concours d'Elegance

Hagerty TV added video coverage to the vintage Snow Mobiles in their magazine that I posted a little while ago

The Snow Machine coverage is after the Jay Leno interview about Corvairs, and starts at minute 5:02

Found at http://www.hagerty.com/classic-car-articles-resources/Video/Hagerty-Classic-Car-TV?utm_source=ExactTarget&utm_medium=email&utm_term=&utm_content=HCCTV&utm_campaign=Episode21 because I signed up to get their newsletters, and video notifications (great stuff!)