Projects A late introduction-Junior Conway coupe build

Hey sorry I missed you I had a phone issue are you in the Dallas area still? I will be there next week

 

This is the next AM. This set up was designed to be put up by two elderly people. The problem is that the two elderly people have never had to put it up until now. I used muscles that wanted to know what was going on. It took a week to get back to "normal". It showed us that we need to start walking. We had to walk a 1/2 mile (total) there and back each day and that is what saved us.

 

Here we are all set up. This is the biggest show (500 entries) that we've been in since GNRS.

 

Here it is with the hood/trunk open. If your competeing they encourage you to do this for the points. They've put us in the "full hardtop" class. I can't find the other cars that are in this class because of the size of this show. This should be interesting. Pic #4 shows were we "hang out". This is like watching paint dry.

 

David Sherman and David Vanhenserling made contact with me on set up nite (thurs). They said that they were SoCal transplants that remembered this car. My reply was "you are the guys that I built this car for". That got me and mom thanksgiving dinner at Vanhenserling's ("Dutch's") house. All very nice.

My wet sanding puddle.

 

There was this guy with a camera boom that was taking pics of the car. I couldn't quite understand what was going on regarding who was doing this. Oh well, they'll probably show up somewhere down the road.

 

Well we found out who all were in the full hardtop class at the awards ceremony. ISCA has an outstanding in class and best in class designations. There were 3 cars in this class. Best went to a 69 Camaro that had air brushed, custom paint, pinstriped, chromed everything. This included the engine bay with custom shrouds and detailed aprons/firewall, all custom painted and striped with lots of chrome and polished components. The interior was the same as the underhood area. The undercarriage was all detailed and chromed as well.
Outstanding went to a 56 Chev 210 two door with not quite the same level of detail as the Camaro. Both very nice cars.

This experience brings to mind my comments on post #1250. I'll talk about this later.
We also received an outstanding display award. There were a dozen of these given out.

 

The pic of the awards.

 

I want to use one of these on my '50 - can you lead me to the shop you got this from. Your car turned out so good - you have to be very proud of what you created, and thanks for sharing the built with us.

 

Thanks for the compliments. I found that pipe on ebay.

 

Packing up and loading.



ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDE6...eature=youtu.bev=1G2J5lpYhsw&feature=youtu.be

 

Oh, and this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G2J5lpYhsw&feature=youtu.be

 

I visited my neighbor Norm (post #879) today and found him working on this. It's a '40 Merc. It's from Indiana and the owner wants Norm to get it running and clean it up. One thing IS leading to another but, NO, the top will stay the stock height. Nuts!

 

Merry christmas everybody! All the best to you and yours!

 

Merry Christmas Jerry to you and your family and friends. Thanks for including us in your adventure. Happy New Year, too.

 

Nice two page pic of it at the GNRS in the latest TRJ.

 

Well Tom, you couldn't be more right. WOW! I just wanted to work on cars and all this other stuff happened.

 

Neat seeing you car in TRJ for sure. Happy New Year! Harry.

 

As I have said previously (post #1024) my only other car show experience was in the 80s. After almost a year of doing this show thing it's become clear that something has changed regarding the relationship that show promoters have with the show entrants since I was involved.
From the beginning of time (it seems) show's always had platforms/tables full of trophies that the entrants always coveted and worked hard to get. This is no longer the case. The hard work is still there and it sure doesn't cost less to build these creations. It costs twice as much!
The trophies that I remember have been replaced with plaques that are made of wood, look like floor tile and have tin plates nailed to them. Sometimes they are particle board with the award info laminated onto the front.
My first exposure to this was at the Dallas ISCA show. The GNRS was a no competition venue in the Custom's then and now building. It was understood that no trophies were to be awarded.
Bob Laravee sr. (the legendary show promoter) came by at the Houston show on the set up days. He was selling his big Show Car Dreams book at a discounted price. Had I been further along with my thinking process I would have asked him when this transition happened. I can only imagine what the show entrants thought when this happened. How was this change presented?
I was shocked to see the entrants slobbering all over these shingles on awards night. It was obvious that I had suddenly been transported into another reality.
There ARE nice trophy type awards but these are for the one or two stand out cars, not class winners. The exception to this was at the Fort Worth show. The Willy, and of course Mark Moriarity's fine award.

I was able to contact Bob Laravee sr. and his take on this was that there were a group of show entrants that were regulars that started complaining about the room that the stand up type trophies were taking. I do remember one guy telling me back in the day that he had one bed room that he could no longer get into because of the trophies in it.
Cost of course IS a factor for a promoter. It just seems like it always comes out of the entrants hide, and to see them willingly go along is a bit disconcerting. I wasn’t there when this change went down so I guess that theres a lot that Im missing.
I only have the one pic of my trophies from back in the day. They're long gone now. I no doubt didn't appreciate them. I figure that the two shingles (post#1309) cost about $500.00 apiece to get. Not counting the build cost of course.

 

I need to comment on the nice two page oversize picture in TRJ. Below the pic you see the brief comments. It talks about the importance of Junior's car and the two in the background being transitional vehicles from the more subtly restyled cars of the early part of the decade to the more radical ones of the late 50s (and beyond). It's almost as if the creative juices that have been kept in check by what was coming out of Detroit's conservative (?) styling studio's were being churned up and getting ready to explode.

Into this environment put a kid raised in the hills of Kentucky that didn't have shoes till he was six years old. Capture him by exposing him to the little custom car magazines. Starve him by keeping him in the middle of the country till he's fourteen, then immerse him in the most potent/dynamic hot bed of custom car/hot rod activity in the world. Introduce him to the Barris brothers just as he's starting to build his (one, and only) dream car.Then put him to work surrounded by all this creativity, just at the vortex of the hyper activity surrounding new kinds of cars and ideas coming out of Detroit.

If Junior had been born two years earlier we wouldn't have gotten the Junior Conway Coupe that we have today. No 55 Chev headlight bezels, &55 Ford side trim, &55 Buick tail lights (no fins) or Turnpike cruiser skirts. He talks about the pressure of what components to use by using the term modern. Everything had to be modern. He had a trade going with Jay Johnston for the 54 Pontiac grille that Jay had in his 51 Ford. As he thought about it he decided no, it had to be a modern grille. So we (the world) end up with the first (or second) bar grille.

Easy? I don't think so. Exciting?, definitely.

I'm enclosing my most favorite picture of the young Jr. during this period. This is from Barris Kustom Techniques of the 50's volumn 1.

 

Hey guy's, just a heads up. Ryan's going to help me make this thread into two parts. Part I up to GNRS, part II after. There's alot of stuff yet to happen and this thing is getting too big.

 

Jer, Looked great in Rodder's Journal ! Makes miss my 49 business coupe..

 

Been gone awhile, Jerry, just caught up. Very entertaining stuff. Esp. love the Salina vapor lock story. Quite an odyssey . . . kudos brother!

 

Well, here we go again. Packin' up and headin' for Abilene wednesday.

 

Hey jerry this is a little different than the high school parking lot shows of jr. Day. Don't you think ? And bet it was a lot easier on a young guy ! Good luck to you.

 

Have the EMS standing by (?). AARRGH! Hey, it's all good (?).

 

At the motel in Abilene. We arrived a day early. Inside the civic center. I unloaded the trailer and took it back to the motel. This is everything that makes up the display. Quick unload, about 20 minutes.

 

We've been here before, right? Car is positioned differantly.

 

Can't see from here that it makes much difference, kinda depends on which side you approach from. Mom is a trooper!

 

I think my stainless guy had a different guy do my r. side door ('54 Dodge). I knew it wasn't as good as the l. side but, damn. I had to look at it all weekend. It's gotta get fixed. Yes she is, the best.