••• Took my coupe to Austin Speed Shop •••

Sorry, I'm fresh out of clever ASS puns. This is just the quick story of my coupe and some friends in Austin, Texas. It was a crazy week and I'll probably forget to include half of what happened. But hopefully a few more people who were there will come along and fill in the blanks.

The plan was for Tuck to drive down from Kanada, load the coupe on a trailer here in Kansas City, then drive down to Austin for a week long thrash at the shop. Anyone who felt like lending a hand could, but there was no real plan for anyone more than Tuck and I to be working on it. Bob came up with the idea at the Roundup and everything just fell into place from there. If you've followed what I'm doing at all then you know I work out of my little one car garage and my tools are somewhat limited. I also don't usually spend large blocks of time on the car. So the opportunity to work at a place like ASS for an uninterrupted week was truly a great thing and up front I need to say thanks to Bob and everyone at the shop as well as my super rad wife who all seemed to know how important this was for me.

Tuck was involved from the beginning and landed on the decision to put a hitch on the Ranchero and haul the coupe with that. And he busted his ass getting that thing ready for the trip and we scored an old single axle trailer for the trip. It was great and I can't see any other way to tow the coupe now.

The trip down was nuts. Tuck can fill in details if he want's but here is the short version. Carry an extra fan belt and 99% of Oklahoma sucks.

We got to Austin later than planned and crashed in the bus at Bobs. The bus rules. From then on it was pretty much wake up, work on the coupe, go to sleep. Plenty of eating involved too and I had missed the food there.

Literally within the first five minutes of pushing the coupe into the shop Bob had picked up a hammer and dolly and "wham, wham, wham... fixed the oil-canning problem with the front half of my roof. Half an hour later Tuck had completely erased a giant bullet hole/dent and crease in the side of my gas tank. It was really too much for me to take in.

From there Tuck and I just started working. Mark lent me this cool little screwdriver he had modified for aligning tacked panels as you do the final welding. I had done a decent job of fitting most of what was there but when you go to a place like this and are surrounded with a different quality of work it pushes you. It's kind of like a really good skate session with friends. You have fun when you go by yourself but if it's a big session with lots of friends you push each other and it rules. At least that's the best way I can describe it. So the end result of that is we ended up cutting about half of what I had already tacked or welded to get better panel fit. I really learned lots of little things and made the decision to expand my definition of what I consider "necessary tools". The bullseye pick rules. I'm getting one.

The coupe looks so much better now. A solid piece with a few panels missing and some welding to be done instead of a tacked together shell.

The whole trip ruled. Thanks to Bob and Laura. The bus was so great and puppy Jezebel was super rad to have around toward the end of the week when I was really missing my family. Joyo - Sorry I missed you leaving. Thanks for everything. Dan - the Zephyr is going to rule – just let me know what you need. Mark - now has the baddest street rod in Austin. El Laura - that food was so great. We all should have been grilling every night. And coffee spiked brownies for the ride home were genius. Magic rules, even if he does like Led Zepplin. And the silent ruler, Luke. This guy was constantly pulling stuff out of his hat. "Oh yeah, I make Model A drip rails... here's a PILE of them." hahahaha. So anyone needing a nice set of A coupe drip rails should call him. Oh yeah Franco, I stole your artwork.

 

Tuck is home. But my camera broke the day before I left. I'm actually kind of surprised it didn't break in Oklahoma.

 

A public apology of sorts... I got my dates a bit mixed up and missed literally all of the thrash as I headed for Salina. It was weird... My best pal from Kansas City was in Austin... While I was in Kansas. Go figure.

Anyhow, I was a shitty pal. I should have been here. Sorry Kevin... I'll make it up - promise.