Friday, May 9, 2014

When the past and the future collide

Greenpoint Gone Wild!
 While roaming a truly boring and desolate stretch of Greenpoint the other day I ran into this sweet 1946/1947 Ford Pickup done up in classic hot rod style. 
Ford, along with all other US automakers, stopped civilian production in 1942 to retool and focus on building military machines for the World War 2 effort. This meant that after the war when production resumed the vehicles being made were essentially 1941/1942 models. This example harkens back to the time when small trucks were based heavily on the passenger cars being produced. In 1948 Ford would finally introduce the new stand-alone truck F-series, which amazingly is still going strong today.
"Student Driver" doesn't care about any of that. Student Driver just wants to cruise in full Brylcreem poodle skirt style. This is truly a throwback mild custom, with little more than a unique paint job and some steel wheels to set it aside from the factory original. That car club plaque in the middle of the tailgate (Rumblers) is covering up the classic Ford script.
Finally this pic highlights my 3 favorite things about Student Driver; a glass doorknob gear shift, the basic utilitarian look of that door handle painted over with the rest of the body, and finally the ridiculousness of covering the roof in an iridescent heart pattern. Amazing decision! 
Speaking of amazing decisions . . .
What? Seriously; what is it we're looking at here? Is this seriously a super stretch limo from the '90s that somebody with a major science fiction/Trent Reznor fetish added massive amounts of evil to? Yes it is!
How absurd can a vehicle get? Here is your answer; this is a fully registered and inspected car that lives in NYC.
For me the most astonishing part of seeing this monstrosity is that I took pictures of it in 2011 when it was parked near my old apartment in the Lower East Side:
Here she is years ago before the rear window fender treatment. The license plates are different though, and the elaborate tag on the side is gone, but this simple HAS TO BE the same ride.
This former patina look is long-gone, and the very dainty little headlights have grown a bit, but other than that it lives on.


 

1 comment:

  1. most amazing thing about the limo to me is that the owner was parallel parking this thing on the street. skills.

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