My Ferrari GTO

Revells  -  My Ferrari GTO (2:13)

All right, a Pontiac and a Ferrari are two different things, I know that.  Just go with it, because both the song and the ad are pretty damn great. I admit to being a little queasy about the tiger skin, but maybe it's the skin of a very old tiger that died peacefully of natural causes.  Or maybe not.

The Hot Rod Jordanaires

 
Jordanaires  -  Malibu Run  (2:04)

Recently, while scrounging for 45s out in the Atlanta suburbs I found this mystifying head-scratcher by the Jordanaires.  Who would've figured these tame but talented background vocalists for Rip Chords wannabes with a passion for hot rod sounds?  Certainly not I.  And how about the fact that this extraordinarily unlikely disc was produced by Don Law and Frank Jones, Columbia's in-house go-to guys for classic Nashville country sounds by people like Ray Price, Carl Butler and Pearl, Johnny Cash, Marty Robbins, Lefty Frizzell and others.  And I have no idea who author R. Wilkins is but I wonder if he's somehow related to Bucky Wilkin (no "s" at the end) who wrote and recorded a substantial body of hot rod work in Nashville as a member of Ronny & The Daytonas. 

Big Daddy Roth Month: The Orbitron-- Lost and Found!

Note the tricolor headlight array, mimicking the dot pattern on a color television screen. 

   The Orbitron was always a favorite of mine among Big Daddy's cars, but I'm apparently in the minority. There was never a model kit, slot car, or Hot Wheel, either in 1965 or since, and unlike the Outlaw and the Mysterion, it didn't even get its own Car Craft cover, as you can see.

Only approximately 1/12 of the cover? An insult!

 It had a short life on the car show circuit, and Ed sold it to Darryl Starbird in 1967 for $750. He sold it it to someone in Texas shortly thereafter, and it was lost to history for decades (one story holds that around 1973 it was in the hands of a teen-ager who actually drove it to school!). In recent years, it was tracked down in Ciudad Juarez, and it's since been restored to its original glory. Read the story here, and for more photos, click here.

This fellow is no relation, but he's also cool. Learn more about him here.

Jimmy Bryant & The Voxmobile

Celebrated guitar man Jimmy Bryant poses with the Voxmobile, George Barris' finest creation. Completed in 1968 at a cost of $30,000 it is both an operational motor vehicle and a fully functional mobile amplifier. It has inputs for 32 guitars.

After Vox got through with the car, it was owned by Jimmy Bryant until 1980. More historical details in the clip below, but I must warn you about the annoying goofballs hosting the clip.



And while we're on the subject of Jimmy Bryant, here is a picture taken in his hometown of Moultrie, Georgia.

Lone Wolf

Looking at the tiny repro of this plaque in J.C. Whitney ads all these years (or was it Honest Charley? My files are not accessible), I never realized that the wolf is crying. Puts a whole different slant on things. This ran me $5.00 at a flea market in Kannapolis, NC.

Hondells

The Pink Panther