Hey Guys and Girls, Well Chris, Jamie and Myself are back from our 23 day buying trip throughout America and attendance of the SEMA show 2014. I gotta tell you this was a big trip as we got back in the van and road tripped this again and covered 9 States and over 7000k’s of driving in the first two weeks to meet and qualify new suppliers… After flying into L.A we went and picked my van up from being serviced and sorted for it’s road trip… first stop was to check out a sweet 53 Chevy pick up for a client, we met the seller, photo shot the car and sent it straight to our client and went over the car on the phone and had a deal wrapped up and bagged on the first day.
POMONA SWAP MEET
From there we went to see some of our regulars with a list of about 40 cars to find on this trip… Next day was Pomona swap meet… A good turn out with plenty for sale but it’s fast moving and you can’t drive the cars or get under them properly so I don’t go really looking to take anything home on the day… Most of the cars there are being sold by car flippers that thake them over the border to Mexico and tart them up, don’t get me wrong there are some very nice cars there but you have to wade through a lot of crap… Still, it’s a cool vibe and epic swap meet for parts and cool stuff and we have a buddy who always has a parts stall there so always good to catch up with him and have a look around.
TIME TO HIT THE ROAD… ONLY 7000k’s TO COVER.
From Pomona we went to Southern California for some dinner with a buddy I’ve been dealing with for 8 years now, a few more inspections in the morning then out into Arizona to catch up with a supplier/broker we have been dealing with for several years and met some new ones, bought a 55 Buick and a Trans Am in that area before heading out through New Mexico to Texas as I’d never gone that far west previously but have pretty much nailed the whole West Coast so time to spread the wings further and tick off the last of the dry States…
THE CADILLAC RANCH 🙂
On our drive from New Mexico to Texas we did stop at the famous Cadillac Ranch along the way so Jamie could graff the Caddies and got his “Lost Soul” brand up across eight of the cars and 782 piece on the roof of a Cad… Maybe not much to you guys but was a cool thing for us and the first non-work related thing we got to do in the first week so was cool to snap some photos before we pushed on and completed our 24 hr drive to get to Dallas, Texas… Texas is crazy as was our night at the Gas Monkey Bar and grill! Haha. Made some really cool hook ups, got on the beers with some of the “Strictly Business” lowrider crew and hit a bunch of shops and met some quality sellers as well as chasing cars for clients along the way… oh, and picked up a rediculous black on black 440 6 pack Roadrunner! 🙂
THE HUSTLER! THE STORIES YOU DON’T NORMALLY GET TO HEAR…
From Texas we chased this illusive 57 Chevy Belair 4 door Hardtop for a client… It shouldn’t have been a hard car to place but couldn’t find one we’d want to own for the life of us! Anyway there was ridiculously expensive one in Oklahoma so we set this thing up like a big Marlin and hunted it down. The seller was an old man, he explained it was a frame off, fully restored car and it was a pretty thing in pictures. So we drive and drive and get to this little pretty town and pull up in the drive way and he hobbles out and looks at us 3 heavily tattoo’d Aussies, and it’s little bit awkward and I explain how we are here to buy a car not steal a car… to which he replies he has cameras and guns to deal with that stuff… So we go look at the this fully restored car that hasn’t been started in 6 months… Turns the key and it starts like it was started 15 minutes ago! He drives it on the lawn and it’s a pretty colour combo but straight up I can see the paints jammy and the chrome is mostly original and in poor condition… As I get around this car it takes no time to see this is a jammy old turd and I’m getting hustled by an old dude! I probe him on the resto cos I’m a bit devo’d this guy’s bullshitting to me so hard and to my face… for 40k usd I’m expecting a good car! Anyway, it’s getting a bit intense at “john boy” pulls up in his pick up truck and parks across the driveway behind the van and bowls up as a bit of back up for the 150 year old hustler! It’s not going anywhere so it’s time to peel out cos someone was going to get raped or shot and I’m not a fan of that in any order so we bailed and made deliverance jokes for the next 30 mins and talked about how good of a con artist the old guy was. Unfortunately inspections end in disappointment 90% of the time and you guys probably just see and hear of the success stories … anyway, we’re still looking for a bloody 57 Belair 4 door hardtop if you know of one!
From Oklahoma we travelled to Kansas chasing a 62 Impala that didn’t come together, however we did meet a really cool gentleman who’d been in business since the 60’s and had an awesome and high end collection of cars and some of his original 60’s race cars including his original 409 62 Impala… Super cool guy and showed us around and heaps of time for us and restored our faith in the elderly folk 😉
From Kansas City to Denver, Colorado was a heck of a drive with points of interest in-between to break it up… but not really enough. Denver was cool and got to see a lot of collections and some really interesting shops and sellers… we bought a really nice 68 Olds 442 for a good client back home and saw a really nice 1970 GT Torino… There’s heaps of new cars listed on the USA based stock page now and you can click any of these images to go straight to the website to check out what we saw.
From Denver we drove through the Rocky Mountains and blasted our way towards Vegas to catch up with all the regular guys and have a weekend to chill a bit as the first two weeks of road trip was made up of driving, inspections and 6 hrs of sleep and repeat. We had 8 nights in Vegas so having a room and a base station was priceless and we got to catch up on processing photos, inspections and all that we’d covered in our whirlwind tour… With that handled it was time for SEMA and a whole different type of work. Chris my lead mechanic hit it 4 days straight as all the products and builds keep him up to date, Jamie and i did what we do and went through the wheels and added some new ones to the range, caught up with some of our suppliers and did some big wheel orders as well as going through all the latest and greatest builds.
HEADIN BACK TO CALI…
The week went as quick as the first two and before we knew it we were back in the van heading to L.A to wrap up some business, hit another swap meet on the Sunday and then head back to the holding yard Monday to unload the van, wash it, clean it out and park it up until next time… All in all we purchased 11 specific cars for our clients, got to do the SEMA show again, re stocked our wheel inventory and met and qualified a bunch more sellers and re stocked our American based inventory page with a heap of new cars we feel are stand outs… Obviously we saw 1000’s of cars, most don’t equate into being viable to import and the sliding dollar hasn’t help that at all. If you see a car on our American based stock page it’s cos we think it’s a really nice car or represents value in some way… right now I have a tone of cars rolling through my mind, if you want something in particular hit me, I might just know of it.
