I’m customized, I’m moon equipped
I’m customized, got a hot tip
I’m customized like a buggy whip
I’m customized like some bad trip
I’m customized, I’m a rocket ship!
Rocket ship!Flames, baby! Flames!!!
Anyone who ever bothers to peruse this blog has probably figured out that your humble blogger is as much a music fanatic as a car fanatic. And why not? Hot cars and hot tunes are a marriage made in heaven, and rock n’ roll is so much a part of the experience of hot rodding that, as I’ve stated before, I wonder how people enjoyed fast driving before about 1955! Of all the rock and rockabilly and blues and punk bands that have ever been-and I love almost all of ‘em!-there’s one in particular that has always stood above the rest for me: The Cramps.
An American “garage punk band” formed in 1976 and active until 2009 when front man Erik “Lux Interior” Purkhiser tragically passed away from a congenital heart defect at the age of only 62, The Cramps were once characterized as “a novelty act that refused to die”, about as short-signed and lunkheaded an assessment of a band as this blogger has ever heard! “Lux” and his wife/bandmate/partner-in-crime Kristy “Poison Ivy” Wallace actually performed a great service to the world: with their massive record collection and albums full of covers, they rescued and preserved some the greatest, wildest, and most obscure backwoods rock music ever recorded, saving these rarities for future generations that would probably never have been aware of them otherwise. And, when I saw this ’68 Chevy El Camino come up for sale, what else could have come to mind but this song from this album by this awesome band???
https://www.grunge.com/725820/the-untold-truth-of-the-cramps/
I can’t rightly call this post a “New Build.” I’d like too, but if I’m honest-and I am-I actually bought this car exactly as you see it from an ebay vendor in California who had already customized it. I don’t usually do things that way – I come from the “built not bought” philosophy of rat-rodding – but when I saw this for sale as-is at a price I couldn’t build it for cheaper myself, I thought…well, what the hell: “Buy It Now.” So this is my first-ever “New Buys” post, and I hope there won’t be another one! If there is, they will be few and far between, but damn…look at this thing! Pride aside, could you have passed this up??? And anyway…considering its riding on Vincent wheels and tires, this is the the way I would have done it if I had done it….
There’s a reason why I have not, heretofore, bought a copy of this Auto World reproduction of the insanely valuable Aurora original: what place for an El Camino racing on a road course, even against other muscle cars? Drag racing is something else, but somehow I can’t see an “Elky” out on a course, where the light rear end would be a liability rather than an asset. Therefore, though it is ready to go down to its brand new Ultra-G chassis with a metal guide pin, it is unlikely that this car will ever see track duty at the muscle car races at Drag City: I bought it for the sole reason that it was just too damn cool to pass up.
Can you think of a better reason?
Of course I still want an Aurora original for the Road Crew. I have a beautiful reproduction from Road Race Replicas who remade this body before Auto World did, but the originals are so expensive that with the recent events in my life cutting into my income even further than the already horrendous “Bidenflation” its unlikely I will ever spend the scratch required to acquire one. Reproductions will have to do, but if they look this cool, well…who cares?!
