Route 66 HOT STAR CAR GATHERING IN RANCHO CUCAMONGA

Sundays show was located at the Calvary Faith Center in Rancho Cucamonga on Elm St just off the historic Route 66 (Foothill Blvd). The event included approximately 30 great looking cars from all eras. A field that sections off a great view of Route 66 was the location of a great model RC air show with planes and helicoptors. There was even a “Build you own” Snow Cone vender (my favorite). They served tacos and burritos for a fair price and everyone loved the Star Car Central showing of Herbie (Jerry), Starsky (Lou), Magnuim (Oscar), and BTTF II (Paul). It was the hottest show this year and I am talking about weather. 

You can always count on those great star car owners to help out at the last minute!  Paul (BTTF) was asked to bring his Delorian to a church in Rancho Cucamonga, and

decided it would be more fun with some of the star car guys so sent out the SCC signal!  Oscar (Magnum P.I.) Jerry Herbie, Lou Starsky and Hutch all answered the call.

I was busy tracking down a short in my Knight Rider KITT and enjoying the mid 70’s weather, where as these guys enjoyed the HOTTEST event of the year!  Hats off, and coats, and shoes to these guys for donating their day off to help out in the hot sun.  Build your own Snowcones sounds fun, but eat them FAST!  

Who’s got A/C? I wanna ride with them!  Now there’s a unique photo out the window…  ya don’t see THAT every day….

KNIGHT RIDER KITT OVERHAUL part 2

Over the last year or so, I have been redoing, updating, repairing deconstructing a Knight Rider KITT that came to me via Texas where it was first put together.  KITT had visited me last Feb. and I was trying to get the owner to bring the car to Star Car events.  Well over time, he decided to sell the car, and I just happen to “need” another star car to get to work in, so KITT came to live with the Batmobile.  http://starcarcentral.wordpress.com/2008/10/17/kitt-knight-rider-brought-back-to-life/

KITT comes for a visit….

and decides to stay….

I really just wanted an owner of a KITT to show up at Star Car Central events, and around this time Alex Wong

showed up with his amazing showroom car, so I went from NO kitts, to suddenly 2!  Alex is to KITT with the details as I am to Batmobiles,

So I started picking his brain for everything that needed either upgrading, renewing, removing, or improving, to make my KITT

more like the original screen used cars.  The first one was the interior was the wrong color!  I knew the car was black and tan, but this car had an all black interior with tan carpet,

the original had tan interior, with tan carpet.  As Alex is one of the “good guys” and was all ready in the process of helping other KITT fans with thier cars, he had some

parts left over to get me started, carpet the right color, and lots of  time saving knowlege .  

That's not Bonnie, or April, that's Alex, and he actually fixes KITTS....

So after a walk around and making lists of all that wasn’t correct, needs updating (like analog TV’s that wont get a signal anymore)

we jumped into work! (in the above photo, wrong seatbelts, black seat parts, black door rail trim…. See? now it bugs you too….)

I had to modify the front foglights, grind off the grills, repaint the inside of the nose, move all the lights back, lot of stuff

that wouldn’t be noticed, but after Alex pointed them out, would bug ME for ever.  

After searching craigs list, ebay, and junk yards, I finally got all proper tan parts, then  recarpeted and rejuvinated the interior.

Anyone need some black 1982 interior parts? 

One of the last exterior parts that needed upgrading was the rear “blackout”.   My KITT came with an old Marks Custom 3 part black out, and the TV KITT

had a single sheet of lexan/plastic across the back.  I removed the three pieces, as one was cracked, and  I was going to just leave the back of the car stock trans am, as I didn’t want to explain the taillight law to Highway Patrolmen over and over.  BUT then I saw the back of Alex’s car and said. “I gotta have that!”

So here are a few shots of how I destroyed the back of a trans am, so I can have the right KITT look!

To make the lexan cover sit right, I had to grind off the eagle, and “fins” off of the center section of the taillights, as well as modify the back of all the rear lights, in order to suck the lights into the car

about 1/4 of an inch.

Then I added adhesive strip across the reflector, double sided, to mount velcro to later.

After wet sanding the lexan, and sanding the edges over and over to get the right fit, I attached a metal 1/2 inch

strip with heavy duty  double stick tape to add firmness to the curve of the lexan, then velcro on top of that.

The photo above is all of it put together, lexan, tape, metal, velcro.

On the passenger side, my work on the back of the lights was not enough to suck it back into the car quite enough, so I had to go at it with a dremmel

(I wasn’t taking it back off of the car, it’s a big ordeal!) on the bottom you can see the double stick tape and velcro that attaches to the car.

Finally, after sanding, painting, sanding, repainting, fitting, refitting, taping, velcro-ing, I thought I was done, and took a photo!

Then I tried to close it, and it wouldn’t close without repeated attempts and having to shut it pretty hard.  The lexan was pushed down, and now it didn’t fit again,

so I resanded, and refitted and now had to figure out how to add a bit of room so the latch would again catch every time.

I eventually figured out I could take off the upper trim piece on the trunk lid (the tan part, the signature is Michael Schiff, original designer of KITT)

and remove the latch, add some thin washers under the 4 bolts, and it was all better!

Now KITT is back on the road, with his exterior now more accurate, and a cool new black out!  Ready to help “one man, make a difference….

and get to work….)

Come see 7 starcars at the Lake Forest 4th of July Parade this Saturday…   also coming up, the KITT Knight Rider dash makeover by Alex!

The final phase….

ROCKFORD FILES FIREBIRD and VANISHING POINT CHALLENGER STAR CAR MEET

Can you tell it’s summer? Lots of car shows, and events all at once!  The day after the City of Hope picnic, Nate Truman and his Starcarcentral.com group had their now annual event somewhere near Lou’s house, so we can have a BBQ!  

left to right, Paul’s BTTF Delorian, Dan’s KITT, Jason’s Herbie,  Brian’s BOND BMW, Sue’s Get Smart Sunbeam, Lou’s STARSKY TORINO, and Mike’s Vanishing Point Challenger.

(Yes, I know the movie car was white, there’s more to the story..  this car was used in the 1997 remake!)  And a big first time suprise of  the ROCKFORD FILES screen used Firebird.

Two of the car used on the show have been waiting for restoration, and now both are on their way to regain their former glory as the transportation of Jim Rockford!

 

We circled our star car owners and swapped stories, while all of the wild Mustangs ran free all over the rest of the park!  Thanks to the Simi Valley Mustang club for a place to meet, before we eat!

So we all packed up our stuff and we drove to Beverly… Lou’s that is , BBQ and lemon squares!  

Jerry didn’t bring his Herbie, because he didn’t want there to be two of them, so instead he brought a replica of this other guy’s shirt!

  Ya can’t win Jerry!   He did bring his sweet motorcycle though, and got to the event in record time!

Oscar aka Magnum showed up for the food, and who can blame him?  The Mustang people quized us all on our different car club!

Thanks to the Chefs and hosts Lou and Linda of the great party afterwards!  This is now an official yearly event! 

City of Hope Pediatric Cancer Picnic – Mickey Mouse, Darth Vader, Batmobile and Star Cars all in one place!

Where else can you get a free train ride and  see Mickey  and Minnie Mouse, Darth Vader, Batman and Catwoman, the Batmobile, Herbie the Love bug, Get Smart’s Machine gun toting tiger sunbeam, all while supporting the City of Hope’s Pediatric Cancer families?  Only one place!  Each year the City of Hope has a special themed picnic and invite the patients and friends and families of people who have gone through their doors at the Hospital Pediatric Cancer ward.    Nate Truman’s StarCarCentral.com and many other groups all pitched in to put on a great and fun event for everyone.

calling all heros!

If you haven’t been there, you need to go to ride the trains, they give rides on trains every Sunday, and once a month the Disney Barn is open, with lots of great history from the start of Disneyland, and Walt’s early backyard trains, that started the whole idea!

 

 

http://www.trainweb.org/girr/lals/lals.html

http://www.lacity.org/rap/dos/parks/griffithpk/sorailroad.htm

 

los angeles live steamers

Right next to the Travel Town Boneyard of full sized trains, is the live steamers park.  if you live in Los Angeles, you should spend at least one day seeing their amazing trains and park, that many volunteers have built over the years.  Make a donation even though the rides are free, and keep the park open for future visitors!

Mickey Mouse checks out fellow Disney star Herbie’s engine, please pay no attention to the black car in the back!

Lots of superhero’s showed up to take photos with the kids and their families, and the batmobile!  Shazam Jr.

is in the front right, then Green Lantern, Jason Todd aka Robin, Catwoman, Batgirl, and Batman.  Iron Man

had to put some marvel comic  into the all DC shot! 

That's better! DC hero's... ACTION POSE!

Scott and Vicky Sebring always bring lots of smiles when they appear as their favorite costumed heroes, and new “cosplay” pals showed up for this special event!

After a while, so many hero’s showed up, that most photos you couldn’t see there was a pretty cool batmobile behind them!

See? There it is…

IRON MAN? Seriously, What the heck? Great costume, but dude, this is DC land, and you sir, you are marvel!  Go find Spiderman to pose with!

Back behind the Hero’s and the batmobile, was Sue’s Get Smart Sunbeam Tiger, but without her Don Adam’s agent 86 stand up, or her Get Smart Impersonator, only the true blue fans that tended to be 40 or older, admired her machine gun and new closed circuit TV.

Kids and adults had fun seeing each other on the TV screen inside the Get Smart Car!

No matter how strict you enforce the guest list, some JOKER always get’s past the gate!   Actually this is one

of the City of Hope medical professionals, getting into the spirit of the event!  Looks like Jack Nicholson!

Sure, you guys let HERBIE into the photo, but when it’s the Batmobile….

Batman and Mousegirl!

I spent the day with Sue “Get Smart” and Minnie Mouse, and some friends from TV shows I used to work on at Weller Grossman Productions.

Cam and Brandy showed up near the end, and I got to blame Brandy in PERSON for starting the process of me ending up with my Knight Rider

Car KITT!     A fun time was had by all, and as I was up front and Obi-Shawn was back with Herbie, I don’t a SINGLE shot of his car, or any of the

many star wars characters who showed up as they were busy posing for photos with his star wars car!

The photo printers were working all day, as the City of Hope volunteers were taking photos of everyone who wanted one!

 

OK, FINE Iron Man, you can pose with the car!     

There’s something you don’t see every day…. wait, there’s something you have NEVER SEEN BEFORE!   Now that I look at it,

that “hot rod Red” paint goes well with the batmobile! 

The theme for next year’s picnic hasn’t been revealed, but if we fit, Nate Truman’s StarCarCentral.com members will be there!  

NEXT UP…

Mustangs, Rockford Files Original Car FOUND, and more famous movie and TV car fun!

FUTURE STAR CAR UPDATES – BUILD/PAINT/DRIVE!

 

OK, so over the years I have gathered together  a great group of star car owners and many of them have brought their famous full size “hotwheels” out to many events, helped various charities, and had a lot of fun in the process!  But what about those OTHER cars?  What about those famous cars on starcarcentral.com that never seem to be at any events?  Well here’s the story!

When I started StarCarCentral.com, my main desire was to root out all those famous cars that were drivable, and could be insured and on the road, so we could gather together at special events, and swap stories, and share our crazy hobbies.  But in the course of doing this, I found a lot of hidden treasures, half built, being restored, not quite done cars, that I just had to add to the club even though I knew that it would be a long time before they could join us in person with their wheels.   So here are some photos and updates on a few of the famous cars that are waiting in the wings that WILL be joining us in the near future!

The first catagory of “almost” cars is the “EBP” everything but paint group, which means really they have to paint their cars, and THEN put them all back together, but really we have two notable cars in this catagory that should be driving to events THIS year.   

First is the ECTO-1 Ghostbuster ambulance.   Sean has been working and working and paying and paying, and it is near completion. 

Next up, and I have seen photos of it with PAINT on it, is CHRISTINE the killer Stephen King car!

Martin met up with is at Cruisin for a cure with out a car last year, I am hopeful that Christine will debut with us

sometime this year!  He also brought out his Terminator Motorcycle to Riverside for a walk for Foster kids!

Then for the fans of early Black and White TV, the Highway Patrol show starred Broderick Crawford, and

Gary is closing in on finishing his police car from that show.

Jerry,  friend of the SCC aquired one of the original screen used professor fate Hannibal Eight cars,

but as you can imagine, this one will not be driving down the 405 with us any time soon!   Sure wish we

could get it to an event, it would knock the socks off of any crowd!

We are hot on the trail of the owners of an Austin Power’s “Shaguar” and hope they will join up this summer

“YEAH BABY!”

Also I managed to get ahold of the nice folks at Galpin Ford custom car people, and there is a DRAGULA that again, is not exactly street legal, but may be able to show up for special charities in the coming year.

Our old pal Joe Rios has been promoted and can schedule time off to join us with his very popular Scooby Doo van so we hope to see him

back with us at more events, maybe the Pasadena Police one coming up? Huh Joe? 

In the “starting stage” Luis from the Knights of the West Coast, has put his KITT Knight Rider on hold, long enough to

put together a Punisher replicar…  as goes so many of these pet projects, it’s all about time and money now….!

Will we ever see Tim’s RAT PATROL JEEP?   Well, I did, at my old Church Rolling Hills Covenant, and found out he also has a POWER WAGON but didn’t

go for the Simon and Simon paint job, and his jeep isn’t the right jeep for rat patrol…. I told him we wouldn’t tell, just bring it out!   Barry (robocop and othercop)

just informed me he also has a Rat Patrol jeep, but with Barry, he can only drive one car, lets all encourage him to bring his Robocop or Rat patrol Jeep to events this year!

On the upside, we went from NO KITTS in California to be found, to one, then two, and  now about FIVE in various stages of completion, and we can look forward to seeing a KITT at most events in the comming years!   The Knights of the West Coast came aboard, and Alex, Luis, Dan, Nick etc. have been trading off shows to make sure that “El Carro Fantastico!” aka Knight Rider’s KITT will be represented at the future charity events that the Star Car Central members  attend!

Mark T. due to a busy schedule is making slow progress on the Black Beauty, finding parts, and people who can advance the project while juggling all of his other hobbies, ideas, jobs is always tricky.  Not sure when we will see Mark with us with a car, but when we have an event near by, he’s always happy to show up and share some progress photos!  PAINT IT! DRIVE IT!  (I say that to all the star car owners who aren’t done….)

We don’t have quite this many General Lee’s but I can’t figure out why with about 6 cars in Los Angeles, we can’t get ONE to show up now and then!

Get some A/C in those things, or tough it out, I drive with no A/C, no ROOF, no VENTS, and Brian in Horace may have a roof, but he has been taking SURFACE STREETS

due to visability problems to get to events! I am calling you out, DUKE BOYS! 

Oh yeah, and so you don’t think I am not talking to myself as well, my project will be getting some attention this summer, with trips to the secret location in the coming months! 

Lots of boring grinding, welding, and dirty work has to be done, before I can get to anything fun, but I finished my welding class, so look out! Slow progress ahead!

(Anyone have any metal they want to donate? Firewall? Structural? I am NOT kidding?!   Anyone know how to do Air lifts? 

The Addition of a KITT to “nate Truman’s star Car central.com ” home collection (again, that key word thing for my son) slowed my progress on the dash for the “monster in the back yard” as my Mother calls it, but now that KITT is close to being road worthy, my focus will return to my long term project!

One last new find, is a great TV car, that wasn’t on TV!  Thanks to famous Dicast.com and Jason,  we Connected with the owner of the Charlie’s Angels one of a Kind van, that is here in Los Angeles!   

http://www.charliesangelsfan.com/CAvan.htm

Check out the whole story here!

Next UP:

More event updates, and lost star cars around the country…

Nate Truman and the Star Car Central gang paparazzi sightings around LA!

Well “Nate Truman and his Star Car Central.com Gang” (I was told by my son to add nore tags and key words to my posts!) have been out and about the last few weeks, supporting the police, Pediatric Cancer Survivors and their families with the City of Hope, and having BBQ’s with Mustang owners in Simi Valley, but best of all, FINDING MORE STAR CARS!!! 

The group in the first photo above is from the LAPD Granada Hills car show on May 30th.  In Attendance were from left to right:

Mark G. and his Adam-12 Cruiser,  Jason and his Herbie the Love Bug, Pauls Back to the Future Delorian, Lou’s Starsky and Hutch Torino, Sue’s Get Smart Tiger/Sunbeam and on the end there, in red and black is a “new to us” star car!  The movie “Vanishing Point” that featured a white Challenger was remade in the 1990’s and the red car was one of two Challengers used in the movie.  Mike fit right in to the StarCarCentral gang, and was with us a few weeks later in Simi.  More posts about the details on Mike’s car as I work through a big update on the star car central.com website over the summer!

Look for details on Mikes car in the posts ahead....

One of two cars from the remake of vanishing point!

Herbie is always a fan favorite, below a few younger fans have a heart to heart with the Love bug!

talking with Herbie the Love bug!

Paul is almost always on time to events, but he has the advantage of the flux capacitor!

MARTY! I'm here to take you back to the Future!

Sue K. was there with her Get Smart Sunbeam, now with not only a hood mounted machine gun, but new closed circuit TV!

Get Smart Tiger Sunbeam with Don Adams

"Would you believe, a closed circuit TV?"

"One adam 12, see the man...."

Mark polished up his Adam-12 car, and lots of helicopters were there as well, that he spends his days fixing to keep the “bears in the air”!

Lou and Linda, not Starsky and Hutch...

Hey, you can see his car up above, but as Jason took photos of PEOPLE at our event, for a change of pace, I thought I would post faces instead of cars!

Driver's of Famous Star Cars support the Police!

This was the only shot Jason (Herbie) got in, so here are the representatives of “Nate Truman and the Star Car Central.com Famous Movie and TV cars”

Where’s Nate? well, I was working at the annual Friends of  Angles (.com) annual yard sale that raises funds for the summer camp, so the batmobile stayed in the cave but they seemed to have just a fine time without me! 

Besides, in less than a week, the SCC was back out on the town, with Darth Vader, Mickey Mouse, and the Pediatric Cancer picnic for the City of Hope Superhero event, and a big BBQ and another star car gathering!  Stay tuned, star car fan….