Burbank on Parade StarCarCentral.com wins again!

Hey Star Car Fans!

Yes I know I am behind on my blogging! We are having too much fun playing with our toys lately to stop and write about it!  So let’s catch up a bit!  On April 9th, 2011 a BIG group of the ever changing line up of cars at Star Car Central.com showed up to drive in the Burbank Parade!  For the second time in a row, we won our category!  Novelty, Non Commercial!  Not sure if we had any competition, but we won!

We had a few new members, some Burbank locals that rarely come out and a bunch of the “regulars” all lined up once again for a fun parade on a beautiful day!

Our “Banner Girls” lead the way out in front with Sue in Her Get Smart Sunbeam and machine gun!  After a long wait on a beautiful tree lined street we finally got started and the crowd loved seeing all their old “four wheeled friends” from TV and movies from the past!

Here’s a nice shot of Sue with our award banner at the end of the parade!

Paul brought out his “MAD MAX” Interceptor for a rare look at his very rare replicar with right hand drive and meanest looking police car around!

New to our group this year is Stephen and his Jurassic Park Explorer! He is actually more into rock climbing than star cars, but his truck is a crowd pleaser!  We have yet to get Stephen and Ari together, who has a Jurassic park Jeep!

Transformers, assemble!  and then turn off your engines and wait for a bit longer!  John’s BumbleBee Camaro from Transformers is followed by Jason’s “Ratchet” Transformer ambulance from the cartoons! You can also see Tony’s top notch Smokey and the Bandit Trans am and Lou’s Torino from Starsky and Hutch bringing up the rear in the above photo.

Behind Tony is Nate Truman in his new “A-Team” van – this is the last shot of the van before the front push bar and even MORE front lights were added!  “I pity the fool” who doesn’t love Mr. T and his van!

Alex put on his light and sound show with his amazing KITT car from Knight Rider!

Cliff and his son are behind the wheel of their NASCAR inspired Herbie, like in “Herbie, fully loaded”

Oscar’s 308 GTSi Ferrari decked out like in the Magnum P.I. TV show is pretty at any angle!

Charlie brought his Green fastback Mustang like the one Steve McQueen drove in “Bullitt” the dream car of many men in the crowd!

Lou turned on his sirens and police lights and delighted all the “Starsky and Hutch” fans. His “stripped tomato” is a fan favorite!

Paul drove his Back to the Future Delorean with gull wing doors open, and  sounds from the movie blaring! Reba, get that leg back in the car!

Dave and his family tooted out the familiar sounds of “DIXIE” as they displayed their Dukes of Hazzard General Lee Charger!

A few times a year we are always happy to see “the other” batmobile! Tom’s car is sweet and he’s one of the few guys Nate has to chat with about after burners!

You are not seeing double, this is Jason’s “classic” Herbie as the lovable Bug appeared in the early movies! Jason also was running through the cars to get all these photos and did all the paperwork and phone calls so we could all play with our cars down the middle of the street!  Thanks Jason and “Dad” Dave!

Mark with his Adam-12 Cruiser gets extra “good guy” points for coming despite being in terrible pain! His “reward” for his troubles? He started overheating due to the slow speed of the parade! So he switched on his police lights and sirens and tore to the end of the parade to let the car cool down! Thanks for putting yourself through all that!   The crowd loved seeing the car tear down the street and I thought it was the “real” cops behind me – not the “REEL” ones!

I saved Brian’s car for last, as we all were amazed at his latest “upgrade” to his James Bond BMW from Tomorrow Never Dies.  He brought along a pal dressed as Super Spy James Bond, and he pretended to drive the car by remote control, just like in the movie.   No one can accuse Brian of wanting the spotlight, his friend was cool and collected walking down the road while Brian was well, it’s easier to just look at the photo!

Look closely, that seat has HANDS! That’s brian behind his seat disguise driving the car and looking through the headrest!  He truly suffered the heat and uncomfortable ride  to delight the parade goers! Too cool Brian, Aka “Q”!  We never know what gadget he’s going to build next!

True to form, after the parade my “cats” all scrambled off, some went home to get their “meds” others went to “in and out” but most of us made it to dinner to swap stories and catch up on the latest break downs and upgrades to our cars.

Ari couldn’t make it, and a new “mystery” batmobile almost made it in the parade with us but lost his keys to his electrical shut off switch – and by “lost” I mean a fan took the key!  But “G.I. Joe”mobile may be at an event soon!  Thanks to all who came and all the fans who yelled out each theme or show title as they recognized their favorite old car star!

starcarcentral worldwide shows! France, England, Georgia,Florida, Arizona, Illinois, Tenn. and washington in the northwest! SCC-CC big summer show of 2010! plus longest title ever for a starcarcentral.com post by nate truman!

After years of getting emails from people around the country and the world asking to see some starcars, I started asking my internet pals who shared my disease to represent starcarcentral.com in their area. We have lots of chapters around the USA and a few scattered around the world now.

This summer we have many get togethers and here are a few of the highlights.
On May 15th the fans of Smokey and the Bandit took to the road and recreated the famous beer run of the second movie, with an actual Snowman replica truck and lots of Bandits! they just finished up yesterday, and I am sure they had a great time!

Then on the other corner of the country, Dee and the Northwest chapter of Starcarcentral.com are putting on a big all movie and tv car concourse!

I had been contacted by several star car owners in the upper left hand corner of the USA and now thanks to SCC they are all pals now and putting on great starcar events! GO NORTHWEST! or SCC-NW!

SMALL POSTER – BIG SHOW~ THE EVENT OF THE SUMMER FOR STARCARCENTRAL.COM~!!!!!!!
In California, even the main branch of the SCC is slowly growing into three chapters, and the SCC-CC (central California) headed up by BTTF Paul has a big show planned for May 29th in Frazier park California, with over 20 different starcars, and the long awaited debut of Ecto-1!

Stop by and say “HEY” to all the guys
Frazier Park, Ridge Route Run
2nd Annual
Downtown Frazier Park
May 29, 2010, Saturday
10:00am til 3:30pm
Nate Truman AND Paul Nigh will both be available to autograph your SCC memorabilia! 🙂
Batmobile and BTTF Tee shirts will be available for sale at the SCC main tent! Get yours, before they are all gone!

A french TV crew will be shooting a documentary about cars in movies the whole day starting with Nate Truman driving the Batmobile to the event early in the morning.

And speaking of France, Starcar pal Claude is putting on his own starcar event this summer, and if you live in Europe, this is your only chance to see a pile of famous movie and TV cars in one place!
July 17th it starts and if you want to learn more, go to THIS LINK!

Meanwhile out in Arizona, more starcar owners got together for a “cannonball” like no other!

Where else can you see the batmobile recreate the Canonball run scene of painting over the speed limit sign, with CATWOMAN doing the painting? (Can you say “crossgeeking”? trademark nate truman 2003)
thanks for Glen Wacker and willitmakeit.com you can see three hearses drag racing, and lots of other starcar fun all for a great cause.
Check out Glen and his car crashing spactaclars at willitmakeit.com!

If you are missing Duke Fest, (it stopped in 2008, but there are pettitions to get it going again!) you can always stop by Moberlys 1st Fan Fest
Moberly’s 1st Fan Fest, Featuring The Dukes of Hazzard at 24 Raceway on Hwy 24E. Enjoy two days of music, family fun including autograph signing with cast members from The Dukes of Hazzard. Friday 8am-8pm and Saturday 8am-6pm. Tickets are available at the Moberly Area Chamber of Commerce. For more information call 660-651-2826.

There are still a few “static” displays out there of star cars.
http://www.starcarstn.com/ in Tennesee

And a chapter of SCC is headed up by the starcar expert at the VOLO MUSEUM.
On Sat. July 3rd George Barris will be there, and they will pull out all of their starcars for viewing!

My Pal Travis Bell will be there to talk about the “LOST” General Lee, and Barris is promising to unveil the only Super Pursuit Mode KITT to exsist! Is it Jay’s? Jennifers? The french one? Someone go and find out!

And if you are just south of England, check out the JAMES BOND cars!

And as always, the Peterens Auto Museum has a whole room dedicated to movie and TV cars, featuring a drivable Mach 5 and the screen used Green Hornet car, the Black Beauty among others!

Cars are rotated regularly, the batmobile is no longer there, but always some fun stuff!

Well, I will have to wait until Monday to tell you all about the Barris show, but I figured the “coming up” news was more important than the “all ready happened” stuff! Have a great weekend! Seacrest – OUT!

FIREBALL STORY IN A CAR MAGAZINE?

HOW WILL IT END? WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE ROCKET GETS STUCK ON THE ROOF, AND THE INDIAN TAILPIPE?
Well, I actually got contacted to write the story for a magazine, but on the condition that I don’t post it or sell it anywhere else, so SORRY! Stay tuned, if it doesn’t pan out I will just post the rest here. Who’d a thunk it? The 1966 Batmobile will return!
Kinda weird!

Star Car Central

HOUSTON TRACK DAY 4 FIREBALL RUN!

HOUSTON TRACK DAY
Well, like every day of this race, including a few after, I didn’t sleep well, and woke up early. My mind racing, calculating all the different ways I could get the car home, if I couldn’t find the shut off problem, deciding what to do while watching the weather channel and seeing a storm front headed to Oklahoma City, my eyes popped open and I was up. So while Christopher slept, I left him a note and went down to the front desk. I sat through the meeting for the guys headed to the race track (you had to be race certified, roll bars, helmet and insurance to take the cars on the track) watched those that were racing go off to the track.

The front desk lady said there was a firestone place right next door that worked on her car all of the time, and it was walking distance. I called and told them of my problems (rubbing tires in the back from cutting my springs and not installing air shocks), sudden shut off of the engine, etc.) and they said they could fix me up. So down to the garage I went, took off the cover, drove it to the place less than a block away, and cleaned out the car in the humid heat.

THIS WAS AFTER THE RACE, BUT JUST FOR AN IDEA OF THE TRASH THAT WAS IN THE CAR! I HAD DONE SOME WIREING SO THAT’S WHY THE UNDERDASH BOARD IS PARTLY OFF… ADD ONS FOR THE TRIP, NEW CD PLAYER, GPS, COLOR DUAL REARVIEW CAMERAS AND NEW SCREEN, BLUETOOTH SO PHONE CALLS COME THROUGH THE SPEAKERS, OR THE BATPHONE DIRECTLY, THAT’S PRETTY COOL!
(AS LONG AS I DON’T DISCONNECT THE POWER!)

I was dripping sweat every time we got ready to leave, just organizing stuff behind the seats and getting set for the day due to the heat and humidity! So I leave the car with a list of safety items to check. It was running fine, but after that mysterious shut off, I wanted a mechanic to go over it, and check my brakes as they were acting weird, not that I used them much!

Once the car was squared away, I took a walk over to a Walgreen’s and got a LOT of drinks to rehydrate us. 2 kinds of Gatorade, Orange juice, Diet coke, and a few extras, batteries for the camera, Blistex and an ice bucket that was a great idea that helped us keep cool water in the car longer. Before I bought it, we were drinking hot or warm water all day! No time to stop for a cool drink on this rally!
The rest of the day in Huston was great. We drank and drank and drank, to get our kidneys working again. We had missed breakfast so we had the same great burger for an early lunch. We went to the pool and Jacuzzi, worked out in the gym, and went to the mall. Got Chris a haircut, and then had dinner at Chili’s.

A much needed day of rest was great, and Chris and I had a great time, expecting to pick up our car at 7 pm with everything fixed up. What all had to be fixed? Well, the electronic ignition control had over heated, and had never been replaced since I bought the car as a donor, so that was what shut us down the day before. Then I had asked them to flush the brake system, they did and found that two of the brake lines also from 1979 had partially collapsed, and so two of the brakes were not always working. I knew that something was wrong based on how it braked. They also replaced the rear cylinders that were leaking, also 79 original parts that I had never replaced. Then the rear tires were getting cut every time I hit a bump so they installed air shocks in the back, and raised it up, and solved that. Also a problem I was aware of and a solution I had figured I would do, but I put it off when I was just driving to closeby car shows, but with 2500 miles in front of me I figured I should do it now as I had no spare tire! A blowout would be a big time loss and could damage the car, so it was cheaper to put in the rear air shocks. Dig em!

So Chris and I wander over to pick up the car at closing time, and the car is up on the rack. More problems? They had done all the work, but when taking it for a test drive, they couldn’t get it in reverse!

Back on the rack we discovered that the shift cable that a mechanic pal had installed melted due to sitting on the manifold while I tore across a third of the USA. It also needed two front tires as a steering rod had been bent, and worn away the insides of both front tires over the last 1000 high speed miles. They looked brand new from the outside, but the car is so low that unless it was up on a rack, you would never know! So change of plans #1253! We left the car, I told them to replace the front tires (asked for Futuras, but now I am half Firestone, the original tires the #1 wore and 1/2 Futuras!) and fix the bent rod, and find me a shift cable. Now we were in trouble, as the fireballers were taking off at 7 am the next morning, and all of our pre-paid hotels and meals would be going off in the distance with them! We decided to go back to the pool and cool off, and see what happened the next day. Fell asleep watching the weather channel, and a big storm front moving towards Dallas and Oklahoma City! (Sorry, no photos from this day, didn’t think to get a shot of the great guys who worked on my car! I sent them a toy batmobile and n8mobile shirt when I got home!)