Jim’s News

Car guys are interesting folks. Some only like one kind of vehicle while others like anything with wheels. In this category, we have to include…

Being that it’s a new year and we are all revved up and full of spit and vinegar lets jump into what been happening in-between…

As I sit here pushing buttons on the keyboard I keep asking myself where did the year go. It’s not like someone came in and…

It seems like every weekend this past year had us booked doing something cool. And that’s not counting the umpteen thousands of new goodies that…

Here we go again. You may have noticed a little problem with the site last week, well, we’re still trying to figure out what happened…

The hardest part of doing what we do at the Foundation is the loss of a friend. We got word early in the week that…

Normally weekends are the whackiest times for the AHRF as we’re out and about shooting the ol “in twenty years it might be famous” doings….

After recouping from a busy last weekend it was time to get serious about picking some shots from the way-to-many taken and then adding some…

To start the week off we dug out some more of the fantastic Bill Phy shots from the collection and ran them through our clean…

We ran into the folks from Hemming’s Motor News at the Race of Gentlemen a couple of weeks ago. The did a splash in their…

Every time we turn around there is another weekend event that says hey dude, you gotta go. This weekend was the California Hot Rod Reunion…

After getting some rest from last weekend’s adventures in New Jersey it was back to work trying to get some of the stuff in the…

We spent the last four days over in Wildwoods, New Jersey for the Race of Gentlemen getting a dose of real hot-rod-ism. It was like…

The first three days of this last week we were busy gathering up a bunch of shots and posting them in the Photo of The…

We took a little break from scanning the first part of the week and dug into the archives. We’ve got lots of old shots just…

Most of the stuff we do around here is pretty straight forward. Take an image, give it a key number, clean it if necessary, scan…

It was another hectic week for us at the AHRF but we made up for some of that by goofing off a little at El…

We started out this week with more bad news. Longtime friend and AHRF Pioneer Dick Gulstrand passed away. Growing up in Culver City was like…

Early in the week, I was talking to friend, and AHRF contributor, Kay Kimes. We were trying to figure out who a person in a…

We’re pretty bummed out around here as we learned Friday that our good friend Otto Ryssman had just passed away. Otto was one of the…

Ron Hope shows up everywhere with one of his cars. At the August 8th SCTA Mile at the Mojave Spaceport, he was there with more…

Tracking the lives of race cars is sometimes easy and sometimes a real bear depending on how famous the car was or who drove it….

It’s only fitting that we start this week with a souvenir that was done for Speedweek that now languishes in the S.C.T.A. sales trailer. It’s…

It’s been a whacky last couple of weeks. In between scans we’ve been helping out our “old” friend (he’s 86 years old) Joe Henning move….

This Saturday we took a little ride out to Fontana for a visit to the little drag strip tucked behind the big raceway that’s best…

It’s that time again for another weekend spent at El Mirage for the second race of the 2015 S.C.T.A. Season. In the June 22 issue,…

One of the challenges we face all the time is putting together pieces of the hot rod puzzle. It real life when you get a…

A few months back we got a big shot in the arm with hundreds of great old pictures from our pal Joe Henning. I paid…

It was a pretty productive week at the AHRF as we finished off scanning all of the John Haigler Collection that consisted of 182 images….

It’s Father’s Day Weekend and that means Roadster Time at the L.A. County Fairground and trips to a few builders shops and their open houses….

This week we’ve been running around like a chicken with our head cut off and have somehow managed to put ten pounds of ? in…

On Friday, we all flew into Denver, Colorado. Some of us had to dodge some nasty weather by taking the scenic route to avoid golf-ball…

As you may have noticed the AHRF website has had more than its share of problems. If it were a car we could have gone…

Since we’re about to leave one year and enter the next I thought it might be cool to show you a little old and new…

The weather’s been yucky around here and my nose has been running a 440-yard dash of late so that’s a good excuse to crank up…

We always think of the roots of hot rodding in Southern California as emanating from the dry lakes. The more you dig into that premise…

Around here we’re suckers for anything that has to do with cool cars. In our travels this week we ran across a couple of goodies…

If you live in a big city you’re usually blessed or cursed with a yearly Auto Show where you can go and check out the…

Once a month we grab a bunch of different shots from our archives and prep them for the Photo of the Day section on the…

A few months back we received a bunch of shots taken at Speedweek in  53. The shooter was John Peschek from Tacoma. Early this week…

The problem with us “keep everything” types is you forget what you’ve got. Earlier this year I dug out a box full of old negs…

You would think that after doing all the pictures and stories every week for the last few years it would get a little easier. In…

The last couple of weeks we’ve been looking at show cars, or as the cool folks say Kustom Rods. We can trace them back to…

There is that old adage that time flies when you’re having fun. I guess that’s true around here as every time one turns around it’s…

It takes a little time to recoup after three days of race cars making loud noises, especially at Bakersfield. Add to that having problems getting…

No there is nothing wrong with our equipment, we’re just going to put this week’s happenings a bit out of order because we can. It’s…

Every time we turn around new info show up that helps us shed some light on past hot rod history. Other times it’s right in…

Some cars are built using nothing but imagination and maybe a few chalk lines drawn on the floor. Others are designed down to the last…

We had a good time last weekend at New England Dragway during Hot Rod Reunion II. The car count was up, so the folks at…

As I mentioned last week it was off to Epping New Hampshire and New England Dragway for the second installment of the New England Hot…

This week we finished off all our newly sent photographs. It feels great but acts as a reminder that we have a bunch of donated…

We don’t pay much attention to clocks around here because if we did nothing would get done. Once you sit down in front of the…

We’ve just finished off four rolls of 35 mm color negatives and a bunch of 2 1/4” x 3 1/4” black and white negs ranging…

This year is the first time I’ve gone to Bonneville as a spectator since 1995. All the years in between then and now have been…

While you’re checking out this week’s story I’ll be getting sunburned and checking out all the neato-keano rides at Bonneville. This will also be the…

Doing research is really boring. It consists of countless hours searching out little bits of information that you don’t even know exists. Even worse is…

Before taking off for Bonneville next week one has to do a little double time trying to lower the piles of goodies on the desk…

A few weeks back we received a call from Scott Phy out of the blue. If we turn back the clock to 1950 we’ll find…

Ever since I could remember we’ve always celebrated this special day by honoring our flag, having a parade and celebrating with fireworks. Along with this…

This week we’ve been busy playing with some old color negs shot at the Grand National Roadster Show back in 1968 courtesy of Doug Rasmussen…

This week went really fast especially after posting the AHRF story one day late. By mid-week, the S.C.T.A. had posted last weekend’s race results so…

We’ve been playing catchup for the last couple of weeks. Being out of the office for five days really sets one back a bit in…

Let’s start with last weekend and the trip to Johnny Carson Park for the Road Kings Car Show. We showed you some snaps we took…

For the last couple of weeks, we have been scanning some negs and prints that were taken at the 1966 Grand National Roadster Show. We…

Last year we got to go back to Epping, New Hampshire for the First New England Hot Rod Reunion. We had so much fun that…

We often ask ourselves the above question. In the last seventy years, there have been thousands of rods, customs, and race cars built and they…

Every few months we take all the images we’ve managed to save on our hard drive and download them onto some “Dell Cartridges” and ship…

Last week we had a little fun with noses, or as the really late and great W. C. Field’s use to say Proboscises. From Indy…

In the past and the last installments of the news, we’ve mentioned about roadster’s as race cars and how the roots of hot rod style…

We like to think that hot rods are really race cars in disguise. Since it’s not too practical to drive a racer on the streets…

In our March 31 story, we showed you a picture of Art McCormic’s light-colored street roadster. For the record, I goofed because I spelled McCormic’s…

At the end of last week, we received a bunch of photos from Gary Hartsock that were taken at the Grand National Roadster Show and…

This week we finished off another box of 8” x 10” prints from the ‘30’s that gave us a little room on our desk. As…

When we get print collections we do a pre-sort before scanning and group them according to the good old stamped number on the back courtesy…

It seems we are always running across stuff that nobody seems to know anything about. That’s a good thing unless you have to do some…

This week we finished off scanning and retouching all of Texanite Sonny Rossi’s shots and are now working with him to get more details on…

As we know our friends at the Post Office are on hard times spending way more money than they take in (Does this sound like…

While doing research the last couple of weeks on the First NHRA National Drags held in ‘55 and the Edna, Kansas drag race in ‘54…

It’s been retouch and caption week around here. That also means pulling one’s hair out on trying to find documentation to help get things right,…

Last week we received some old negatives from Geoffrey Skene out of Wyoming. We didn’t get a chance to touch them with all our running…

This last week we finished scanning all of Josh Mishler’s 95 drag race shots that he has lent us. On Tuesday night it was take…

As you can guess we got a lot of shots at the Grand National Roadster Show last weekend. Well guess what you have to do…

The last few months have kept us super occupied with what seems like a never-ending parade of new shots. This is both good and bad….

We delight ourselves in finding oddball stuff for you so here’s another one of those piece’s that leave us scratching our head for answers. It…

Last week we showed you a picture of Bill Cramer’s hopped-up M.G at an unknown event that we guessed might be Paramount Ranch. A little…

It looks like we’ve survived another Christmas. One tends to overeat and maybe have one too many beverages but we’re not complaining. For me, Christmas…

It’s almost impossible to get anywhere these last few days with all the folks clogging the roads on their way to getting goodies to put…

When your facing thousands of scans just waiting to be done the best thing to do is go for a ride and get even more…

This week we’re going to take a look at some images that we’ve collected that are not your normal we’ve seen them before stuff. Some…

No, we’re not talking about the big city on France but a little one in California. Every Thanksgiving night except during the first half of…