PIMEN MAGAZINE: July 2010

Body Painting Japan

Weekend Quickies - Saturday, July 31, 2010

1958 Mercedes-Benz L 319 - Just a Flatbed Geek? Yeah, I am, kind of. I've always thought it would be cool to own my own flatbed. Not just any old flatbed, but something cool. Something funky.

It doesn't get much cooler or funkier than this.

The ad includes a lot of pictures and a few paragraphs about the truck's history.

Located in Mexico City, Mexico, click here to see the eBay listing.

A big thanks to JaCG reader, Paul, for the link to this Mercedes.

1987 Audi 5000CS - There are so few of these cars left in the US. The whole unintended acceleration thing meant that for awhile the resale value of Audis was very low. (Even for 5 speed manual cars like this one). Many older Audis wound up in the hands of people who, frankly, shouldn't own a car like an Audi. They wound up being abused or neglected to death.

This car is a well taken care of survivor. It could use a little work to make it perfect, or you could drive it as is.

Located in Pheonix, AZ, click here to see the eBay listing.

1987 Alfa Romeo Milano - It doesn't take much to get me to write about a Milano. As I've written so many times in the past, my Milano was one of my favorite, if not my absolute favorite, car. Looking at this car brings back a ton of memories.

This car is listed as a 1987, but has a later grill. That's a pretty common swap, but I prefer the original earlier grill.

This car appears to be clean both inside and out. If you're looking for a true old-school sports sedan, a Milano is tough to beat.

Located in Tyngsboro, MA, click here to see the Craigslist ad. Thanks to Jon for sending me the link to this car.

Below is a picture of my Milano. I took this picture in 1989, about a year and a half after I bought it. It's easy to see why the car for sale brought back so many memories...

July Last Thursday Artwalk on Alberta Street + new corset

So its Friday morning and i am having a hard time keeping my eyes open and my legs and arms feel as if they were made of lead but emotionally i feel elevated and inspired- these are the true sings of a art walk that went well!

Yesterday was Last Thursday Art walk on Alberta St ( a free art vending opportunity that occurs monthly in Portland Oregon.)
Unfortunately this was the first one of these i was able to attend so far this year because previous months it was either raining or i was out of town. So, i decided i was going to go this month and go enforce, thus i took the day off from work so that we could arrive
super early ( around 12:00pm) to stake out a good spot.

This is a photo Danny took after i had finished getting ready by painting my face for the art walk.
It was a super bright day so we were very lucky to have grabbed a spot with ample shade and trees. Still...the brightness made it hard to snap photos of our booth setup during the day but Danny managed to grab some of my body painting exploits:

Painting faces during Artwalk on Alberta

I painted several lil girls faces + a few young adult faces...but when i asked one person if i could paint their face they turned around and asked " can i paint you!?"
Of course i said yes! they painted a small vine starting from my numb up a lil past my hand that ended in a heart. It was a silly/fun/unexpected treasure.
As the day crept into night danny was able to get a shot of our booth setup:

This photo was taken at a strange angle because what you dont see is the massive wall of moving people walking down the street in front of the booth. The turnout for this was just insane. After 8:00pm it was almost impossible to step out of the booth because the "river of flesh" was roaring!
We were setup facing the street with two tables on parallel sides .
One table with my my art:

the other table with Danny's art:

We used to always set up our artwork together but found that customers got confused as to "who's artwork was who's" which seemed to bother them a bit. Thus, we have found that now this separation seems to streamline customers experience making it less "modge podged" and more effective.
We did also have Danny's stencil records and a few silkscreen shirts on display laying on a sheet on the sidewalk:

We had a lot of folks stop and hover over the records- seems a particular point of interest to many.
We did well in sales this time which is always encouraging. We sold two of my pen and ink on Masonite board illustrations, a few art prints, a couple tie dye, and several face/body paintings.
Also managed to luck out and have a bunch of familiar faces pop up out of the blue so there was lots of hugs and catching ups to do. Met a few new friends as well.
And, as allways...its left me really looking forward to the next art walk on Alberta!
If you are interested in seeing some wonderful documentive photos of the this months artwalk check out the amazing Anni Becker's photographs here- bosting photos of all the crazy splendors of the day such as fire dancers, roaming musicans, dance pits, free hugs, crazy costumes, cute puppies, cops, artwork and artists , jugglers and much much more!!!

In other news, my new corsets arrived in the mail this week!
They were made by Danny's talented lil sis seamstress extraordinaire:

I am in love with it! I had picked out the fabric and sent it over awhile ago so i was delighted to have it in time to wear to the art walk last night.

Tomorrow i am going to the FaerieWorlds summer celebration festival to check it out for the first time. I am mainly going to enjoy myself but partly going to scope out the art vendors to see if perhaps i should hold a booth of my own at the fair for next year. we shall see! Also very excited that i get to do some body painting while i am there: will be painting the Didgeridoo Man in the band Telesma for their musicale prefromance at the festival! Pictures from this outing will most probably be posted via blog update on Monday.

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend filled with joy, relaxation and creation.

Peace n Love,
-Chelsea Rose

July Last Thursday Artwalk on Alberta Street + new corset

the other table with Danny's art:

1980 Rover SD1 (3500)

I think that of all the "odd" car I've owned, the one that got the most attention (as in, "What the hell is that?) was my Rover SD1.

Had I lived in Europe when I owned that car, the reaction would have been "So what? It's another Rover". Here in the US, where it was known as the 3500, the SD1 was sold for only one year, 1980. Only 800 were sent here and it took Rover well into 1982 to find homes for all of them. To say it was a failure would be putting it mildly.

It didn't have to be a failure. On paper it was a brilliant car. But quality control at BL's factories in the 1980s was awful and the cars that rolled off the assembly lines were poorly screwed together and broke down often.

The 3500 came with Rover's ubiquitous aluminum V8. This engine is one of the great engines of all time. It has powered everything from Land Rovers, Triumphs, Rovers, Morgans, TVRs, MGs and a whole bunch of kit cars. Lightweight and fairly powerful, it was the perfect engine for the SD1. (In the UK the SD1 was also available with 4 and 6 cylinder engines.)

The interior was extremely comfortable, very roomy and relatively luxurious. It was also "modern" by British large car standards. There was not a piece of wood veneer to be found. The design of the dashboard was made symmetrical in order to allow for the assembly of both left and right hand drive cars. It had two gloveboxes. On a LHD car like this, there is a vent where the steering wheel would be if the car was RHD.

In every place other than North America, these were great looking cars. In North America they had the mandatory big US bumpers and awful looking sealed beam headlights. More than anything, the loss of the flush headlights (also mandated by US law at the time) ruined the look of the front end of the car. If you buy one pay whatever you have to pay for a set of European lights. It makes a world of difference.

This is a very nice SD1. The seller says that the engine and transmission have been rebuilt. He states that there is a "small amount of rust showing in front of rear arches on rocker panel area". That's not too bad, as SD1s are rust prone. Have it repaired right away and then Waxoyl every place imaginable and you should have no further rust problems. The interior looks great.

My SD1 was a reliable car. It never failed to start, it never left me stranded. It was fun to drive (mine was a 5 speed) and, as I mentioned, attracted attention everywhere I drove it. (As I mentioned in a very early post, it was too unique for my girlfriend at the time, who hated going anywhere in it. "It's too weird. People stare at us", she'd say.) I traded mine for an MGB, a move that I now regret. The MGB was a good, fun car, but compared to the Rover they're a dime-a-dozen. I should have kept the Rover and bought an MG. Oh well.

This car is located in Chemainus, Canada. Click here to see the eBay listing.

The Rover SD1 Club has a great website (which is where I stole the drawing of the dashboard from) that includes a very detailed article about the history of the SD1. You can find it here.

If you ever need any luck

And so I am writing this onboard the Victoria I, a ferry that will transport me to Sweden via the Baltic Sea. I am writing this facing a beautiful sunset that never seems to end, I have been keeping an eye on it since 8pm and it is now 11:15pm (Estonian time), and I am still tirelessly amazed by the sun's reluctance to set in this part of the world, at this time of the year.

I am mildly melancholic, it is the first time in several days that I have had no company but myself, and the sudden change is rather jarring. Nothing to do on this ship, except to witness drunk Finnish guys sing karaoke, or so I've heard, which is uninspiring even at the current state of boredom that I am in. I can also do some minor edits on my final confirmation report but I can't be arsed either. So as always, there is nothing to do but to alternate some aimless rambling on the blog with checking my email every five minutes.

I'd put on my earphones but it is very pleasant to hear the waves crashing against the ship. Intermittently I have the only Estonian song that I know by heart playing in my head, and Silver would be proud to know that I am singing it very smoothly with no pauses or weird facial expressions. It is sad that my Estonian vocabulary, once fast-expanding, will start to disintegrate and shrink.

Half an hour later.

As if to prove that my life could get even more boring than what it was, a drunk Danish biker passed by and asked if he could use my netbook to check the weather. He did so, and then logged into Facebook. Do you know how long it takes for a drunk guy to log into Facebook, go through the word verification process, photo verification process, and type one letter at a time a drunken status message? That's right. Half an hour. And then he and his friend kept "yaorama" with me (Estonian word that I learnt - basically means drunken conversation), asked if I had a boyfriend (damn handy my imaginary boyfriend), and gave me permission to blog about them, under the condition that I mention that they rode vintage bikes.

And before he left he said: "If you ever need any luck, go to cabin 5402. There you will get many luck."

WTF. I think I will go to bed now. The sun has almost set completely anyway.

1975 Peugeot 504 Coupe - Hmmm...

I wrote about this car back in July, 2009. After I posted it a JaCG reader left a comment with some further information and links.

"This car was imported from Germany (not Denmark) in March/April 2003 by Classic Euro Cars (based in Florida) and sold to a buyer in Seattle who took great care of it."

Below is a picture of it in Europe...

He went on to write:

"Unfortunately, this buyer had issues garaging the car and driving was always a concern to him (scared of breaking glass a or window or being run into)."

Below is a picture of the car in Seattle with its owner (Sorry about the blocked out face. I don't know the source of this picture so I couldn't get permission to show a picture of the car's owner.)

He then wrote:

"One day he got a call from 2 guys of Brooklyn who were interesting of buying the car, which they did some time in 2004 or 2005. Looks like they're now selling it..."

That was the story in 2009.

The story in 2010 is this...

It's back on eBay. Bring A Trailer also featured this car then and now and they point out that it now has "different wheels, a different steering wheel, and an intact vintage stereo." (Back when I originally posted it I only included one picture with each post, so all I could tell was that the wheels were changed...)

It gets a even stranger. The car is listed as still being in Brooklyn, NY, but later in the eBay listing the seller writes, "Car is located at the Jersey shore about 50 miles from NYC". Did someone buy this, sell off a few parts and is now selling the rest of the car? He then goes on to write, "This rare collectable auto is offered at auction at no reserve and starting amount of $5000.00 which is one third of my purchase price, importation and repairs with maintanence..." Hmmm... First of all there is a bid on the car, but the listing says "reserve not met". So much for the no reserve price. Also, according to the JaCG reader mentioned above, this owner (the second or maybe the third here in the US) didn't import the car. He (or the previous owner) bought it from the man in Seattle.

Who knows? As I've always said, the goal of this blog is not to sell cars, but to be a little cyber car show. A Peugeot 504 Coupe belongs in any car show anywhere. It's a beautiful car and extremely rare in the US. However, if you're thinking of buying it, just remember the words "caveat emptor"...

You can find my 2009 post about the car here.

Located in either Brooklyn, NY, or the Jersey shore, click here to see the eBay listing.

Thanks to Jon and JaCG reader, Blair, both of whom sent me e-mails with the link to this car.

1987 Jaguar XJS V12 Hess & Eisenhardt Convertible

Wow. I was prowling around the internet tonight looking for a car or two to write about when I found this Craigslist ad. Cool. A Hess & Eisenhardt Jaguar XJS. A very interesting car.

I opened the ad and much to my amazement, the seller is referring people to a post I wrote awhile back about a different H&E Jag. Cool (again).

This appears to be a very nice Hess & Eisenhardt Jaguar. The seller says it needs a bit of TLC to be a show car, but would be great as a daily driver. The seller writes, "This car is on its way to becoming extremely collectible as the XJS's are coming into their age". Often when you see lines like that they're pure BS sales pitches, but in this case I agree with the seller. XJSs have always lived in the shadow (the very big shadow) of the car it replaced in the Jaguar line-up, the E-Type. People are just now starting to realize what these cars are. They're not an E-Type sports car, but a very, very nice luxury grand tourer. A very, very nice luxury grand tourer with a V12 engine.

Yes, older V12 Jags can be finicky, but with a little patience and maintenance, you're rewarded with a car that combines (as the old Jaguar slogan said) grace, space and pace like few other cars from the 1970s and 1980s did.

You can find my original Hess & Eisenhardt post here.

Located in Bloomer, WI, click here to see the Craigslist ad for this car.

1966 Citroen Chapron DS 21 - A Chance To Grab A Rare Car at a Bargain Price?

This is a strange eBay listing. The Citroen Chapron is a rare car. It's sought after by Citroen fans. Yet this eBay listing has just 3 pictures, very little text and no reserve price on the car. Also the listing title says "1966 Citroen DS 21", with no mention of Chapron or it being a convertible. Odd.

Around 1300 of these cars were built between 1961 and 1971. It featured everything that was good (the engineering, the suspension), bad (rust problems) and weird (everything else) about the DS 21, but with a convertible top.

From the seller's short paragraph, it sounds like this car is in excellent condition. It has a new top (which, according to Citroen Concours of America, Inc, costs a minimum of $2500.00) and new Michelin (of course) tires all around. The paint is described as "in near perfect condition" and the original interior is described as being in "excellent condition". Everything works on this car, including the original stock AM radio.

I have no idea why someone would put such little effort into an ad for such a rare car, but this may be your chance to grab a Citroen Chapron at a bargain price. According to Citroen Concours of America, Inc, an excellent Chapron can sell for over $100,000.00. This one, with 4 days to go in the bidding, is stuck at just over $12,000.00. It will be interesting to see what happens to this car.

Located in North Fort Myers, FL, click here to see the eBay listing.

A big thanks to Jon for sending me the link to this car!

Igaühe hinges on revolutsioon lase südamel rääkida

I am typing this at Ester's sister Anna's place, on my last day in Estonia. I leave via ferry today at 6pm to Stockholm, and will be reunited with Marten and Val tomorrow in Gothenburg. I can't wait to see them again, but my heart is rather heavy to leave Estonia, where I had such great times, the past week has been really awesome and thought-provoking, full of music and laughter and new ideas and inspiration.

In no particular order my memorable times in Estonia:

Had a traditional sauna yesterday with Silver, Ester, Anna and Martin (Anna's partner). Before, I felt that people have no business in putting themselves into a room that is 100 degrees celsius or even warmer (and then jumping into a water bath of 10 deg), but after yesterday I think I understand. Because it is awesome. I really enjoyed the extreme hot and cold, and it was so good after an entire day of hitchhiking to sweat all the grime and dust away, and then have deep conversations with Anna and Silver till the sun rose (days are very long - the sun rose around 3:30-4am I think).
Silver and I stole some wheat from a field, and with primitive methods separated the chuff from the grains. We had wheat porridge the second day, which wasn't very good, but we were so proud of the grain-processing (95% pure stuff) that we didn't mind. And there is so much the forest can offer you, if you know where to look and what to eat - we picked blueberries and wild strawberries, some fern-like plant (I can't remember what it was called - have to ask Silver later) for tea, and there were also wild mushrooms that we added into our soup. Seriously tasty stuff.
Hitchhiking with Silver - having some crazy people picking us up - our first ride begun with a stocky man telling Silver that he hated picking up hitchhikers, but since he was in a good mood he had to; and the two men who picked us up and I later found out that one of them had actually stabbed his wrist (unintentionally) with a screwdriver and "some yellow stuff popped out" and on the way to the emergency room they picked us up; a really nice couple who were the only ones who spoke in English to me (usually they just speak Estonian to Silver)... I think for the whole week that we were hitchhiking we must have had more than 20 rides, and I've covered so much of Estonia by hitching, to the central to the south and to the west, where I am now. Silver is a really good hitching partner, always super positive, while I am the lesser partner always sleeping in cars and sometimes even snoring =P since I rarely need to talk! But yes, I love hitching with a partner, walking long distances on roads that have virtually no cars, when summer days are long and having the firm belief that people would pick us up, for however long we wait - and also perfecting the act of channeling desperation through one's eyes (it works!)
Learning Estonian. Silver is a really good teacher, and we had so much time to learn that up till now I already know two Estonian songs (one by heart, and one in principle because I know the tune and have the lyrics written down), how to count from one to 999, how to ask the price of mash potatoes (and a variety of other vegetables), to say happy birthday, and of course the obligatory bad word, the textbook conversation of "How are you?" "I am fine, and you?" and a variety of other useful stuff. I don't think I learnt anything useless this time haha!
Viljandi Folk Music Festival. Had so much fun dancing and found some music that I think I can drown happily in, it was really good and really worth the trip. Saw the Estonian president who was casually taking a picture with a band (wtf like that also can - it was so casual that it was hilarious) and there were like 5 Asian people out of maybe 20,000 people who were there, I got so excited when I saw them! And Silver and I went for a boating competition which ended up quite disastrously, we even rented a boat and practised the day before the race, but we didn't expect that one had to row blindfolded while the other had to direct! So Silver rowed and I directed and we ended up going towards an entirely wrong direction while all the people on the pier were pointing and laughing haha. I think we had the worst record, we were rowing with Kerttu and Martin, and they finished with less than half of what we took. But it was really good fun!
Chilling out with Silver and Ester in Tallinn in their apartment, listening to music and eating blueberries with ice-cream and watching a documentary about Estonian history and how the Estonian people fought to get independence, forming a human chain that was so long that it spanned across Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and also by demonstration through singing... it was a very touching movie.
Estonian swings. 'Nuff said.
Harvesting peas in Silver's country home

Damn the words are all jumbled in my head and I am just typing as fast as I can before anyone wakes up, it is 10am now and we have to leave at around 12 noon, I hope it will be easy to hitch to Tallinn where my ferry leaves. It should be fine.

I think my experience in Estonia has taught me so much about life, of how one should live - to stay in Silver's country home and now in Anna's place, where they grow their own stuff and build their own houses and process their own waste, I realized that in being a city kid as I am, I am so detached from all the fundamentals, where everything is as easy as a snap of fingers, and you don't think about where your food comes from, how to make a comfortable and practical home, etc. etc... And while camping, it really makes you realize how precious resources like clean drinking water is, and how little you can actually use, instead of a gushing water tap that comes from places that are so far away that you don't care. And showers are such a luxury!

All in all - I learnt so much, I have only got a glimpse of all the knowledge of living that I don't possess, I really want to stay and learn some more but the current of travelling is pulling me away and I have to go soon... and I am so glad that I hosted Silver and made such a great friend and hence such a wonderful experience in Estonia. Speaking of which I should wake them up somehow so we can have breakfast and leave quite soon to catch my ferry.

1994 Adler R440 - I Have No Idea What This Is, But It Sure Looks Cool...

I give up. I have to meet a friend in a few minutes. I can't keep trying to figure out what this car is. I've spent too much time on it already.

It's obviously some sort of handbuilt or kit car. I've never heard of an Adler R440 before and a search of the internet turns up nothing. Is it a homemade one-off? I have no idea. For now I'll call it a kit car.

This is the Rainbow Coalition of kit cars. There's a little bit of everything in its design. Cobra, Mercedes, Corvette, MGB, Porsche, you name it, it's there. Amazingly, it all pretty much works.

According to the seller, this car was "designed & built by John Rindy of Adler Industries out of Whitehead South Dakota". He goes on to say that Adler Industries " has a reputation of building some of the finest automobiles today and also restoring some very rare cars." We'll have to take his word for that. Other than verifying that such a company does indeed exist, a Google search turns up no info about them. Damn.

This has a 350 V8 in it, fed by 2 Edlebrock 4 barrel carburetors. I'm assuming that like most kit / handbuilt cars, it doesn't weigh much and is very quick. The interior is leather and wood and looks as good or better than the interiors you find in many production cars.

Located in Pampa, TX, click here to see the eBay listing for this car.

1973 Jensen Healey - "Barn Fresh"

This is the third car I've seen recently that is being described as "barn fresh". That's a new term to me. "Barn find", I know. "Barn fresh", I don't.

I've never owned a barn, but I've been in a few and I can't imagine that anything that has sat in one for 12 years (especially a car) can be described as "fresh". But, that's how this car is being described and if the text is true and the pictures are accurate, this Jensen Healey really is pretty "fresh".

Jensen Healeys are typical 1970s British cars. They have quirks. The seller states in his ad that the car hasn't been inspected since 1998, but he will get it inspected "if sold at asking price". That sounds pretty generous, but even with a sticker there are 2 important things that need to be replaced before you drive the car anywhere...

The Jensen-Healey came with the then-new 1973cc Lotus 907 DOHC 16 valve engine. In fact, it was the first car (even before Lotus) to use that engine. This engine was the first to use a rubber timing belt. Unfortunately, it had a propensity for eating them and it is recommended that you change the belt every 18,000 miles (!!). Unless the seller can prove that he recently changed it, don't take any chances. Have the car towed home and change the belt before driving it. Also check the fuel system and replace any cracked lines and connectors. There are other common problems (leaks from around the cam cover being very common), but those are the two issues need to be addressed right away.

Jensen Healeys don't sell for a lot of money and this one, if it's all the seller says it is, is very reasonably priced at $3495.00. Even if you spend another $1500.00 - $2000.00 making it "right" (as opposed to "fresh", I guess), you'll still have a fairly rare (just over 10,000 were built in 4 years, but few survive due to timing belt and rust problems), semi-exotic (the Lotus engine), very fun to drive car for a very reasonable price.

Located in Macungie, PA, click here to see the Craigslist ad.

Get My Volt. How?

So I was listening to Chevy's Volt pricing announcment and noticed Joel Ewanick, General Motors' vice president for North American marketing, was promoting a new website for the Volt using the web address: http://www.getmyvolt.com. So I tried it to see how I could get my Volt. Unfortunately, it just took me, after two redirects, to the Volt landing page on Chevrolet.com site that has been up for months with no calls to action to order a Volt (the image above is where I was landed.) Too bad, I was hoping to see how the effort differed from Nissan's Leaf pre-order website that was very clear in how to order their electric vehicle offering.

As part of the pricing announcement, Chevy hosted a Q&A where Chevrolet Volt marketing director Tony DiSalle and Volt vehicle line director Tony Posawatz shared some answers to questions mainly around availability and the ordering process.

UPDATE: They added a green button sometime yesterday to start the process with a dealer in certain markets where the Volt will launch, but I checked back this morning
and it's gone.

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