Sunday, August 29, 2010

CARROLL SHELBY COBRA GT 350/500 | KING OF THE ROAD





CARROLL SHELBY DESIGNED HIS COBRA GT TO GO LIKE IT LOOKS.



CARROLL SHELBY HAS GONE AND DONE IT! CONVERTIBLE TYPES, REJOICE.



CARROLL SHELBY HAS PULLED THE TRICK OF THE YEAR. HE'S COMBINED FORD'S NEW DRAG CHAMPION 428 COBRA JET WITH HIS COMPLETE ROADCAR, THE COBRA GT 500.



Saturday, July 17, 2010

ROCK THE VOTE | SUPPORT TSY IN THE DETAILS MAG FASHION BLOG AWARDS


BE HEARD AND CAST YOUR VOTE IN SUPPORT OF TSY, CLICK HERE!


TSY is honored to be nominated, and is up against some very stiff competition. If you love what we do here, and would like to support us by voting-- we'd really appreciate it, friends!



Martha's Vineyard locals cast their vote for TSY in an epic show of support. --LIFE archives



Ike casts his vote for TSY in Gettsyburg. --LIFE archives.



Avid Detroit supporters lining up outside the fire station to vote for The Selvedge Yard --LIFE archives


CLICK HERE TO VOTE!


Sunday, February 7, 2010

STEVE McQUEEN GOES FOR BROKE IN THE ROUGH LIFE, 1963 | "IF YOU CAN'T CUT IT, YOU GOTTA BACK OUT."




Wincing, Steve McQueen gets his blistered hands treated in Pearblossom, Calif. Steve says of his dangerous sport, "If you can't cut it, you gotta back out."



Rounding a bend in a cross-country motorcycle race, Steve McQueen (right) a long-time racer, keeps up a torrid pace. He was one of 300 entrants. The race took 2 days, went across the Mojave Desert.



The race over, Steve McQueen wearily puts on his jacket after a brief cooling-off. He led the amateur class until his motorcycle broke down three miles from the finish.



Looking like a helmeted James Cagney, Steve McQueen talks with his buddies during a respite. A crack auto racer, he even raced with Stirling Moss-- but he gave up the sport to please his wife.



On a camping trip in the Sierra Madre, Steve McQueen is rudely awakened by his dog Mike, a Malamute. He often takes his whole family along on camping trips, but this time went with old buddies. "This is it, man" says Steve. "I'd rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth."



In their Palm Springs bungalow, Steve McQueen and his wife Neile chat affectionately.


"Man, if I hadn't made my own scene," says Steve McQueen, "I could have wound up a hood instead of an actor." He talks the lingo of the rough world that spawned him-- a world of hipsters, race car drivers, beach boys, drifters, and carnival barkers. Steve has been al of these. He has also tended bar, sold encyclopedias, made sandals, and even been a runner in a Port Arthur, TX brothel-- going from one job to the next, trying to run from his dreary, dreadful past.

Steve has been running that way ever since he was a kid. His father began it by running out on the family while Steve was still a baby. Mrs. McQueen farmed Steve out to an Uncle in Missouri. At 12 Steve fled to New York. He later lived with his mother and new stepfather in California, but that was no improvement. He spent so much time on the streets, and so little time in school, that his mother sent him away for rehabilitation. He promptly ran away and wound up in jail. Even in the Marines, Steve McQueen wouldn't stay put-- he spent 41 days in the brig for going AWOL.


At Big Sur, Steve McQueen and Neile take a sulphur bath together, a bottle of wine propped nearby.


He was in New York in 1951, working as a bartender, when a friend took him along with her to an acting school. Willing to try anything, he auditioned there, and to his astonishment was accepted.

"I took up acting," he explains, "because it let e burn off energy. Besides, I wanted to beat the 40-hour-a-week rap. But, Man, I didn't escape. Now I'm working 72 hours a week, so there you go."


While waiting in the kitchen for Neile to serve up a snack, Steve gives her a fond tweak.


Steve McQueen works at acting with the same urgency that he races motorcycles. "I'm the greatest scammer in the business," says Steve. "But acting's a hard scene for me. Every script I get is an enemy I have to conquer."

But he shuns the duties that go with being a movie star. He seldom attends parties or nightclubs, and sulks at movie premieres. "When I get in a room with five strangers, that's my nut," he says, "I feel like I can't breathe, O.K.?"


Steve McQueen cozies up with his wife Neile, who is of English, German, Spanish and Chinese descent. They met when she was on Broadway in Pajama Game. Says he, "My old lady is the heart of my home."


When he is with his wife and children, Steve McQueen quickly gets his breath back. Though married seven years, the McQueens are still as lovey-dovey as newlyweds. "When I come home nights," says Steve, "I dig my old lady, not the maid, serving me dinner."

Others he digs are hard-luck characters who, like him, drew a raw deal, and he tries to help them. "When you take a little out," Steve explains, "you gotta put a little back in." He and Dr. Herman Salk, a Palm Springs veterinarian who is Jonas Salk's brother, raise money to buy vaccines and antibiotics for Navajo Indians. Periodically they drive to the reservation to deliver the drugs. "I really dig those Navajos," says Steve. "They have a saying they live by: A land where there is time enough and room enough. I want that too."


Steve McQueen, who delights in giving his son the love he lacked while growing up, romps with Chad, 2.


Last week Steve McQueen bought a three-acre, quarter-million-dollar mansion overlooking the Pacific. "It's got trees for the kids to swing on," he says, voice all aquiver, "and the biggest, strongest front gate you ever saw. Man, I don't wanna be bugged by anyone, O.K.?"

But once there, Steve is likely to want out. It is too near Hollywood. "You won't find me hanging by my toes in a manhole," he promises. "Man, after I've gotten my sugar out of this business, I'm gonna take off-- and run like a thief."

-Peter Bunzel, photos by John Dominis, 1963.



In a rented tuxedo (he does not own one), Steve McQueen gives a goodnight kiss to Terry, 4, before making one of his rare appearances at at Hollywood opening. "My family is very, very tight." says McQueen. "But the world is full of phonies, so you gotta build a wall to keep them out."



Friday, January 1, 2010

STEVE McQUEEN DOIN' IT IN THE DIRT AND DUNES | THE TRIUMPH DESERT RACE BIKE CUSTOM MODIFIED BY BUD EKINS.



Nostalgia on Wheels posted these incredible pictures of Steve McQueen and his Bud Ekins' desert-modified Triumph Bonneville racer from the June 1964 edition of Cycle World Magazine. Original photos by Cal West.



Actor Steve McQueen and his Triumph desert bike in their native habitat.




Many modifications make a desert bike. Crossovers, skid plate, giant filters, etc.




Paper-pack air cleaners are connected to carbs by special a collector box. A Cushy saddle and high pipes are essential in the desert.



IN McQUEEN'S SERVICE

Winning desert races is what this machine was set up for. It is the mount of actor Steve McQueen, who recently won the novice class in a one-hour desert scrambles. The victory only proved what a close look at his Triumph Bonneville suggests: McQueen takes his motorcycling seriously.

It takes some modifications to wing the rough, dusty hare 'n hounds, scrambles and enduros that are popular in the southwestern desert. McQueen's machine was prepared in Bud Ekins' Sherman Oaks, California shop. They started by replacing the stock wheel with a 1956 Triumph hub and 19" wheel to reduce unsprung weight. The forks were fitted with sidecar springs and the rake increased slightly by altering the frame at the steering crown. The rear frame hoop was bent upward to accommodate a 4.00 x 18 Dunlop sports knobby, and to it were welded brackets for the Bates cross-country seat. The bars are by Flanders, with leather hand guards, and the throttle cables run over the tank, through alloy brackets to the twin 1 1/8" Amal carburetors.

A Harlan skidplate protects the underside of the motor, the footpegs were braced, and the rear brake rod was increased to 5/16" diameter and rerouted inside the frame and shock (where sagebrush can't damege it). The oil tank was modified to increase its capacity and bring the filler out the side fom under the seat. It also serves as part of the mudguard, saving weight.

The engine is basically a stock Bonneville but the compression was lowered from 12 : 1 to 8 1/2 : 1 for reliability, and the sagebrush-snagging oil pressure indicator was converted t a pop-off relief valve with a return line back to the oil tank. McQueen runs Jomo TT cams and Lode RL47 Platinum tip plugs.

The important job of filtering all that dirt out of the desert air is handled by paper-pack air cleaners connected by a special collector box to the carbs. This box is finished in black wrinkle-finish paint while the tanks are dark green. The cross-over pipes are Ekins' own design, and are left unplated for better heat dissipation. Perhaps if McQueen were riding this motorcycle in the movie, he would have made his "Great Escape."

--Cycle World Magazine, June 1964