Tired of My Car Show Reports Yet? - Billetproof 2007, Antioch, CA 09-15-07

[Brain Toad]

So I promised in my Fun Ford Sunday report that I would cover Billetproof. When I returned from the show, however I didn't really want to because of the sheer amount of the photos I took.

I took over 200 pictures at the show, the most I have ever taken in one. It was mind blowing how many cars were at the show, I think it was somewhere around 980, a new record for the show.

Billetproof is not your average car show, it is, as they say, "The Least Important Car Show". It is not a place for your grandpa's hot rod which he's "restored" with brand new parts that look vintage that he constantly shines and refuses to drive. This show is filled with real hot rods, rat rods (an imitation of the old hot rod style, focusing on making the cars dangerous looking), sleds (50s sedans), choppers and bobbers. The name is a reference to billet, a type of metal used on many "restorations" that isn't vintage and doesn't look cool. Billetproof has many strict rules about that's let in, from their website

• 1964 and earlier TRADITIONAL style rods and customs ONLY!
• No visible billet anything! Especially wheels!
• Traditionally styled choppers and bobbers ONLY! (No modern West Coast Choppers, OCC style fluff bikes)
• No trailered cars (race only vehicles excepted with prior approval)
• No digital gauges (it's not traditional and it's ugly)
• No IFS on fenderless cars (it's not traditional and it's ugly)
• No mag wheels made after the 60's

It truly is an awesome show. Lots of junk heaps, jalopies, and rust buckets. I love it.

Posting all 200 pictures is pretty much out of the question for me. I'll try to cover many different types of cars and my favorites.

You can see all my car pictures on my Flickr account, specially the Billetproof 2007 set.

Let's get started then!


A Blue Studebaker


Love the unpainted cars



Gives new meaning to keeping your eye on the road


The light blue works


A Ford with a Hemi



The "Pimpala" Impala


One of my favorite panels


I know I'm in a minority when I say I like my cars covered in rust. This one was fantastic though


I think this one was a police car in its past life.


The pinstriping on some of the cars at this show is really good.


This is a sled or leadsled if any were wondering.



Not much to this racer, but I bet it's fast.


Many Edsels I see are in perfect condition, I'm sure this one would make some Edsel lovers cry

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I see Edsels more often in this condition rather than the previous one.


I really like how the nose of this truck really screws with your perception.


I liked this car, but what I really liked was the way its engine looked with the art inside.


Took me quite awhile to get this picture the way I wanted it. Never took a picture and deleted it as much as I did with this one.


This one was just silly looking.


I wonder how he sees around that engine


I dislike Rancheros a lot, but I like this one. Plus I know the owner and he's a really cool guy.


Swanx was the host club and they are from my hometown of Vallejo. They all really cool cars. I hope they continue being the host club.


The thing about this car show is that it is very hard to tell if cars are still being worked on, or if they are done.


A Plymouth Super Fury built especially for dragging.


The Double Quad engine that belonged to the Brooklyn Boys Super Fury


This guy was also at Midnight Mass, you can see those photos my trip report from that show linked in my signature.


At first I thought this was an Edsel, but it's actually a Chrysler New Yorker

That's all for now. I'll being a part 2 soon. Just wanted to split up the posts a bit, so it's not a huge block of pictures.

What you have to look forward too: Tiny cars, foreign cars, cars that look like vacuum cleaners, cars covered with white stuff, cars built from other cars, a Zeppelin, and the bands!

[Druggas]

Re: Tired of My Car Show Reports Yet? - Billetproof 2007, Antioch, CA 09-15-07

Keep the pics coming. I love the cars of the past.

[Brain Toad]

Re: Tired of My Car Show Reports Yet? - Billetproof 2007, Antioch, CA 09-15-07

After finishing some homework and a good dinner, here is part 2 of my Billetproof pictures


A Nash Metro, one of my favorite cars and something I didn't expect to see at the show.


A Corvair with fender skirts



This VW was really neat. I loved the Coke designs and the trailer. There was a few other Bugs, but none as cool as this one.


I love '30s Ford trucks. I especially love '32s when they are chopped and lowered.


This was a beauty, Lincoln Premier


There was tons of coupes at the show, I loved the scallops on this one.


One of the few Thunderbirds


One of the best flame jobs at the show.


Though this one may give the last a run for it's money


I'm a sucker for a good matte finish, shiny is overrated.


I was amazed at how low some of these cars got, and how they managed to drive them to the show.


The contrast of the super shiny wheels and the junk body is really what makes this car.


Chevy Apaches are a common sight at this show, I don't think they are that great.


I believe I took a picture of this at Midnight Mass too. The green wheels work.


The fenders on this were really neat.


This thing was quite odd, got a lot of looks.


Saw this guy at last year's show and when he was lining up in the morning. I think the flames are overdone, but I like his torpedo.


I wouldn't mind having a Pink Linc


Looks homemade.


I wasn't sure if this was a spaceship or a vacuum cleaner. I'm told it's a Nash, but I think it's something from out of this world.




This thing was called "Rat on Rods" but it reminded me more of the Johnny Cash song "One Piece at a Time". It really was a sight to behold.


This thing is called the Himsl Zeppelin and is a 1937 Roadliner customized by a pinstriper by the name of Himsl. It's freakin' huge!


I heard the owner talking about this car, how having no windows was fine until it rained, then it kind of sucked to sit in a wet seat.



At first I thought this thing was covered in bird poop, but it was, in fact, salt. Must've just got done doing some races on the salt flats. I love his engine though.


The first band of the day was The RevTones. I had decided to use the bands of the show to do my review for my History of Rock class. The Revtones were good musically, but the singer was really bad. He sounded like a drunk Elvis most of the time. Though when they covered Bob Dylan, he tried to sound like Dylan and sounded like Weird Al doing Dylan.


I love this style of rod. Not sure what it starts out as, but I love them lowered, the roof cut or chopped, and painted flat black. Though the mix of wheels and plate caps doesn't work well.


There was quite a few Galaxie 500s. They are alright looking, but not my favorite. The pinstriping on this is interesting though.


Work in progress is a valid look here.


I love what these guys doing with their sticks. Skulls, weird faces, shrunken heads, the whole nine yards.


The ugliest Falcon I've ever seen.


The bare necessities to qualify as a vehicle.


Ford Deluxes can be really nice looking


Those who saw my Photoshop thread will recognize this picture.


My dad and I agreed this was the ugliest car at the show.


Flames and scallops mix quite well


Another example of the awesome work on sticks.


This car won Best Orphan (best car done by an no longer existing manufacturer)


Meshuggah Beach Party were the next band. These guys were really good. They played instrumental surf rock, focusing on surf interpretations of Jewish folk songs. I even bought a CD after the show.


The Demonics were the last band. They were pretty good, I would've enjoyed them more had I not already been dead tired and sore from walking around all day after getting up 6 am after 4 hours of sleep. They had a lot of energy.


This car pulled out of its spot after The Demonics finished playing. When it did, all the people with cameras swarmed it. Then this women came and started posing for an obvious friend of hers. I tried to get a picture of her, and caught her switching poses. The car was a beauty and so was she.

On the way home I encountered one more thing that was picture worthy. CalTrans was in the middle of their Don't Trash California campaign and had finished picking up garbage and left his display on the side of Highway 4 in Pittsburg



Really mindblowing how much trash people throw from their cars. C'mon people, don't trash our state!



So those are my pictures from Billetproof. It was a really fun day. My dad made a bunch of money from his booth, mostly from stickers, patches, and pinstriped bowling pins. I loved taking all these pictures.

Though here's the really exciting part. A couple days after I finished uploading the pictures to flickr, I get a message on Flickr from the show promotor. He asks me if he can use my pictures for the show. I email him, saying sure, thinking I'll just give him permission to link them on their website (like I did with Midnight Mass). Instead, he blows my mind by offering me $100 for permission to use the photos for promotion of the show plus some free stuff. All he wanted me to do is send him a CD of the files. Of course I accepted. I never thought I'd make money off my photos, didn't think they were good enough, but $100, wow. I'm excited to see how they are used, I'm hoping they appear on the DVD, which I was going to buy anyway.

If you want to see the rest of the pictures, feel free to visit my flickr page.

[upov]

Re: Tired of My Car Show Reports Yet? - Billetproof 2007, Antioch, CA 09-15-07

Great photos, I never get tired of looking at classic cars and your car show report threads. Classic cars have so much style, they're definately an art form.