Wednesday 15th September 2010
On the 19th August the Americarna USA Tour group left NZ and flew direct to LA where we spent the first 3 days of the trip. We arrived to the beautiful weather of LA and headed for the Redlion Hotel where we spent our first night..........
From here on in we saw some unbelieveable car and memorabilia collections, beautiful sights and enjoyed some great company. But from this point we will leave it up to one of our tour group, Philip Norquay, to tell you about the trip from his perspective ........... (photos added by Americarna)
My wife Dale and I lucked on to the Americarna tour when we were chatting about our need for a good holiday to a car-loving friend. When we said we were thinking of heading off to the United States to have a look around, he suggested we get in contact with John Rae and go on his organised Americarna USA tour. What a wise man he proved to be.
We looked up the Americarna USA itinerary and pricing on the net and decided this was us, the price was right, and there were plenty of places on the tour we wanted to see. The best thing was we did not have to arrange anything, you just paid, showed up at the airport and the rest is done for you.
Not everyone was so taken with the idea. We told a few friends what we were doing and got comments back like “it’s a bit of a blokes trip” and JR will only get you into places that you can get by yourself why are you going on his tour. Now that I am home I know those comments would work well on a Tui billboard.
There were eight women and 13 men on the tour, and while there were a lot of car collection stops there were always items of interest for all of us. The people that owned the collections were only too happy to tell us all about them. They had interesting stories about their cars, their life, and how they ended up with what they had.
It seemed to me they didn’t care what brand or type of car it was -- as long as it meant something to them they would buy it. And so they bought midgets, and hot rods, and circuit cars, drag racers, land speed type cars and there was a story for them all.
The first day in the States was a free day. It was do what you like – hang out with Donald Duck at Disneyland, hit the roller coasters at California Park, shop, or just look around, but be back by 8am or the bus leaves without you! Being on time for the departures was the only rule. John had arranged his friends and associates to open their car collections at certain times and did not want to muck them around. If we were unsure of how to get somewhere or needed something, John and his assistant Toni were always willing to help -- great for the first timers to the States.
 |
The Red Lion Hotel, Anaheim, where the group stayed on our first night in LA. |
On day two we went to two LA collections -- Tom Molloy’s and the Nethercutt’s museum. Without John you would never know Tom Molloy had a collection well worth seeing.
 |
Tom Malloy speaking to our group about his collection. Every car had a story with an amazing history. With Tom is Gary Schroeder and John Rae. |
 |
Tom Malloy's Collection and the Americarna Group. |
Nethercutt’s museum is amazing. The museum is set up as you would find a 1930s’ car showroom for those that could afford the absolute best. It was marble floors, three story high ceilings, floor to ceiling mirrors and cars restored back to the day they were built in every detail.
They had a programmable air operated organ that was built in the early 1900s. It had a bass so low we could hardly hear, but we sure could feel it! This would be the best surround sound I have ever heard and it was built over 100 years ago. The museum had over 150 fully restored cars and they needed to be seen to be believed.
 |
Bob's Big Boy Hamburger Joint - Every Friday night American classics, muscle and Hot Rods gather for a car show in the car park. We were lucky enough to find out about it and went along for a look. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
 |
 |
Above our group enjoying dinner before LA sightseeing
The day finished with a tour at night of Sunset Boulevard into Hollywood to see the stars on the footpath, the Oscars theatre and the ritzy shopping on Rodeo Drive. No Lindsay Lohan, Miley Cyrus, Brad Pitt or Julia Roberts though!
 |
 |
 |
Some of our group enjoying time on the Walk of Fame - Hollywood Blvd. |
Universal Studios took up day three. What a great place! A day is easily taken care of looking around and taking in the rides and shows but at the end of the day John had arranged another three private collections to visit. The first had two Ford GT40s, one a genuine Gulf GT40, with midgets and hot rods as well.
 |
Our group heading into Universal Studios for a day of play! |
 |
 |
|
Our visit to Gary Schroeders workshop and collection.
Above Right: Matt Gally sitting in one of Gary's cars.
Right and Below: Bruce Ekdahl and Philip Norquay loving the opportunity to sit in an orginal GT40.
Below right: Brendan Mason checking out this drag car which was fired up just for us. Ear drum shattering!
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
At the second stop was a guy who made his name turning out car badges for automotive designer Carroll Shelby, then supplied GM and Ford -- today he has more to do with Toyota. One of his cars was a 32 Ford that set a land speed record in 1954. It was a barn find, complete and never touched from the day of its last run 50 years ago. It has been completely rebuilt to exactly how it was the day it set a land speed record. Nothing was painted but every component was checked and refurbished, then put back in to the same position it came from -- the owner apologised for having to replace the rubber fuel lines for safety reasons.
 |
The 32 Ford that set the land speed record in 1954.
|
The car was built by an engineering firm that wanted to market themselves and felt setting a land speed record was the way to sell their engineering skills. I don’t know how they did with that, but it was some machine. It had a Hemi V8 with roller cam followers and an early Eldelbrock manifold with fuel injection. It sounded like a Nascar -- we all know the sound of nicely tuned grunt and this car just oozed it. I could imagine being on the salt flats when that car started up -- anyone running a flathead would have just pushed their car back into their trailer and gone home.
 |
Left: Tom McIntrye to the right of the photo, the collection owner. Paul Ekdahl was privileged to be able to start up Tom's 57 Thunderbird.
Below: More cars in Toms Collection.
|
 |
 |
Next up was Jeff Gordon’s midget, a port window Thunderbird, and a 32 roadster all in mint condition. The people from the previous collections showed up at the venue and John cooked on the barbeque as we drank, ate and talked to the guys that looked after the car collections and the car owners. It was a great end to the day.
On day four we left LA and headed north to Pleasanton, a few hundred kilometres north near San Francisco. We had a stop of at John Lawson‘s car collection on the way and a restaurant booked for lunch. The trip took about eight hours.
John proved to be quite a character with a large collection of Fords all running and in mint condition. He took us through his workshop to show us what cars were being built. We then left his workshop to view his collection at another location. Some of the cars were stock standard, others were extremely modified -- one was a twin blown big block 32 coupe. His collection took up 1500 square feet! From there it was off to lunch and onto Pleasanton for the Good Guys Hot Rod Week.
Hot Rod Week started Monday at eight on the dot -- rule one again; don’t be late. The Hot Rod Week starts with runs that are about an hour and half long to different points of interest. John arranges rides in different cars on a turnabout bases if you don’t get a ride then you travel on the run in a small bus.
My first ride was with Charlie from Kentucky. We had trouble understand each other but I got to know the 54 Mercury soft top I was in had been purchased for $200 -- rust holes included! Charlie was retired, he like to fill in his days building cars and driving them all over the States -- he had driven to or through every state in the US, and there’s 50 of them – some bigger than New Zealand.
His Mercury was powered by a LS1 Corvette motor with a six-speed manual transmission. Charlie liked to chop down gears and put his foot into it. The Mercury responded very well to this so we cruised at 70mph, but passing we would hit 100mph no problems.
Charlie liked Corvettes as donor cars telling me that he also had a 32 roadster with a LS7. He liked to take that car drag racing and was only allowed to run 1/8 mile because it had no roll over protection. Then he mentioned he had brought one of those Australian-built Pontiac GTO things -- it had been driven 3-½ miles before being written off he paid $7000 for all the running gear and the computer. That was for his next project.
Charlie was in Pleasanton by himself, so I thought I would visit the guy and see if he would like to join Dale and I for dinner that night. When I got to his unit he greeted me with a large handle of Bourbon and said he was off to meet friends who had driven down from British Columbia. I tagged along and when these two old guys learned I was Philip from New Zealand I was headed for trouble.
“If you’re from New Zealand you must drink beer,” they said, tearing a tab off a bud and sticking it in my hand. From there the stories flowed, and next thing a few hours and a few more beers had gone. After a few hours of drinking my thoughts did get back to my wife and dinner, so I staggered off back to my unit full of beer and stories from three hard case guys.
 |
John Hickman about to cruise with John Casubolo in his 34 Ford Coupe.
|
 |
Karen Forbes with Lloyd Wilson in his 30 Roadster Pickup. |
 |
Sharleen Hickman with Mike Galdini's 32 Hiboy Hemi Powered Roadster.
Mike gave our tour group rides in 2009 as well.
|
 |
Philip Norquay with Charlie from Kentucky with his 54 Mercury Soft Top. |
 |
Philip Norquay with John Casubolo and his 34 Ford Coupe. |
 |
Lois and Colin (Not pictured) with Jim in his Chevy.
|
 |
Henry Gong with Dale Norquay, Phil and Claire Murch already in his 56 Chevy Nomad.
We met Henry in 2009 when he very generously gave our group rides as well.
Cheers Henry!
|
 |
Maurice Doyle and Sal Riele with his 64 Ford Galaxie. Matt Gally also jumped in for the ride. |
 |
Trish Doyle with Randy Thompson an his Pickup. |
Hot Rod Week took us to the North Bay area of San Francisco, Sacramento, the South Bay area, and wine country. We got to see collections of outstanding size and quality -- people would simply open up their homes for viewing and that proved distracting, as we wound up looking at more than cars.
Dale would come to me and say “did you see their kitchen? Get a photo of that and their outside cooking area”. The whole week was an eye-opening adventure. At one of the collections we were requested that there be no photos taken. The owner had three “sheds”, if I can call them that. There were 10 Ferraris in one, while in another there was the latest Ford GT. But the car that stood out to me was his 32 roadster with a V12 Ferrari motor with the throttle bodies all poking out the side of the bonnet. This car would be second to none at any show, it was a work of art.
Above is just a very small sample of some of what we saw during Hot Rod Week and the Hot Rod Nationals.
If you did not want to go on the runs you simply told John what you were doing, and that was fine. Pleasanton was very appropriate name for the city. It’s very modern and picturesque, the shopping malls are great some of our group chose to go shopping and exploring.
As a car obsessive who finds shopping malls a drag, I went on all the runs. I got to ride in the Mercury and 34 coupe rat rod. Although the owner said he built it before the term rat rod came into being, it still felt raw like a rat rod to me. The last car I ventured off in was a 38 Dodge with a 350 crate motor -- a nice car, well finished off inside and out, the owner was a doctor.
On the Thursday night after the rod run John arranged three limos to transport the tour group to San Francisco for sightseeing. In the limo’s ice chillier we had whiskey, bourbon vodka and a bottle of bubbles -- all good conversation starters. We lived like movie stars, the limo was full of laughter and stories. With three limos all in line we had people on the footpath taking photos as we pulled up at Fishermen’s Wharf for dinner, where a good night was had by all.
 |
Our group outside our Hotel in Pleasanton with the Limos before heading into San Francisco.
|
 |
The Limo's and drivers on the street in San Francisco. |
 |
Some of our tour group enjoying a beautiful dinner of various seafoods on Fisherman's Wharf. |
Friday was the start of the Good Guys Hot Rod Show -- 3500 cars entered and not a bad one that I could see. There was a swap meet and trade stands all over the place. If you wanted a brand new 55 Chevy soft top you could buy it there from a bare metal shell. You’d simply walk to the trade stand and say “I will have that and that” and put it on the credit card and they’d go off and build it, on problems at all. At a guess this show would be equal in size to the agricultural fieldays at Mystery Creek. After three days we flew out of San Francisco, with a look around the Golden Gate Bridge and sightseeing on the way to the airport.
The night before we left San Fran, John had those who wanted to in the van and off to Oceanside speedway to see a supermodified race on a ¼-oval. There were fields of 20 and not one of them wanted to come second. The feature race was so hectic I was on my feet cheering them on, and I didn’t have a clue who any of them were! These good old boys race hard, really, really hard. The feature race was a 50-lapper -- at lap 25 they stopped for 10 minutes to allow the car to be adjusted in manner the crew felt necessary. One team replaced the motor with a fresh one!
I would like to thank John and his staff for organising the tour, that I think you can tell Dale and I thoroughly enjoyed. The idea that John will take you to places you could see by yourself was a gross misjudgement – you couldn’t do it yourself.
OK it may be a bloke’s trip, but I never heard one female complain about what we did – and in fact we all found things of interest, meet people that we would never have come across and did things we would have never done had we gone by ourselves.
Good purchases were made in everything from clothes to car parts. We went on the tour for an adventure, and we got one. We have all made new friends, found new suppliers of parts, and got ideas about our chosen recreation, hot rodding, and cars in general.
I have only mentioned a small part of this trip -- believe me when I say there is more to this story.
All the best
Philip Norquay
The Americarna Team would like to extend a special thank you to Gary Schroeder, Tom Malloy, Tom McIntyre, Rich Hart and John Lawson for allowing our group to view their amazing collections and workshops.
Also a special thank you to Gary & Karen Schroeder for your extra help with the collections and the BBQ!
It was an incredible trip made memorable by what we saw and the people that joined us!
Thank you
John Rae & Toni Fabish
Americarna
For more Tour photos check out the Americarna facebook page.
