another ROCKIN' battle of the hot rod books, this time at the Blackhawk Museum in Danville, Calif.

Herb Martinez, the esteemed pinstriper and I did battle once again, this time today at the Blackhawk Automotive Museum in Danville, Calif. The weather was unexpectedly drizzly, which kept some of the anticipated car club members (who had open-top roadsters) back at the garage. But everyone who showed gave Herb and me an enthusiastic reception.

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Gotta first shout-out to Dan Dunn, the museum's director, and Fred Zimmerman, the bookstore manager, for hosting us. They also graciously allowed me to display some of my rock concert-automotive themed posters. Herb brought one also--a Stones piece (shown at left, above) that was a 1972 collab between Alton Kelley, Stanley Mouse, Randy Tuten and the mysterious pinstriper (a contemporary of Von Dutch, Dean Jeffries, and Ed "Big Daddy" Roth) known as "the Crazy Arab."

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The Blackhawk offers two splendid collections--prewar and postwar. Being a big Ferrari fan, I thought I'd not do better than eyeballing what was on the first floor, full of all kinds of tasty and expensive race cars. I'd read, for instance, about the famous design-exercise Alfa-Romeo BATs (an example, #9, shown above), and there were three here. Amazing! But truly, upon reflection, I have to say the Duesenbergs, Rolls Royces, and the dozens of European-bodied stunners on the second floor just took my breath away. It was all I could do to keep from rushing the stage--oops, I mean jumping the stanchion ropes--to get as close as I could to the tulipwood bodied 1924 Hispano-Suiza, the museum's gem--also shown above.

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BTW, that's my son Jordan (a junior at Salesian High School) in front of a cherry-oh-baby '36 Duesenberg. I actually took about 40 photos on both floors, but museum lighting is difficult to work with and I only had my mini-digital with me. In the words of our governor, I'll be back!

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One of the thrills of the day was parking in the outdoor rotunda in front of the museum. That's my Acura TSX with the California-blue license plate ROCKMUS, which has served me mightily since the late 1970s.
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