The Hot Rod Story

 Not having anywhere near the knowledge or ability to draw several cars from some rather extreme prospectives necessary to create these inlays I fell back onto what had gotten me into being what can only be described as a "detail freak" ...Model cars! When I was 10 years old I started building model cars and did so right up until I started building musical instruments instead, in fact if musical instruments hadn't come along I'd probably be a mechanic now... as a modeler I was obsessed with trying to add tiny details like plug wires and raised lettering which has obviously influenced my inlays.
Pictured here is the original design that was sent to Martin for approval. As the process moved along towards an actual inlay certain things were changed. First, the whole thing was enlarged so the 58 Fury was removed (in hindsight I probably should have removed the Mercury, since the 58 Fury is one of my favorites...) Also the 40 Ford Deluxe was changed to a 56 Chevy (no way I was going to have 3 Fords and one Chevy... best to be neutral! in fact when you look at the pickguard you will notice the two cars are in a dead heat...)

 Extreme close-ups were shot to make the details visible when the time came to draw the actual patterns.

Next I wanted to have people driving the cars so I had my son Nick pose as one of the drivers, I posed as the other driver.

The photos were then drawn in pencil, this one is of me with some slick 50's sideburns!

 Then using a little PhotoShop trickery I placed the drivers into the model cars. First I placed them as photographs to get the right size and placement.

Once the drawings of the cars were complete the drivers were added, these inlays would then be placed under thin sheets of Mother-of-Pearl to give the "window" effect, Drawings of the starter girl and of an Elvis/James Dean guitarist were also added.

Finally, I wanted to replace the 40 Ford with a second Chevy, so just to make things interesting I decided to replace it with a real car rather than a model. Fortunately I had just the right connection to not only pull that off but with a little added "story" The car pictured at the left is owned by a friend and Leach guitar owner, Ronnie Moon. If you are a fan of old cars and this 1956 Chevy Delray looks familiar than you have probably seen it before. This car has been on the cover of Hot Rod Magazine twice, on their web site (as well as Year One's site) and was also featured on an episode of "Rides" TV series (the one about the Power Stroke Tour, it's the car used to compare a stock 56 to Mike Titus' Chip Foose version) Ronnie recently returned from his 5th "tour" and you can follow this link to see a little more of his car.
http://www.hotrod.com/powertour/hrpt_power_tour_2006_day6_gallery/