
Book cover for Janelle Brown's first novel All we ever wanted was everything, which was killed by the US publisher.
Cover shot for German Auto & Sex magazine.
Lussori Concours de Luxe catalogue [...]

This is Oscar...
Put a bit of grunt in those stockings this year with some pre-Xmas discounted tickets to the 2010 Deni Ute Muster. Artists already signed include Kasey Chambers, Canadian country music star Corb Lund, John Williamson and James Reyne. Buy online at www.deniutemuster.com.au or phone [...]
What else would you slip into if you we're going to spread yourself over a classic Caddy Eldorado Biarritz for Reinfried Marass?
Thought I'd sex-up my blog with one of Reinfried Marass's stunning shots. He's an acclaimed Austrian photographer who shoots on location with natural light and minimal equipment. He's also into classic and exotic cars. More babes to come.
It must have been Saturday's hotter-than-hot weather that brought out some of Melbourne's coolest rides. Spotted these on my way to Ben Thomas's Rancho Deluxe Speed & Custom Shop in Collingwood:
Did I hear right? After years of talking up pommy-built cars like the Jag and Aston, Clarkson said THIS about the new Audi R8: "This is very possibly the best car I've ever driven...that good." Don't believe me? Watch now: [youtube.com]
Spotted these cool illustrations by Melbourne artist Nate Holmes Trapnell at Gorker Gallery in Fitzroy on the weekend. This is his second one man show and if you're a hot rod fan it's well worth checking out before it finishes this weekend.
How do you get the "money shot" without the money? Gaffer tape the video camera to the forklift's cage and hit the lift button. ' [...]
If you saw that dude with the Scottish accent talking about his Goggomobil in the Yellow Page's and Shannon's Insurance ads a couple of years ago (TWICE for Shannon's would you believe?), this ride was his first love. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr4cWgb_szo
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Embroider me.
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Some of the muscle parked in Jim's front yard...
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...in Brunswick you can -- especially if your VW comes with some uber-cool rear window venetians. [...] 

Front row seats for these young music fans.
Did we or didn't we break the FIRST EVER GUINESS WORLD RECORD BLUE SINGLET count? YES!!! We did! And the record now stands at 2230! [www.deniutemuster.com.au]' [...]
COULDN'T HEAD OFF TO DENI WITHOUT GIVING MY MATE BILL LUKE a mention. Bill's a successful deCollage artist and will be showing his works in Sydney next week. Luke stalks Melbourne's streets at night, tearing down old ad billboards which he gouges, strips, relayers, trims,' [...]
SOME SCIENTISTS ARE SAYING that the dust storm that hit Sydney last week was due to climate change -- I reckon' it was some bloke practising for this weekend's circle work comp at DENI. www.deniutemuster.com.au' [...]
UTE SPOTTER CARD HOLDERS having a drink after a hard day's yakka in South Yarra. Cheers Boys! www.deniutemuster.com.au [...] 
YOU DON'T SEE MANY 71 YEAR OLD PLYMOUTHS cruising Melbourne's streets, let alone parked in TIGERLAND...but I spotted this 'Silver Oldie' in South Yarra and it sounded like it was built yesterday! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_(automobile) [...]
GM announced recently that the PONTIAC brand would be no more after after 2010, if that's the case what's this one doing DOWN UNDER? Could it be that BL has had a rethink?[www.holden.com.au]
IF YOU ARE WHAT YOU DRIVE, then the bloke who owns this '38 PLYMOUTH is, like Captain Blood, a Richmond legend. [www.richmondfc.com.au]' [...]
Deni Ute Muster organisers have rounded up JOHN GRANT'S UTE which was at the centre of the UTEGATE AFFAIR earlier this year. It will join an all-star cast that includes POWDERFINGER and some of Oz's top C & W performers. Book online now at: [...]
WHAT IS IT WITH JEEP OWNERS? I could get the vibe if it was a modified Holden ute like Craig Spencer's awesome hot pink number, but a Jeep? Give me a break! [www.summernats.com.au]
JR, his wife and family dog recently drove 12,000kms in three months in their U BEAUT Kombi...from WA to Qld and back to WA again. This is JR's second Kombi, which he bought to replace the Mazda that was written-off in an accident, and all that's left [...]
SEVEN WAYS TO SIN is the go-get track on Brian Baker's latest CD Hard Light. In addition to Brian's major singer/songwriter skills, he has produced some of Australia's most memorable jingles for the QUEENSLAND HONDA DEALERS, Anthony Smith Toyota and the BAYSIDE BEACH BOYS, to mention a few. More' [...]
Rebuilt by Jacka at Steel’s Reel Restorations in Wallan for the owner Tony Ryan, this stunning ’39 Ford Roadster is generating a real buzz in the Melbourne hot rod and classic car scene. Asking price? $350k plus. But, according to Duttons, where it’s currently on show, [...]
YOU'VE heard of the 'Golden Handshake', now here's the 'SILVER BULLET'. MTF...www.dutton.com.au www.topdealersseo.com
THIS season's coolest Harley riders are straddling Jab. http://www.jab.de/ www.senecatextils.com
SPOTTED this rare '63 Willys RHD Jeep truck in St. Kilda Road last Sunday. According to the owner it has been restored as a farm truck, and was featured in The Cat Empire's rock video So Many Nights [www.youtube.com]Under the bonnet there's an OHC 230 Tornado' [...]
THE COLOUR? Rosso Corsa or as the Ferrari aficionados call it: Resale Red. The car? A Limited Edition Scudera Veloce [www.zag.com.au] built to celebrate the 16 F1 Constructors' Championships Scuderia Ferrari (the most successful F1 team in history) has won since 1948. See Felipe Massa's [...]
WONDER BOY reckons this Falcon is either an XB or an XC, probably built in '75 and looks to be in original condition -- so much for his "muck-up" theory! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Falcon_(Australia)
IF Nando's isn't sponsoring Dance Your Ass Off on Channel 9, they're chicken! [channelnine.ninemsn.com.au] [...]
THIS what every surfer wanted to own in the '60s. Jim’s had his shaggin' wagon for six years and it’s taken him four years to rebuild. He’s the third owner and it still has the original owner’s plates and genuine books. So if you [...] THIS winter, we Melburnians are being encouraged to come out at night and experience light works by various artists, designers and communities. The Light in Winter is on now at Fed Square [www.federationsquare.com.au] while Alexander Knox’s Maxims of Behaviour is being spread across the façade of the 1960’s era [...]
WHEN I described this ute to my mate Stevo he said: "Sounds more like a muck-up than a mock-up to me." http://www.deniutemuster.com.au [...]
First, catch your roo. You can either shoot one with your favourite Winchester, or you can scour the highways for one that's been hit by a road train, and if that's all too hard, just get down to your local supermarket and grab some fillets [...]
Scrape road kill off roadTie animal securely to bull bar or on roof of uteDrive fast and furious so carcass doesn’t attract fliesRemove bullets and or windscreen glass before throwing over hot coals
SPOTTED this uber-cool Nissan parked in Fitzroy a couple of weeks ago. It’s an old Patrol -- maybe even a Series 60, which built its reputation by being the first 4x4 to successfully cross the Simpson Desert. Victor, the mechanic around the corner reckons this [...]
THE SIMPSON DESERT covers about 200,000 square kilometres and straddles the borders of the Northern Territory, Queensland and South Australia. In summer, it gets bloody hot! The temperature can top 50 degrees Celsius and like the Sahara Desert which gets stuff all rain, these conditions often [...]
ANOTHER gem from Bill Clarke’s collection of dealer ads from the ‘good old days.’ This one’s from The Northern Miner, 1987. And while I’m on the subject of old ads, check-out the launch commercial for the Ford TX3 Turbo which I wrote while I was DDB [...]
KELPIE belongs to Clive who runs 100 plus cattle on a farm just off the Bass Highway in Kilcunda in East Gippsland Victoria. He reckons the dog’s not much good at working cattle but he could be a good sheep dog except that he’s always chasing [...]
MATE OF MINE recently held a very successful exhibition of deCollage works on canvas at a very untrendy gallery in Richmond. This was his first exhibition and amazingly 65 percent of the work sold with prices ranging from $1,000 to $30,000.
MY ELDEST SON suggested I put this video on my blog, so here it is. As they say: don’t try this at home (unless your mum says it’s ok). See Evil Knievel jump the fountains at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas:
[www.youtube.com]
COLIN’S TATOO MAGIC was one of the first utes I shot and featured on this blog. Now his father’s got into the act. Currently a WIP, the ‘Golden Girl’ has just undergone a V8 engine transplant, had a new alloy rim engineered to match the three [...]
SEEMS our Tassie cousins have a thing about blue pickup trucks. This Dodge V8 with side opening hood, hole for crank and solid windscreen is the second one I’ve spotted on the mainland recently. The first was a wicked Chevy which [...]
FORD MERCURYS must be the flavour of the month in our Garden State. Recently spotted this two-door ride parked in South Yarra – unfortunately all I can tell you is that it’s either a ’53 or ’54, and that’s thanks to 1952WAGON at www.motortopia.com.
COULD this be the same ’46 Ford Mercury that Biff Tannen drove in the 1985 science fiction movie Back to the Future? Unfortunately not, it belongs to JP, a retired businessman. MTF...[en.wikipedia.org] [...] 

FURTHER to my recent post about Rich’s soon-to-be-gone Karman Ghia, I couldn’t resist pinching this pic off the CarDomain Car Blog and posting it here. This baby was spotted racing at Tsukuba Circuit and according to the photographer Mike Garret, it was certainly on the [...]
THE POMS can’t play cricket even though they invented the game. Their footballers are soft as, and judging by the converted Volvo 740 4WD pictured above, they definitely can’t build B & S utes like us “convicts” down under. Don't belive me? Check-out April post Utes' [...]
HERE'S what can happen when you display a rare WRP10 WRX (only 200 imported into Australia) without locking wheel nuts! Pic by Casser. Postscript: Colleague suggested that the dealership had a bummer of a month in April and they nicked the wheels to generate some free' [...]
STYLED by the famous Italian design firm Carrozzeria Ghia SpA and hand-built by the German coach-builder Karman, the uber-cool Karman Ghia was an instant hit for Volkswagen.
SINCE 1999, the Deni Ute Muster has set a world record for the number of utes counted in the camping and parking areas during this once-year event held over the Labour Day long weekend in October. In 2001 [...]
SHE may have sung “Oh lord won’t you buy me a Mercedes-Benz” but in real life Janis Joplin drove a ‘68 Porsche 356C cabriolet. The original car’s duco was white which the singer thought was a bit lame, so she got Dave Richards, a mate and [...]
FIRST revealed at the 2007 Frankfurt Motor Show, the quirky Citroen C-Cactus—which is based on the C4 hatchback, gets an ‘A’ for being eco-friendly, affordable, economical and positively Citroen-centric. Around town the C-Cactus uses electric power while on the open road,
REG is the ‘new voice’ of Harvey Norman, one Australia’s most successful retailers. And this was, until he turned Japanese recently and bought a Mitsubishi, his beaut Aussie Ute – a WB Holden. The WB and Kingswood Series were built between 1980 and 1984 and shared [...]
Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull racecar minus its left front wheel gets a lift back to the pits...[www.youtube.com]
the V8 Supercars as seen from the Paddock Club…
...and some of the action from the top of Brocky’s Hill. Official results, podium shots etc at: [...]
…and now for something completely different. This is one of Bill Luke’s latest pieces which he creates from re-cycled street posters and manipulates into abstract compositions to give the impression that they have just been ripped off a street wall. His coming May exhibition represents the [...]