When was the last time you were in a convoy? A real, ’70s-style trucker’s crank-addled, brown, complex-pattern’d shirts with huge collars-wearing, and maybe a chimp or orangutan riding shotgun and smokey-evading convoy? I bet it’s been a while. Well, if you’d like a chance to make it happen – and by “it” I mean a really, powerfully disappointing version of it – then you should join us on our journey from Los Angeles to Alameda, California on Friday, October 23! We’re going to RADwood!
What’s that? You have work? You have responsibilities? That’s not what I asked, is it? No, it isn’t. Push those aside! Forget about your job, your family, your everything, fling it all to the winds and follow behind us as we head out in our Mazda 787-liveried CX-90 towing our now-legendary-ish Autozam dressed as a Ferrari F40 dressed as a Mazda 787b (which we’ve been calling the 787bb)!
We’re going to be driving from the luxuriant Galpin Auto Sports lot in Van Nuys starting at 9 am and heading up to Alameda, that island in the Bay Area, to the Gold Bar Hangar, where we’ll be setting the 787bb free to play with its ’80s and ’90s (and some early 2000s) car friends, which includes the Vector M12 we are having sent up for the show as well.
But we want to do a convoy! You know, like this:
Okay, yes, I get it, a convoy is really more of a ’70s thing and this is a show that focuses on cars from the ’80s and ’90s primarily, yes, yes, you’re right. What are you, a historian? It’s not my fault there’s no good ’80s-era songs about driving a bunch of cars in a big row on a road trip, is it? If you can find a more period-correct song about a convoy, fine, I’ll sing that nonstop on the trip instead of this. Until then, this is what we have.
You know what else we’re going to do while we’re out there? We’re going to have a reader meetup! Yes, after we get there and, you know, move our bowels and whatnot, we’ll be meeting up on Friday evening at 7pm at Jollibee, by the big Target parking lot, where I hope we can park all our cars comfortably. So if you’re in the Bay Area and want to meet me, Mercedes, Griffin, and even my son Otto, who may choose to get the hell away from everybody, feel free! We’d love to have you! Plus, we can get strangely sweet spaghetti from what I think is America’s biggest Philippine fast food chain.
I’m pretty excited about what we’ll be doing at RADwood; I’m told we’ll have a little area set up there, and, as I mentioned before, in that area I will have a 1984-vintage Apple //c set up, and hopefully a reader will be bringing a genuine CRT monitor I can borrow (I have a crappy LCD as a backup). The point of the old Apple will be to generate random, goofy-looking cars for anyone who comes by, and they can either take a picture of their resulting car or, depending on some criteria I can only guess at now, they could get a real, bootable Apple II-compatible 5.25″ floppy disk with their own custom 8-bit RADwood car on it!
I reprogrammed (with help from Rob Terrell, the nephew of the person who bought the very first batch of Apple computers from Jobs and Wozniak, so, you know, 8-bit royalty) the car randomizer program extensively, so it now doesn’t need to load resources from the disk all the time, and I have a whole new set of Rad-era friendly car names and stuff.
What percentage of people are likely to have an Apple II to use the disk on? Maybe more than I think?
And, of course, if you decide to come to our meetup or ride up with us in our grand convoy, you can give me all of your unsolicited advice on how to best drive the terrifying Vector M12 that I’m supposed to drive for the “Wheels In Motion” event at RADwood. You can let me know how your grandmother used to have a Vector M12 of her own, and how she used to drive it! I’m willing to believe you, or at least nod my head like I do!
I think this should all be a good bit of fun; Alameda seems like an interesting little island, and I have a feeling there’s a lot of Autopians out there, with some fantastic cars. RADwood is free now, so why not come on out for it? Other than a bit of your dignity, what do you have to lose?
I hope to see you all there!
Top photo: Google Maps, The Autopian
You’re not going to drive the Vector to Radwood?
What are you, chicken?!?
Strangely sweet spaghetti? Are you guys bringing the shower water to mix with it?
Dang!
Have pre-arranged plans to be out of town this weekend, the one weekend that Autopian will be here… 🙁
You taking the 101 I assume? I’d love to join the convoy for a bit around Salinas if you have an approx ETA or if someone will share their google maps progress with me
‘Spose I’ll be there, since that center is where we do our grocery shopping so I’m there all the time anyway…have not tried Jollibee as yet, though. There are several other fast-casual food options there if sugary spaghetti isn’t your thing, just FYI.
Radwood rejected my entry. But I know exactly where that parking lot is so might stop by with my rejected truck and say howdy.
Here’s a suggestion: The mall is on the edge of the old Navy base where the event happens. There are a lot of HUGE former landing strip areas open to the public that protrude far out into the water. And you can drive out and see the entire Bay and San Francisco from it. Very cool spot to hang out and its where a lot of us old car guys go as well. If that sounds cool let me know as I am out there a lot so know where to go to get to those places.
Most of the base infrastructure is still there. So there’s 100’s of abandoned buildings, having been so since 1997. There’s a lot of breweries in the hangers now and its pretty cool to see the insides of those places.
There is a waffle shop that’s been in Alameda since 1927 and the owners were into racing for years. Might want to check that out. If you do- stop by the museum I’m a part of. We have around 2,000 tube powered radios and we’re right in downtown.
I’m going to try to make it there, since the powers-that-be at Radwood rejected my immaculate one-owner factory-striped 2-tone ’93 GMT-400 pickup, I’m boycotting the actual event, but I’ll show up for my Autopian homies.
I didn’t see your response till after mine. Don’t feel bad- they rejected my 1996 Tacoma that I bought new off the lot and even had pictures showing a very young me versus the very graying middle aged me. Sort of annoying but whatever. I assume they got a lot of really awesome stuff seeing as how there’s a LOT of money here and so there’s people who probably coughed up a shit ton for something or paid a shit ton to have it restored. Anyway, If I show up I’ll bring my reject too. Maybe it would be a special section for said rejects.
That would leave a bad taste in my mouth too.