We realize that in all the rush and excitement of setting up the truck and tearing it down and driving through the country and watching drag racing and eating at Cracker Barrel, we’ve forgotten our manners.
You are all probably wondering when we’ll get around to introducing the key players in this crazy adventure. You know, the main stars without whom, none of this would be possible. Well, we apologize for the wait. In no particular order, please meet…the Spectre Power Tour Cars:
The 70 Maverick – Many of you have seen this car on Speedhunters. com or at other Spectre events. The Maverick being on Power Tour has a special importance, as it was here that its original engine met a nitrous fueled demise, leading to a contest as to its rebuild.
The coolest submission was the suggestion to repower the little Ford with a 2JZ toyota supra engine, and that suggestion came from none other than Lance Peltier, who is currently piloting the car on this tour.
All the Spectre cars are fitted with Spectre air intakes, and the Maverick has custom aluminum door panels and spoilers as well as custom turbo fittings. It’s a really unusual car, and probably one of the most talked about in the Spectre fleet.
The Black ‘07 Shelby Mustang -One of the newer cars in the fleet, the Mustang is still basically stock but for a trial intake set-up. It’s being used for developing carbon fiber cold air intakes and front and rear spoilers. Keep an eye out for the quick pony at the Spectre 341 Challenge next weekend.
The Green Camaro - Our green 2nd gen is barely referred to as a ‘71 or any other description, it’s always the “Green Camaro”. One of the oldest active Spectre project cars, the Green Camaro was originally raced by Cam Douglas from Optima . He won silverstate in it and after Amir purchased it, it became one of the first cars to be campaigned at track events under the Spectre banner.
The ‘99 F250 – The only automatic in the whole Spectre stable, the Ford was purchased new as personal truck, because Amir was intrigued by the Supercharged V10. Rumor has it that this truck came in to the Rosenbaum’s family at the same time as Amir’s youngest son — and that Amir actually took a little time-out from being a labor coach to go pick it up.
The truck has been a great support and camera vehicle on this trip, as it hauls the luggage as well as just plain hauling …
The ‘05 GTO – When the GTO first became available, Amir thought it was cool, and looking at it now, it really was one of the first of the new options for modern muscle cars. Originally yellow, the Pontiac is now Spectre Signature black and the 6-liter V8 makes the perfect place to test the Spectre G8/GTO V2 intake. Other modifications include the accu-aire air bag suspension, and of course, those radical fender flares and spoilers.
The 70 1/2 Carbon Camaro -Unofficially known as “Brandy’s car” (but only by Brandy), the Carbon Camaro debuted at SEMA 2010 to extremely positive reviews. Amir wanted to the car to “look like a race car” and of course, at Spectre, we never fake it, so the car performs like a race car too. At the time of this writing, Brandy has just put the Camaro in the Good Guys winner’s circle in Colorado and she, Mike and Lisa are hoofing it across the country to meet us in Nashville . The Camaro features Anvil carbon fenders front clip and hood, an LS1 out of a 99 Trans-Am and its overall appearence is based on a mid 70’s IROC car. For more details on the Camaro check out the August 2011 issue of Hot Rod Magazine.
The ‘70 Mach 1 – Last year the blue Mustang was the primary race vehicle for Spectre events. Powered by a 351 Cleveland stroked to 408 and set up with all the Spectre aero, engine and interior products the car has a very personal importance to Amir as it was purchased from the original owner, and despite the radical Spectre modifications, it maintains some of that original feel.
The 2011 Cadillac CTSV wagon – The Caddy is the newest Spectre project. Those of you who have followed our Bonneville racing already know that Amir has a fondness for high powered Cadillac motors. You’ll also know that no new car is safe from improvement in the hands of the Spectre crew. The Cad has been deemed too chunky and is on a radical weight loss plan. To learn more about project FatCad, head over to BangShift.com.
The ‘70 El Camino – The El Camino is a mid-engine LS7 built by So Cal Speed Shop for a Hard Shine TV project. This is probably one of the most famous Spectre cars, and it certainly attracts a lot of attention going down the road and parked in front of our booth.
For more shots of the Spectre cars in action, scroll through the gallery below.
Today was the first show of the 2011 Hot Rod Power Tour. The Spectre crew was up before the sun, which we watched rise in the windshield reflections of the Spectre cars as we fortified ourselves for the day ahead.
After breakfast, it was a scavenger hunt to find a coin operated car wash, as the cars were covered in bugs and oil from the cross-country open transport from Los Angeles to Florida.
Washing eight cars in an hour might seem like an impossible task, but we worked like a well oiled assembly line, and when drying the cars seemed like it might be our downfall, a fellow Power Tourer, Gary Watson, came to our rescue with a squeegee. As we’ve come to realize, that sort of willingness to help out a stranger is the spirit of Power Tour.
We were at the show field with plenty of time to help set up the truck, and even take some beauty shots!
The show was a blast, with all kinds of cars with all kinds of engines. As always, we were pleased to see Spectre filters and intakes on a variety of interesting and beautiful builds.
We spent a lot of the day talking with customer and future customers about the Spectre product line, vehicles and events.
Tomorrow we start our journey for Valdosta, GA, and in good company!
We are always posting about fun events after they’ve happened, so here’s a little advance invite for a change!
Spectre is excited to support Pep Boys and we plan to attend all three of the upcoming Pep Boys Grand Openings. We had a great time at the Orange, CA opening and we know the upcoming East Coast shows are going to be a blast as well.
If you are in the area, have a car or just want to come hang out for some great food and fun times, stop by any of these Pep Boys Grand Openings.
Don’t forget to come say hi to the crew at the Spectre Booth.
Although the folks in the East might disagree, for us on the west coast, winter has flown by, and we couldn’t believe it when we realized it was time for the Good Guys Season opener in Scottsdale, AZ.
Scottsdale always brings some unique cars that we don’t see anywhere else. Some of our favorites this year were Volkswagens and included a custom VW Bug made to look like a toy car, and a group of VW buses that all park together every year. Is it 1968?
The weather for the show was perfect all weekend long, and Friday was busy, with hot rods, street rods, muscle cars and classics all lined outside the entrance eager to claim their spot before heading to the vendor midway and check out the autocross. It was great to see such a big car count at what is a relatively new show on the Good Guys circuit.
We were set up in our usual spot near the back of the vendor midway next to PPG, Baer Brakes and Peak. We had a very special booth car for our demo install, Tim Kelly’s ‘67 El 442. No, that’s not a typo, it really is an El Camino/442. Definitely a one of one set up! Needless to say, the El 442 saw a lot of attention.
We love all the Good Guys events, but Brandy especially likes the stops which involve autocross, and the Arizona show started the autocross bright and early on Friday morning. Spectre’s Carbon Camaro was one of three official vendor cars, but there were lots of good friends running Spectre parts in other classes.
Despite vendor “competition” we’ve actually found the autocross to be a great place to work closely with other manufacturers. In Scottsdale, John Hotchkis, head of pro-touring suspension company, Hotchkis Performance teamed up with Brandy to work out the suspension tuning on the black Camaro.
This isn’t to say there was no competitive feeling in the crowd, Brandy was pretty thrilled to be just 8/10 of a second behind Brett Voelkel in the Ride Tech entry for a second place finish!
On Saturday, Brandy gave rides to lots of show goers, including Nicole Shumate, whose father Bill was running one of the most unusual entries in the autocross!
Nicole and her dad are building a Camaro, and she was really interested in learning about autocross. Nicole hopes to have her car done by next year so she can come out and start running the autocross. We certainly support that, and can’t wait to see Nicole and her friends on the track.
Sunday came quick and it was time to pack up. Brandy helped hand out awards and then it was off to Fort Worth, Texas. Will it be a TEXAS sized show?
Now in its 61st year, the Sacramento Autorama is “The Kustom Capital of the World” and boasts the title of one of longest running indoor car shows in the world. The Autorama is recognized as the custom car show on the West Coast. With over 450 of the finest custom cars, hot rods, classics, motorcycles, and specialty vehicles from around the county, there’s a good reason why people have been attending this show for over 60 years.
Of course, at Spectre, everything we do is an adventure, and as we packed up for the Autorama, the process of getting out of the Spectre parking lot and on our way to Sacramento was an adventure all by itself. It was like a reality TV Show; one thing after another just kept going wrong. How hard can it be to drive to a car show?
The plan was for the Toterhome to represent us in Sacramento. It had just been wrapped with our new logos, but was only partially finished. It looked good though, so we started to pack Wednesday with hopes to get out Thursday morning. When the toter pulled into the Spectre lot Wednesday morning, we had our first hurdle. Not only was the Jake brake not working, a taillight was out and then something went wrong with the alternator!
The toter went in to the shop to get repaired late Wednesday afternoon, but it would never be done in time for a 400 mile drive! Knowing that the show started Friday at noon, we reloaded our new truck as quickly as possible and got Steve out on the road.
Steve arrived in Sacramento around 8:30 on Thursday night and parked the truck, but our troubles weren’t over, because the space for the truck was just slightly smaller than our display. After some creative maneuvering, Steve was able to park the truck although we had to move the Churro stand. Seriously, do these things happen to anyone else?
Despite the slow start, once the show started we had a blast. The attendance was great and the truck was filled with people.
Since the show is all indoors, it attracts a lot of amazing customs and builders. Trailer queens get a bad name, but some of these cars are really pieces of art!
Each section of building had a different display. We saw bicycles and children’s push cars, muscle cars, and even a boat hall. There were also tons of vintage racers, a Bonneville car, and rows of motorcycles. Outside the race car display was a tent that featured a whole rockabilly scene with cars of the 50’s and people dressed to match.
On Saturday Spectators lined the entrances waiting for 10am to come and the gates to open. The truck and trailer were consistently crowded throughout the day. People were even coming in at 7 and 8pm, just to have an hour of viewing time. There were about 100-150 participant cars outside in the car corral. There were several cars with Spectre intakes on them, which always makes us happy!
The show stayed busy all weekend and by Sunday afternoon, we were ready to pack up and head home. Even though we had a rough ride up, we think this show was a great sign for the coming months. People know who we are, they are interested in our products and it seems like the car hobby is going to have a good year.
The first Good Guys shows are in March. We can’t wait!
After a long week in LA at the MPMC Trade Conference, we headed straight to the Pomona Fairplex for the first show of 2011, the Grand National Roadster (GNR) show.
The Roadster show was established 62 years ago and is the world’s longest running indoor car show. For the last eight years, it’s been just around the corner from Spectre in Pomona.
GNR always has a theme and this year it was Route 66, which was no problem for us, we’re plenty familiar with all the highways in America! Featured celebrities included Freddie from iCarly, Courtney Hansen from Powerblock TV, Lee Reherman from Battle of the Supercars, and Bryan Fuller from Two Guys Garage and Hot Rod TV.
We started set-up for the show while Brandy and Mike were still at the MPMC conference. Steve and Campbell Automotive got the truck, El Camino and Carbon Camaro to the show, and the SpeedLiner showed up as soon as the SORC party was over.
The show was like a high school reunion. Many of the manufacturers we hadn’t seen in a couple months were out at the show. Even the Goodguys team had a booth inside and practically brought out the whole office.
Many racers and fans from Bonneville, including some of the SCTA timing and tech, stopped by our booth to check out the streamliner and watch the videos. Kenny Hoover stayed all three days to sign posters, talk about the streamliner and reconnect with old friends. As always, Kenny and the streamliner got a lot of attention. We even let someone sit in the car for a photo.
One of our favorite parts of any show is checking out the cars which have been built using Spectre product. One display car we saw had a full Spectre custom intake, which definitely caught the attention of those passing by. We saw many other cars using Spectre intakes, headlight funnels, filters and valve covers. One of our favorites was the color changing ’69 Nova, owned by Ken Ramey from Lancaster, CA, which makes good use of a Spectre intake.
On Saturday Amir and his wife, Dusanka, came out to take a look around which was fun, since the show field had filled out and the booth was packed. Many people came to look at the streamliner, but the Carbon Camaro and El Camino got a lot of attention as well.
We spent part of the day on Saturday doing a custom install on a cool old Ford. We tried multiple plenums and airboxes and finally came to a decision on one the owner really liked. Once it was decided on, he was so thrilled and thought it was the coolest thing in the world! Hopefully we will be able to feature the car in the booth at upcoming local shows.
By Sunday, the weather turned ugly. About noon it started to rain lightly, so we had to load the streamliner early before the heavier rain came. We actually got more attention loading the streamliner than we did that whole day when the streamliner sat in front of the booth!
While we were loading the displays in the truck and trailer and trying not to get everything soaked, Barry Meguiar, his wife and another friend stopped by our booth to chit chat with Kenny. We’d like to thank everyone who stopped by to hang out with us, and also offer congratulations to our friend Jason from Street Trucks, who won first in his class. Nice job, Jason!
We will be headed up to Sacramento next weekend for the Sacramento Autorama, February 11th, 12th and 13th.
At Spectre, we work closely with the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) as well as with the automotive media. We were able to catch up with both industry and editors at the 2011 MPMC Conference in El Segundo.
MPMC stands for Motorsports Parts Manufacturers Council, and they are an amazing group of people who work tirelessly to arrange time for manufacturers and journalists to meet and talk about project cars and new products without the distracting background of the SEMA show. We’ve attended the conference since 2007 and find it extremely valuable.
As always, our marketing genius, Brandy, transformed our hotel room into a complete showroom experience. The display featured some of the new 2011 Spectre parts, the Streamliner at Bonneville and photos from the Spectre 341 Challenge. Did you know an upside-down hotel couch makes an excellent product display when covered with black cloth?
During the conference, we sat in our decorated hotel suite and had meetings with automotive magazine editors, filmmakers, freelancers, TV shows, and websites. It’s fun to hear all about people’s project cars and trucks, and to tell them about our upcoming events and products.
The Spectre 341 Challenge was a popular topic during all of our meetings. Most people we spoke to either wanted to come out to the event themselves, or knew of someone they planned to invite. It’s going to be an amazing race this year.
Every year there is an afterparty mid-week. Last year we hosted at the Spectre facility but this year Source Interlink Publishing (SORC) held an open house at their new offices and workspace in El Segundo. It was a great night. Their workshop is very cool, and they had many of the legends of publishing and motorsports signing the latest SORC book, HOT ROD Magazine: All the Covers, with the profits going to charity.
SORC also invited us to display the SpeedLiner in the massive white photo bay. Amir came out and had such a good time he didn’t leave until early the next morning!
Overall, it was a very worthwhile week, and we are looking forward to getting all our magazine subscriptions this year. We know there are going to be some great stories.
Like all celebrities, the Spectre SpeedLiner has no off-season. When the menacing black landspeed car isn’t on the salts of Bonneville, it is drawing attention at trade conference or providing a conversational focus point in a TV interview.
The SpeedLiner started off the year surrounded by a different kind of white groundcover, snow! The Spectre team set up at the Advance Managers Conference in Nashville in the middle of the worst snowstorm in years!
Despite the weather, many other manufacturers were present, including our friends at Peak and Mobil. The SpeedLiner got a lot of attention, and spirits were high, although attendance was down from previous years.
After the show, Mike packed up the parts and the car and headed for the TV studios of RTM Productions in Franklin, about 30 minutes from Nashville. The crew dropped off the SpeedLiner in the garage at RTM to await Amir and Brandy’s arrival a week later.
If any of you are unfamiliar with RTM, it is a television production company specializing in automotive, outdoor, and entertainment programming. They shoot many of the automotive shows seen on Spike and Speed TV, and they asked Amir to come do an interview about landspeed racing.
We were worried the Speedliner wouldn’t fit in the studio, but amazingly it did, with just a little room to spare! More amazing yet is that Amir sat still for the make-up lady, although as the pictures show, he was less than thrilled about the leopard print bib.
The interview with RTM host, Courtney, is great. They talked about everything, including how Amir got involved with Bonneville, why he does it, what was it like to go over 400mph and how setting a landspeed record helps us make better airfilters for our customers.
Don’t miss the first airing of the Horsepower TV interview February 26th & 27th on the Spike TV Network!
If your morning ritual doesn’t already involve a visit to the Speedhunters website, it’s time to add it to your bookmarks. There’s nothing like scrolling through amazing photos of automotive events and collections while drinking your daily coffee/tea/bloody mary. It’s just the right way to start the day.
What we really like about the Speedhunters crew is how diverse their interests are, and how equally enthusiastic they seem about every single featured car, whether that’s a 900 hp Honda Civic or a lace-painted altered wheelbase gasser. They love cars, and even more exciting, they love our cars!
Our newest project, the Spectre Carbon Camaro, is nominated for Speedhunters “Retro Car of the Year“. Head over to the site and vote in the comments section. If we get enough requests, maybe they’ll do a full feature on the car next year!
Winning a new product award at this year’s SEMA show isn’t really customer appreciation, more like “Business Peer Appreciation”. Whatever you call it, it feels good.
New product feedback is very important to us, and it’s good to hear we are on the right track with our new door panels and other sheet metal accessories. We’ve been getting requests for these kinds of products all year, so stay tuned for additional makes and models in 2011.
The Spectre team is so dedicated that we’ll even attend car shows on major holidays. While most Americans were at home justifying a 4th piece of pie, our crew was fabricating a custom intake on a Pantera on the other side of the country.
Daytona Beach, Florida hosts the annual Turkey Rod Run every Thanksgiving. It’s a well attended show despite starting on Thanksgiving day. The whole entire inner field of Daytona Beach Speedway is covered with vendors, a swap meet and show cars. This year’s show had one of the biggest car corrals we had seen all year. The show makes a great escape for folks kicked out of the kitchen, or anyone looking for a reason to do take-out instead of turkey. The reality is, you can’t keep car people away from a car show.
The display was really varied and we saw a ton of great cars. There were rat rods, race cars and exotics parked side by side, and many featured Spectre intakes and filters. We also spent some quality time with fellow vendors like Billet Specialties, who drove all the way from Arizona to be present at the Turkey Rod Run. Like us, Billet Specialties was fairly new to the Rod Run, but companies like Detroit Speed and Engineering and GM Performance had been there before and we were all impressed by the turnout and response from the folks in the South East.
The reason we spend so much time on the road is so we can be there to support our customers. We worked on custom intakes for several interesting cars. Dave Puckey wanted a custom intake fabricated for a GTO and Lenny Kronen worked with Mike Morrow on custom tubes for his Pantera. If it needs an intake, our techs will make one!
In case you find yourself at the Turkey Rod Run next year, we recommend Cracker Barrel for Thanksgiving night. While most restaurants were closed, the Spectre team was able to feast on a turkey dinner with all the trimmings and even had pumpkin pie for dessert.
Can you believe our season is over for the year? The Spectre 2011 Schedule is in the works and we’ll post it soon. We plan on twice as many events compared to last year, with two full time truck and trailers on the road. We will be all over the country, and all over the internet, so stay tuned on the blog, and let us know what cars and features you’d like to see!
We could tell you that this video features shots of the F40, the Speedliner, the Carbon Camaro and all our new products, but we’ll just let Amir take over:
As we’ve mentioned before, Pleasanton, CA is close to home for many of the Spectre team, including our fearless leader, Amir Rosenbaum.
The Autumn Get Together was very well attended, partially because it is one of the few Good Guys events which allows late model American cars as well as classics.
We had our hands full at the booth fielding questions from diverse groups of truck, Lowrider and modern muscle car owners.
The plan was to run the Maverick in the weekend autocross, but the busy booth meant that the Spectre autocross team spent most of Saturday answering tech rather than running through the cones. It was probably for the best, as Thursday’s test runs had brought up a couple of tire rub issues.
Happily, we were well represented on the course by Mary Pozzi, Deanna Marengo and other skilled Spectre friends.
Brandy did get to run the track on Sunday in a “borrowed” 2010 Dodge Charger. It was a bit different from the normal Spectre rides, but it made a lot of noise and gave Brandy an appreciation for her well-sorted race car!
As always, we saw some great builds done using Spectre products, and did several installs in the booth. We were happy to host the Spectre winner of the Motorator.com Crew Chief Challenge during the show. As a runner up in the Motorator online tech contest, we gave Alex and his family passes to the show as well as a Spectre CAI for his ‘68 Mercury Cougar.
Amir and his family came out to join us in the booth and it quickly became clear that the young Rosenbaums take after their parents. After a quick morning introduction, 11-year old Adam Rosenbaum was talking to customers, explaining product details and selling parts. We’re going to have to bring him on the road with us!
The Pleasanton show was bitter-sweet, as it is one of the last shows of the year, but we won’t mope for long. 2011 looks to be our busiest show year yet! We can’t wait.
The Spectre whirlwind “Car Show Tour of America” continues and we had a great time at the 41st Annual Street Rod Nationals in Louisville. There must have been more than 10,000 street rods on display and the quality of cars was outstanding.
As you’d expect from an NSRA show, there were great vintage based hot rods and a huge crowd. It may have been a street rod show, but we talked to lots of customers about the 9900 series modern air intakes, and the biggest topic of conversation was the LS swap and our new product plans.
Chip Foose was at the Mother’s booth right next to ours, and he signed autographs for tons of fans, including our own crew.
We were suppose to go Karting with the Mother’s group on Sat night at midnight, but we were so tired from the show that we all fell asleep! Too bad, it sounded like a hilarious evening.
Apparently, the Karting adventure included not-so-fast Go Karts, buckets of water and Depends (which many had to wear wet while driving around). It would have been worth staying up late to watch Chip Foose Go Kart race in a wet diaper! We’ll definitely have to participate next year.
