Jalopnik
I first met JT Nesbitt in August 2005, when he was the most famous motorcycle designer in the world. I was in New Orleans to profile him, which I did in an article titled "Mafia, Guns, Sex Toys and Hurricanes." It's that hurricane that changed things. A few months later I finally got JT on the phone. He was at work, at his new job in a gay bar, cleaning used condoms out of the toilet with his bare hands. But even Katrina couldn't keep JT down for long. Last September he headed to the Bonneville salt flats to attempt to set a speed record in a Lincoln Mark VIII he salvaged from New Orleans' flood waters. The documentary Salt Dreams tells that story.
I joined JT and his rag tag team of Big Easy misfits on that trip, resulting in a feature that appeared in 0-60 magazine's second issue. He never did set that record, but by pushing himself and his team beyond their breaking points, by focusing himself on a new project, and by inspiring people throughout his hometown, I think JT found himself again.
Salt Dreams premieres April 2, at One Eyed Jacks in the French Quarter.
[Via Hell For Leather]
Gallery Photos: Grant Ray
Comments
I really <3 Mark VIII's. If memory serves, one of the print ads had a black on black one with heavily tinted windows and the headline, "Lord Vader, Your Car is Ready." Too true.
Misfits doesn't even begin to describe those degenerates.
Sensible move, to go from flooded New Orleans to the dryest place in ths US.
@Brian B: That tag line was actually for the Impala SS. [stangbangers.com]
you can get a flood-damaged car pretty cheap, right? sounds like a LeMons Special to me...
Wes, your article in 0-60 about the Stinkin' Linkin was one of my favorite car magazine features. Phenomenal story, phenomenally recorded. I'm definately going to check this documentary out.
Excellent! Ran into this car a couple times down in the quarter, it's audible several blocks away. Gonna try and make the premiere.
@smokyburnout: Many of them are destroyed now, actually...the time for that was in 2005-2006. They were collecting them up under the interstates, it was this weird illicit junkyard with homeless people living in it. Had a bad post-apocalypse movie vibe.
@ApolloV:
Great ad, but I can't help but wonder how much better things would have been if the black-only policy had been continued for '95 and '96 models. Too many of those cars were ordered in that purplish burgundy that's just such a turn off.
@EricMerrill: Thanks Eric, glad you liked it.
Wes
I'm going to assume this doesn't have those nifty rolling doors...
So, they tried to set a land speed record in a Lincoln? I don't care about classes or whatever, they deserve some sort of honourary record - world's fastest pimpmobile? I dunno, it's just all so soaked with win.
@EricMerrill: I'll second this. I'm going to have to pick this book up now that I just finished The Driver
@cq: Yeah, there was a great show on discovery channel or such about all the huge grinders of various materials -trees, building materials, white goods(stoves,frigs, washers), cars brought in to dispose of the flood damaged materials from Katrina. The description of the white goods processsing was insane due to the way they handled the refrigerators with high pressure hoses and the literal 20' pole on a track loader yet the rotting materials inside were still evil...
the lincoln with the blower through the hood makes me want to see a mad max remake, staring said lincoln
@econobiker: oh god, the refrigerators. I was trying to block those memories out.
What were they using for the cars? I'll have to admit I only saw where they stored them.
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