Jan 28, 2010 02:30 PM
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Detroit, 3:51 AM
Sat Jul 31
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There are few people in this country who appreciate American hot rods more than the wonderfully inventive Johannes Rojola of Finland. A gallery of his detailed and creative builds of V8-powered 1970s muscle machines, and his philosophy, below.
"Well I have been gear head for all my life and have this special interest on true American power machines," says Rojola.
And not just any cars, many of these are modeled on the designs of famous hot rodders like Tom Daniels and George Barris.
"As I feel more of a Hot Rodder, I never usually build any stock type of cars. I like to tune them in a way I would do in real world (if I could). Sometimes I also like to build interesting but hardly known cars, like Cotton Picker Dart."
The "Cotton Picker" Dart is an interesting part of history. When NASCAR banned the HEMI driver Dave Pearson decided to compete in drag racing and used the rear-engined HEMI-powered Dart wagon. The Vanbulance was a popular Tom Daniels design with a passenger seat-mounted supercharged V8.
Creating one of these beauties takes anywhere from a few hours for the small cars to days for the bigger ones.
"I start building the cars by having an idea of car that I want to build. Then I just gather some reference pictures from Internet and car magazines. For bigger cars I have special techniques of calculating measurements from blueprints when available or from pictures. I want to make these car look as much real thing as possible, together with interiors, engines and drivetrains."
The technique is wonderful, approximating the vehicles in what is a somewhat restricted the medium.
"All the way from childhood, Lego from being a toy has become a technique of making my personal "car dreams" in to some kind of concrete form."
Looking at these, we're dreaming with you. You can see more cars, including a truly awesome Cougar, at his flickr page.
Send an email to Matt Hardigree, the author of this post, at matt@jalopnik.com.
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
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