Anyone ever seen anything about how AA got up onto his roof platform? The photo of him on the roof of his Pontiac shows no signs of a ladder anywhere. True, old Detroit steel was strong enough to permit stepping from the bumper to the fender to the hood and climbing up on the rack but what about his gear? Once it was set up that way down was blocked. Anyone here who maybe saw him do it once? Or maybe in a film?
He used a mule to carry his gear up there.
--Darin
The hood maybe?Originally Posted by Chauncey Walden
In this image you can see he had a ladder that hooked onto one side. It looks very much like the type of ladder that is sold for getting in and out of a lake boat.
And in this image (different car), a ladder off of the tailgate:
On a modern car, I would want to build this type of platform by punching holes in the roof and running steel pipes straight down to the car's frame rails (if it has them, not all cars do anymore) or some other structurally strong point in the car. Seal off the holes with rubber gaskets around the pipes (which would be painted of course). Then build the platform on top of that. If you stripped the interior out of the car yourself, you could then take the car to a 4x4 or auto racing shop and have their roll cage builder create the platform for you out of mild steel. You could then spraypaint it or brush the paint on yourself. I'd estimate a total cost of $1000-3000 depending on you much you did yourself and how good of a welder you want to pay for.
Note that Ansel's earlier car, the platform is just mounted to the rain gutters like any Yakima or Thule rack would have been. Perhaps if you have a car with a strong roof and a long rain gutter / multiple rack mounting points, you could build a platform like this just with a wood board and four or more cross bars on the rain gutters. My choice would be an older Volvo or Mercedes station wagon with rain gutters. The old Volvos had very strong roofs (relative to cars of the era) for protection in rollover crashes. Volvo used to advertise this: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...57aaffda49.jpg for example
Overkill.
One 200 lb person and a plywood platform with tripod attached is fine even on a modern car. They are stronger than you think. Crash test dummies tell us so.
Just go to the neighbors and walk all their the hood, roof and trunk. It will bend and scratch and he will shoot you...yet I seen 3 motorcycles all on one car roof at the same time. They rode up there.
But a beater anything is pretty darn strong even these days. If you don't care, the car certainly won't.
Any Ford van is a tank. That's what I would use. Nothing could hurt my 1999 E150. I suggest fitting 2x4's to the roof line and glueing them in place with that marine goo we have been discussing and through bolting painted with sand 3/4" CDX plywood straight through the 2X4's and van roof with back up plates on the inside.
I have done this. But have no pics of my AA vehicle.
Here is a 1987 shot of my Dragon bolted just like I describe on a 1969 Cutlass. I also painted that car in 20 minutes with a roller. Two 1/2" bolts were good to 50 mph. Even Draggy stayed together.
Tin Can
Thanks, Fishbulb. That explains it (note though that the rack is not attached to the gutter on the Pontiac but the upright rails of the frame - not so much doable on a hardtop). They were on the old IH Carryall (or were they Travelalls then?) but they were cast iron so it didn't matter. Randy, good ideas on the van but the dragon car explains a lot;-)
.
Tin Can
gotta love the boat ladder
Did you take the dragon to Burningman?
No that was the mid 80's, I knew nothing of BM at that time, if it even existed.
One day I just decided to create him and shortly he was riding the car. First Art ever made by me.
A decade later I sold a shrink, three 1/4 scale Baby Dragon's for his office. My first and last Art sale, that I have always regretted. I can never see them again. However I still have 3 of the 7 babies. 4 lost to heathens. The 3 adult ones all died from lack of a quiet place to sleep. Dragons never get a break...
Of course I failed to show in that picture his large red illuminated male organ. Women always had to touch it. Not kidding.
Tin Can
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