TBD

TBD

TBD

Let it Slide!

Ratiki, the HouseOspeed tiki wagon

1. Meet "Ratiki", the HOS shop truck, aired down and ready for its close-up. The idea was to  build a sixties custom beach wagon, using design touches that borrowed liberally from woodies, nomads, with a definite West Coast surf wagon vibe. 

2. Built in Austin, Texas, our 1965 Chevrolet Suburban received a full-frame up restoration. Among its many custom touches are the numerous tiki and bamboo details painted by Austin artist, "CRASH!"

3. The tiki grill was a collaboration between myself and Crash. I made the figures and Crash did the painting. Each individual piece is unique. The tikit also adorn the roof rack. More on that later.

4. The engine is a 383 stroker block, built for torque. The tranny is a 700/R4 4-Speed automatic.

5. Even the lettering has been painted in a bamboo motif.

6. The roof rack is a one-off design by EB Effect Lab of Austin Texas. Everett Byron built the rack from scratch using mild steel tubing. A particularly nice touch is the integrated fold down rack.

7. The door panels use a vintage style barkcloth, which I sourced from Hawaii.

8. The seats use a pearl white vinyl. The goal was to make the seats look like vintage lowbacks. We chopped a pair of 90's Honda buckets, adding bolsters to shape the seat more like a sixties chevy.

9. The headliner consists of bamboo which I installed a single split shoot piece at a time.

10. The dash is faced with a seagrass material I found at Pier One. The gauges are from Mooneyes and the tilt steering column is from Ididit, painted by Crash.  The skull hangs from the rear view mirror and keeps an eye on things.

11. Sea grass mats were made by Fat Lucky's and finish off the truck nicely. Thanks for reading.

One of my favorite tiki inspired rides

As I was doing research for the HouseOspeed/HotRodShiftKnob 29 Model A roadster, I came acroos a car I've always loved and in looking at the shots fell back in love all over again. I first saw it at a Mooneyes X-Mas party in '94.  The car was called LB Tiki and was built by a guy named Ivan with an assist on the interior by Tiki Diablo.

John Cooper's El Tiki

Here's a cool car that has a lot of neat details. I've been spending some quality time admiring this build and you may want to as well. The link will take you to an entire article with even more pics. Enjoy!

Sorry for the delay

Mahalo, Hot Rod Tiki fans. I've kinda dropped the ball on adding to this post as I've been blogging a lot
on the builds of the Hot Rod Shift Knob 1929 Ford Model A Roadster and the 1926 Ford T coupe that's waiting in the wings. But enough about those. Thanks for your patience. Here's a few shots of Ratiki, the HouseOspeed tiki truck. For more there's a nice post on Suede-and-chrome.com as well as http://www.cardomain.com/ride/3140075. Promise to stop in again back sooner!

Long time no tiki

Sorry it's been so long. We just returned from the Lone Star Round Up show, where we had the HouseOspeed booth up and running and launched our new sister business, HotRodShiftKnob.com. Tikiphiles might be interested to know that we now have a wide selection of tiki style shift knobs for sale, finished, unfinished and kustom-painted for the discrimintaing teek freek. Take a peek @hotrodshiftknob.com. Mahalo!