Pine Wood and Hot Wheels!

Years ago, my daughter, Jessica, was involved in AWANAS at church. One of the yearly events was a pinewood derby race. Now, as you know, I am totally into Hot Wheels. What you don't know is that at the age of about nine, so was Jessica! (Hey, she's always been a cool kid!) Therefore, when it came to building a pinewood racer, you know where we went for inspiration...

Actually, I ended up buildind four cars with her over the years. Each one got a little closer to a real Hot Wheels car. This is the last in the series, when pinewood derby crashed head on into plastic model building and Hot Wheels collecting...I present to you, Jessica's Paddy Wagon!

The car uses plastic model parts on a pinewood chassis. 

The wheels are official pinewood derby wheels with painted hubs.

The plastic parts were glued directly to the wood base.

The bottom of the engine was cut so it would sit correctly on the wood slab.

The panel on the back can be opened so you can access and adjust the weights.

The inspiration- my mint 1970 Hot Wheels Paddy Wagon!

Jessica actually did a lot of the work on the car, although I helped. She took first place in the "Design" catagory! I think she may have won one race.

Now, Jessica is 27, so her pinewood derby days may be in the past. However, her kids (and my grandkids) Ayden and Kyrie are 7 and 5, so there may be racing yet to come!

Until next time keep searching for (and maybe building) treasure!

More Haunted Mansion Treasure....Plus One

Last week I shared a couple of items from my Haunted Mansion stash. However, as I said, those weren't my coolest items. Today, you get to see those!

It is no secret that there would not be a Haunted Mansion without the many creative Imagineers that willed it into being. The "big three" in my book would have to be Marc Davis, X. Atencio, and Rolly Crump. Granted, there were others who were just as, or even more important, but these three really set the tone for the attraction.

Of these three, I have items fron two. First, we have Rolly Crump.

Signed Rolly Crump artwork from the Museum of the Weird. The art in a print, the signature is real.

Rolly Crump worked on many Disney projects, but he was really allowed to go all out on the Museum of the Weird part of the Haunted Mansion. Even though the Museum didn't actually make it into the attraction, Mr. Crump's distinctive style is all over the architecture and furnishings.

Next, we have X. Atencio.

X is standing next to his HM tombstone which reads, Requiescat, Francies Xavier- No time off for good behavior- R.I.P.

You can read this one for yourself. 

X. Atencio actually wrote the script and words to the song for the Haunted Mansion! If you like Pirates better than ghosts, you might be interested to know that he did the same for the Pirates of the Caribbean ride!

All of these items hang in my office at work so they can inspire me during the day.

Now for the "plus one." Here is a signed album from Imagineer Ward Kimball to director George Pal that I just happen to have in my collection. Enjoy!

Quite a story here...but I already wrote about in in Shroudlines- the Blog!

Until next time, keep searching for treasure!

Welcome, Foolish Mortals....

My favorite attraction at Disneyland and Walt Disney World is probably the Haunted Mansion. I have been known to ride it six times in one trip. I just can't seem to get enough of its blend of creepy and funny that only Disney could pull off.

Of course, over the years I have collected various HM related items, ranging from posters to snow globes to watches to shirts...etc...etc... When I was wonderding what to show you from the Attic this week, a couple of things caught my eye...

First, we have a "Doom Buggy!" As you may know, Doom Buggies are the ride vehicles that take you on your tour of the mansion. In this die-cast version, Micky and Goofy are finding an unexpected Hitchhiking Ghost riding along!

This is buggy number "13" because....why wouldn't it be?

Boo!!!

The front of the buggy even opens like on the real ones!

 Next we have a die-cast model of something that sits in front of the WDW mansion...the Black Hearse with invisible horse!

The hearse in the original packaging.

...and out of it! It's hard to see the horse...of course...

So there you have it! To of my favorite HM items....but not my coolest. I think I'll show you those in a future post!

Until next time, keep searching for treasure!