Smokey Yunick will always
inspire
This photo is taken on North Beach Street in Daytona Beach, Florida about the
same time as Smokey
passes away in May 2001. My last visit was too late. www.smokeyyunick.com
July
- 2009
Bye bye!
We moved in here in April 2005 after a whole winter's work to finish it. Now
we move the Impala SS and
equipment to TCDGIT
- our garage at home and will convert from Members to Hangarounds of TBDGIT.
I'm sure we will meet Tommy AGA Olsson and Patrick Wikström and team as
often as before. TBDGIT
is not a place, it's a state of mind. An era ends - a new starts. Thanks buddies
for all the laughters!
Of course, a very sad moment in a way, especially if you look back - scrolling
down:
March 17 - 2008
What
kind of door is this?
Are
there more people, or is it just me who wants pizza when seeing an opening like
this? Or an egg?
The Classic Pizzeria Arc Gate is now to be seen and walked through in TBDGIT
thanks to our
retro designer Tommy Aga!
It
shows that Tommy has been here a lot this winter...I guess it's him because
I haven't been able to be
here so much myself thanks to all the daily work at Dockhouse. I'll be back
in April!
The kitchen will be just
fabulous even if I personally think it takes too much space from the storage
space behind the wall to the right. But I guess we'll manage...
And Thanks Tommy for all the work you do in our garage!
December 8
Stylish
2nd floor
Someone
is still building on the second floor in TBDGIT during the nights!? It seems
like we're gonna
have a nice fence in natural wood bars and polished Stainless. True Scandinavian
simplicity style
but with a twist of hangman's Wild West closer to the ceiling! This "Tomte"
who is creating this when
everybody else sleeps, must have a degree in styling?
November 30
And now what?
Someone is
building on the second floor during the nights!? And the new Stairways To
Heaven isn't even finished... Who can that be? Tomten?
October 28 - November 4
Wow!
Tommy Aga has started to build our new Stairways To Heaven. Looking good. Thanks
Tommy!
Now he has painted it AGA red, a color in which we have painted many things
in our garage.
September 26
TBDGIT proudly presents
The Great
Lathe!
We now have
a lathe in TBDGIT, and a BIG one! A Köping in very good condition and with
complete
everything! Not your ordinary Black & Decker. Christmas came early in 2007!
Hugs and kisses Tommy!
The best there is! Köping! Dig it!
Jonas Mr Al Holt fell on his knees and prayed "I buy it!"
"The lathe is an ancient tool, dating at least to the Egyptians
and, known and used in Assyria,
Greece, the Roman and Byzantine Empires. The
origin of turning dates to around 1300 BC
when the Egyptians first developed a two-person lathe..."
I
just love WIKIPEDIA
June 6
I
asked my very handy and practical wife Agneta if she could help us out and make
the clinker bricks
floor in our new bathroom in TBDGIT, since she just finished the work with our
laundry room at home.
-Of course, she said and brought her own cutter and after a couple of hours
it was finished...
Wow!
She will make the edging of 1/3rd bricks when wallpaper is done.
Tommy and his daughter Theresia made the choice of these fine clinker bricks,
which are more
greyish in real life than in this capture.
June 5
Tommy prepared
the floor with moist stopper / wet blocker (or what the right English word would
be?)
Multi-skilled Tommy
"AGA" Olsson is always doing some work with the garage.
June 2
Bathroom - Week 2
Look
how nice they're doing it, Tommy Aga and Christoffer Brådfors! It's not
an indoor shed, it'll be a
fully integrated bathroom with all the wetroom necessities, right kind of floor
and everything that the
official Swedish building rules demands!
Spotlights
and special gypsum floor boards. Nice!
May 22
Bathroom - Day 2
Christoffer
totally exhausted after an evening of good, hard work! Only a 5 minute break
for coffee.
May 21
TBDGIT
suddenly towards civilization!
Finally we
decided to hire a professional carpenter - Christoffer Brådfors - to have
this bathroom done on
second floor! We always thought - and believed - that we should do it ourselves,
on some
"spare time" Ha! =) In the forefront Tommy's Easter Cadillac Sedan
De Ville (Later They Wanted)...
Serious amount of material is already in place thanks to our terrific fork lift.
However,
Tommy did already pre-prepare for it when we built the garage, with electricity,
water plumbing
and drain plumbing. Now we'll soon have WC, water heater, wash and a shower.
After that we'll go
forward with our kitchenette, fika-table and chairs, sofa-bed etc.
This project will of course help our every long day garage life but also be
to great satisfactory at all our
future parties when we don't need to rent those awful Utedass, Bajamaja, Porta
Porti or
in straight English - Shit Happens...
April 30 2007
Chilling out Walpurgis (Valborg)
It was very
hectic in TBDGIT today.
At least I got five hours over the day beginning to take out engine
and transmission.
Then
we had a small party just for ourselves. Not all of us were home, Agneta and
Axel are at
the cottage this week while I'm working with the Blackout SS. But the rest of
us took
advantage of our garage again and had an easy Walpurgis spring celebration.
The Swedish tradition is called Valborg, check interesting facts here:
WALPURGIS
NIGHT
Tommy had an excellent bar-b-q on the outside where he also recently
had these three new
lamps mounted. It will be possible to work on the cars outside on dark warm
nights.
Top Fuel Thore shows how he will carry out one of the toolboxes. I think.
Cosy.
Of
course also Team OFAB Thriller began to assemble parts into the newly powder
painted
Pro Mod Camaro chassie. What was the first part that went in?
Yea. It's
a raggerbile!
September 2 2006
The Crazy Razy Crayfish Party!
Start signal! Revving race cars arrive directly from the street to the doorstep!
Frank Gudmundsen in his 500 ci AA/A Comp Trans Am and Michael Karlsson in his
1915 cc VW!
Applauses and cheers! That certainly got all hearts pumpin' and the spirits
high! IT'S PARTY TIME!
All about the parties here: >Parties
July 1 2006
Bar-b-que,
drag racing and loud music match well together.
Agneta and Tommy doing the math. Figuring out the diameter of a balancer
knowing the circumference
only. Agneta used one life line when calling her daddy Thore Roth. The answer
was 8 inches. Cheers!
It
should be like this always.
We made a 40,2 meter long dragstrip (1/10th of the full length quartermile)
and during the evening the
kids developed an advanced handicap system, even if Niclas seemed to bug the
system since he was
going quicker and quicker...
Niclas
Wikström's cool bike. My God what he pedaled all evening, without getting
tired as well.
Top
Fuel Thore helped Axel to do a burnout.
Simon Wikström always had to give handicap.
Brasil out after an exciting game versus France in the World Cup! Who could
ever imagine that?
"We live here"
May 8 2006
Finally the
SS-art is decorating my corner at TBDGIT - The Best Damn Garage In Town! I got
it from
Uncle Rick "LoveSS" in Atlanta at the SSHS5-race in November 2005.
Take a look here!
July 18 2005
Sweet summer nights!
June 24 - Midsummer Party 2005
We had a sunny Midsummer Party in our garage. More pics later. Click this one
to see a mega-version!
May 22 2005
This half of the garage has been very busy the last days...click it
to enjoy close up.
Anxious moments! New motor start up. Oil? Temp? Fuel pressure? Ignition? KP
leaning over engine,
Tore walking around and around car in search of anything. They've been working
around the clock this
weekend! But everything's perfect. Good luck at Pro Mod Series opener at Santa
Pod next weekend!
May 12 2005
At last! The Impala SS in its place in the Best Damn Garage
in Town! We've painted the ceiling and
Tommy installed the electrics for the fluorescent
lamps and then it was Go Ahead!
A lot of space around the car, all doors could be opened and still a lot of
space.
Blackout SS and
I just love this place! Now we want to have the company of Tommy and his giant
Lincoln Mark V called The Great White. Click image to see the Big picture!
May 7 - 2005
It takes time even if we are 4 people on it with all kinds of
brushes and rollers. And it is TWO times...
May 3 - 2005
Ulf made the second floor today in very good speed! Next step is the ceiling
underneath and fluorescent
lamps and the stairs which we decided to have on the wall. Click this picture
to see a larger one!
Tommy is finished with the Workbench of his Dreams! Is there a competition for
Workbenches....?
May
2 - 2005
Regarding
how careful they would be with their new bench - I was wrong!
Everything
- and everybody - were on the bench tonight as they
mounted Patrick's tool wall panels. And engine all over.
April 30 - 2005
Patrick back
in town, eager to join us in all the happy work in TBDGIT. He and Goofy boarded
their
Pro Mod workbench (double the length of Tommy's and mine) and topped it with
stainless.
What can you say? Stainless is stainless. But I know how it will sound from
this part of the garage:
"NO NO! CAREFUL WITH THE BENCH!!! They will probably work on the floor.
April 28 - 2005
What a happening!
At last we have the second floor! The two Swedish snickers (carpenters) to the
far
right built this in one day! We don't know exactly how they did it but we are
sure that they must have had
some terrific fika along the day! Now we will build the stairs, floor, walls,
restroom, store etc. ourselves.
Click the pictures to get really BIG versions!
From Tommy's Lincoln corner. Click it!
Second floor. Spacious!
Ulf "Goofy" Shöllin is not only an OFAB Pro Mod team member,
he is
also a carpenter which you find out very quickly on an evening
like this! Tommy is curious of my MDF boarding solution...
I chose to use a laminate floor on top. I believe in a hard surface. If broken
it can be changed (no glue).
And I wanted a pale color to make all work easy so I chose Björk - Birch.
I'm from Umeå
you know - the
Town Of Birches (there are 3000 birches in that town!). I'm happy but I just
love Tommy's racebench!
April
27 - 2005
We painted our work benches last night. Tommy boarded his bench and then he
and Ulf had a lot
of trimming to do. After that they nailed a layer of fine Swedish Masonite
fiber board to get an even
surface. I've chosen a much more lazy solution, an MDF-board.
Very Hot Rod! Tommy found this kitchen plastic floor on a roll at Hornbach's.
In this environment it
of course turns into RACING extra ordinary! He glued this mat onto the Masonite.
Micke Westberg,
who is the manager for Lars-Inge Johansson's Pro Mod '66 Chevelle station wagon,
came by and had
good ideas on the trimmings. I love Tommy's Racing Bench, but I will have another
design.
April
24 - 2005
The
Pro Street side! Tommy has welded work benches for all of us and he has put
air pressure outlets
everywhere! And electric sockets. Next step is to paint the benches, bolt them
to the floor and making
the top boards for them and mount the wises and tool wall panels. And soon we'll
have the
second floor above us. Thanks Tommy! Click it for a little larger picture!
March 20 - 2005
It
can't be luck only... Patrick's awards from his Pro Mod career so far (some
are still at home!)
Tommy "Aga" Olsson is the 1st interior designer in our garage and
is always getting something done.
We're still awaiting the professional carpenter team to help us to make the
second floor on the other side.
While
"Top Fuel Thore" and "Goofy" enjoy socializing with some
black
coffee - as the rest of us - Tommy is working working working with
the garage. Now he's doing the water and the electrical, and still
has the time to be very social.
A
great idea! Family
Bar-b-que at the garage (inside the garage, actually!) We filled the garage
with the
feeling of a pit area at the races and it really made us believe in summer again!
Annelie Olsson and Axel
were the chefs. We also had a lot of visits during this weekend, the door was
slamming all the time.
Hot
Rod Hot Dog with all extras, also the "Bostic" cucumber. Have you
seen Axel? Nah...last time I saw
him he was behind Patricks Camaro...
January 2 - 2005
OFAB Pro Mod clutchman "Top Fuel Tore" Axelsson was
curious of the garage project and came to visit us.
First test of half the garage. This is the right color of the floor. Grey. Following
pictures can show
different colors but it's because of the difficult blended light from outside
and inside lamps.
Agneta and Axel came with
fika. Swedes need to fika many times a day. Everybody fika.
Then everybody works better.
Fika. Coffee and kanelbulle.
Cinnamon bun.
Axel's good friend Tommy let him help with funny things. We moved all the things
once more.
Then after vacuumcleaning it was time to paint.
It takes time to paint 240 square meters - 2 times - but we were five painters
tonight so it was
only an hour. Moving all our things and vacuumcleaning took 4 hours.
When the floor was covered at last, it was of course time for another fika.
Janusz
covered the last spot. Tomorrow we'll paint
the second - and last - layer of the grey paint.
December
30
- 2004
First
layer has dried since yesterday, in the first half of the garage. Tommy awaits
to begin with the
second layer. Patrick and I were also painting tonight.
Tommy
also had the serious responsability as the blender.
Drip drop...
Now
this will dry until next year before we move all the stuff over again to paint
the
second half of the garage. We talk every day about our Garage Opening Party...
December 29 - 2004
The
walls and roof are done, now it's time to paint the floor. Patrick is using
laser to get the
masking tapes straight.
Patrick
and Tommy are concentrating on the blending of the special floor paint. We want
grey but
first it looked like chocolate milkshake. It is decided by the gram...
December 27 - 2004
The painting now done to 75 %! We're aiming to finish it this year!?
It's always amazing to see the differences when new paint is applied, no matter
where.
"Let there be light"
December 18
- 2004
Here's something for Zeke - the puffing Big Bad Wolf.
The original. www.smokeyyunick.com
Goofy was painting when I arrived. He and Tony did the painting on second floor.
Tommy and Jaanus were the ground support. I took this picture.
Tonight half the garage will be painted. Tomorrow the other half. Hopefully.
It is getting really bright!!!
Whiteout.
December
2
- 2004
OFAB
Motorsports crewmen Tommy "Aga" Olsson and Ulf "Goofy" Schöllin
are filling the walls under the
supervision of Patrick Wikström. Now everything is happening very quickly
in the new garage.
The walls will be painted on saturday!
"Hello Smokey!? It's Anders from Bilsport Magazine in Sweden!! I called
you a week ago! Smokey!!"
"Yea yea...just wait a little, damn'it!"
www.smokeyyunick.com
November
27
- 2004
The new aluminium port with a lot of windows amuses us very much!
Bzzzz...dink! Yes, we like!
The isolated long wall is
finished. The carpenters did a very good job!
Now we have moved all our
things into the new garage. Patrick's and my things are mixed which could be
an advantage for me when next season starts? All our stuff and the Impala SS
is placed 2 meters off the
walls because still much work remains. To tear down the wooden panel, to fill
and paint the walls.
And to build the second floor (on the other side) And to paint the floor in
two steps. And more...
Patrick and his youngest
son Niklas were happy to roll the Camaro into the new garage!
The Good Guy!
Bertil Karlsson - "Farbror Bertil" (Uncle Bertil) is the owner of
OFAB / Orust Fartygsservice AB (shipping)
which is the main sponsor of Patrick Wikström's Pro Mod circus. Bertil
is the owner of this building
which the Best Damn Garage in Town is a part of. Of course Bertil is also the
sponsor of this major
rebuild! We owe him a lot. You can almost see that Tommy is in love with Farbror
Bertil...
Finally
together in the soon to be Best Damn Garage in Town! Europe's quickest and fastest
Pro Mod
and Europe's quickest and fastest Impala SS. We are awaiting something that
may well be the World's
quickest and fastest Lincoln Mark V...
November 19 - 2004
The carpenters have been
working a couple of days with the panels and isolation. When the long wall
is completed they'll move on to the short walls and after that they'll build
the second floor on top of that
side where you see Tommy talking in his mobile phone. That will be the Pro Street
Side for the Lincoln
Mark V and Impala SS projects. The other side will be the Pro Mod Side for Patrick's
Camaro.
November
14 - 2004
Patrick Wikström inspects
the perfect concrete floor in The Best Damn Garage in Town. He and Tommy have
also changed all the fluorescent lamps in the ceiling. We are waiting for the
carpenters to come and do the rest.
October 2 - 2004
The work with "The Best
Damn Garage In Town" continues a little quicker after the racing season
is over. The floor will be
casted next week. We work on our cars in the garage next door until this is
finished in November - December. Patrick
Wikström will have his Pro Mod area over there and over here you'll find
a white Lincoln Mark V and a black Impala SS.
On the outside we have a
channel in from the Göta river which runs through Gothenburg. This is an
large area with only
industrial estates and industrial stores. We can't think of a better place to
be.
Inside here, so much has been invented and developed in the automotive business
that has affected all
of us. Smokey's place in Daytona Beach is now closed for ever. I felt very sad
to be here again in 2001
when Henry "Smokey" Yunick himself wasn't. He will always be missed
and will always inspire!
www.smokeyyunick.com
