Counting Cars show

[DKheld]

Not a big fan but scanning the channels and saw a clip about Elvira and her '59 Tbird. She is apparently friends with Danny - The Count" the owner of the shop and is bringing the '59 Tbird in for some work. Just FYI for you folks that can DVR or find the show by other sources. Could be a re-run.

And now working on a 71 F-100

Wow - now he's found a '70 Torino and just offered 50k and the guy turned him down!

It's a Ford show tonight !!!!!

Eric

[LuckyJay]

The trunck space of the 59 was transformed into a coffin. Don't think I'll be buried in our 60.

[jopizz]

The trunk opened from the back and there was no top frame so it's obviously a hardtop with the top cut off.

[YellowRose]

Counting Cars show

Regarding Elvira and her '59 Tbird.. Alexander knew Elvira and appeared in a Halloween parade with her and her '59 Tbird. He talked about it and her in a couple of threads in the past. It was a '59 hardtop that someone chopped the top off it to make it to appear to be a convertible. It had the spears on the doors and the instrument panel of a '59 he said. He also said it had the Bendix system under the hood. Apparently, he had the opportunity to look the car over really well. Elvira, by the way, is still doing her thing and will be appearing in several LA events this coming month. She has toured around the US this year, England and Canada. Here is a link to what Alexander had to say about her and her Tbird.

http://www.squarebirds.org/vbulletin...ghlight=Elvira

Here is a link to Elvira's website and you can see that Cassandra Peterson is still very active portraying Elvira. I do not know if she still has her Tbird. We have a member with the user id of Elvira58 and we tried to ask him if he now owned her Tbird but he never responded. I don't know why John picked the name of Elvira58 because she had a '59 and not a '58. BTW, the model that was put out of her Tbird was a '58 and not a '59 because they did not have a '59 at that time, Alexander said. Maybe he had a '58 model of Elvira's '59 Tbird.

http://www.elvira.com

[DKheld]

For those that missed it - the show was pretty interesting. Elvira apparently knows a bit about the car saying that it was a hardtop that they "chain-sawed" the top off of etc so that explains the rear opening trunk. She said she had lost track of the car for about 10 years but was glad to have it back now however it was overheating and ran terrible. The shop repainted the car, re-chromed a bunch of parts, complete new lepoard spot interior (it is a custom after all), did some mechanical work and as mentioned made the coffin theme in the trunk. Elvira was super happy with it saying now she had something to be "buried in".

They didn't show any of the work being done - just before and after - the show seems to be more of a "look at me" show for the Count and the reactions from his clients rather than a show to explain what work was done to the cars and how they were completed - but hey - every show has it's own spin.

Still - pretty good though. The Count and Elvira went cruising down the strip at the end of the show in the Tbird. She was laughing saying "everyone thinks were a pretty good impersonation of Elvira" not knowing they were the real thing.....

Ray - you should see if you can get her to join the fun !!!!

Eric

[RustyNCa]

The trunk opened from the back and there was no top frame so it's obviously a hardtop with the top cut off.

Yes, she talked about that fact on the tv show. She said it was the car from the movie she made, and she said something like ... the top was cut off with a chainsaw....

It did look better after then finished with it.

[YellowRose]

Counting Cars show

Here is some additional information regarding Elvira's '59 Tbird. The show last night on "Counting Cars", (the "Satanic Mechanic" show), is scheduled to air again on my AT&T Uverse system tomorrow night, Thursday at 9PM Central Time. On that show, she said, as I recall, that in 1988 after they made the movie, she lost track of the car for about 10 years. I gather she found it and bought it and has had it since. She brought her second Tbird, her '59, to Danny to fix some starting and overheating problems and to bring it back to better condition, which they did. When whoever chopped to top off it I hope they did the strengthening required to prevent the problems a Tbird can have when you do something like that. I remember Alexander and others saying that you can have problems with the body structure and possible cracking of the windshield due to lack of support by cutting the top off without doing the strengthening that a real convertible has built into it at the plant.

I have been a long time fan of Elvira for many years. For those of you who are not familiar with Elvira/Cassandra Peterson, here is here wikipedia information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra_Peterson

Here are some additional comments regarding her first '58 Tbird and the second one she has now, the '59, from automedia.com.

Elvira's George Barris Kustom '58 Thunderbird

From there, Elvira crossed over into movies. For her first film, the namesake Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, Elvira needed a spooky ride in keeping with her ominous yet alluring image. She spotted a black '58 Ford Thunderbird on Melrose Avenue. "That's it!" she cried.

But it was a hardtop, and she wanted a convertible, so Barris and his "kustomizing" crew used a chainsaw to chop off the top. (Sounds like the makings of a massacre movie!) Then they added all sorts of ghoulish embellishments: a spider web in the grille, batwing nose emblem, eyeballs on the fenders, skull-and-crossbones hubcaps, leopard-print velour upholstery, mini-caskets on the center console and trunk lid, skeleton hands, and a chain-link steering wheel with a skull in the center. The one item that Cassandra supplied was a metal hood ornament, a crouching, winged banshee sculpted with her profile.

Signature Cassandra

Once filming was done, the movie's producers offered this mechanically plagued movie prop to her, and she sold it to a photographer, Lynn Goldsmith, who fixed it up and drove it for several years. About 10 years later, Cassandra bought it back, "real cheap" and keeps it at her house in Ojai, California, to this day.

Now here's the kinda creepy part: While there's only one Elvira, the killer queen of pop kulture, there's actually more than one Macabre Mobile. It was reproduced like one of those seedpods from the horror classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers, starring Kevin McCarthy.

Haunting Interior

When we pressed Mr. Barris about the second Macabre Mobile, he notes that there was a need for another one to promote her. Given Elvira's enormous popularity, just one car was not enough. (Consider, too, that there are numerous copies of the Batmobile, plus several Dukes of Hazzard General Lee Chargers and Nash Bridges' Hemi Cuda convertibles).

While the Thunderbird at the Petersen Automotive museum is a knockoff and based on a '59 model instead (the '58 and '59 are very similar, except for a few trim items), it's still legit, since Barris built it, and newspaper photos attest to the fact that Elvira did appear with the car at a Halloween show she did at Knotts' Berry (Scary) Farm. So think of the second car as a genuine tribute to her enduring popularity.

Custom Cobweb Grille

While she's known for skewering B-grade monster movies with a rapier wit on her TV shows, what's her most hated film? Surprise: Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! "It drives me crazy," Cassandra complains. "It's already a parody, so I couldn't poke fun at it."

How about her automotive interests? Another surprise: She actually once dreamed of becoming a racecar driver. (Imagine her in an Indy car instead of Danica Patrick!) But she settled for owning an odd mix of cars over the years, such as a VW Beetle, '69 Firebird, and BMW 740i. Today, she pilots a Prius, and loves it, being the environmentally conscious type in her private life.

More TV shows and movies are in the works, and she's still drawing big crowds at public appearances, where she breezes along in a Barris T-bird while the wolves howl at the full moon and she disappears into the night. Now that's one smokin', spooky ride.

As for Eric's comment regarding writing her and asking her to join us, I certainly intend to do that shortly, after I finish this. We would love to have her as a member of Squarebirds!

[YellowRose]

Counting Cars show

Here are some before and after pix of Elvira's '59 Tbird before she had Danny fix and restore it and after. The next to last pic is of her Tbird on display at the Peterson Museum. The last one is her in the back seat with the two women who impersonate her and help with her shows, so I am told. First the Before pix!

[YellowRose]

Counting Cars show

Now the After pix.

[YellowRose]

Counting Cars show

Some more After pix.

[YellowRose]

Some Pix of Elvira-Cassandra Peterson...

For those of you who do not know who Elvira - Mistress Of The Dark - Cassandra Peterson is, here are some pix of her. I took great care in selecting these, but if you would like to see more of her in her more suggestive poses, just google Elvira and click on the Images button... The last picture is of Cassandra as she looks in real life...

[DKheld]

Thanks for all the work on the pics Ray. It's not often one of the old Squarebirds gets prime time billing on a show - pretty neat.

Sure hope while Danny had the Tbird in the shop he did a front disc conversion. I wonder about a lot of the other details about the car - 352 / 390 / 430 engine etc.

Wow - on a couple of those before pics the grass sure is BIG out there in Cali.....

Eric

[Deblib]

Elvira

Thanks for posting all the great pics. I saw the show and really enjoyed seeing her and the car. It's nice to see someone else enjoy the birds as much as us, and see them get some prime time showing.

[YellowRose]

Counting Cars show

Thanks for the comments. Regarding the grass, Cassandra lives in Ojai, California on the edge of the Los Padres National Forest. So that might explain the grass, though that area is in the central part of the state. Not being able to find her personal email address, I sent one to her business manager and asked him to pass the email on to her. After explaining who I am, commenting on Alexander having met her (from what I read), and what Squarebirds.org is about, I invited her to join the Forum. I have not received a reply yet and don't know if I will. I know that she is scheduled to appear at an event in Indianapolis on Sept. 7-9th. I know that she is on Facebook, but I am not. I tried Facebook recently, but I guess I never learned how to make contact with a few people on Facebook that I wanted to make contact with and never did. So I cancelled my access to it.

I hope that she will join us and be able to answer some of the questions we have regarding what engine and tranny she is using. Also if they did a front disc brake job on the Tbird. I see she does not have AC on the Bird, so that un-complicates things. I can probably get that information from Danny by contacting him. In fact, after I wrote this, I called Count's Kustom's, but did not catch Danny in. I did talk with one of his staff who told me that her Tbird has the OEM 352 engine in it. She said that they mainly did the customization of the Tbird. Someone else fixed other problems it was having. I assume that would have included the starting and overheating problems she was experiencing. She did not know if it has disc brakes on it. I tried to talk with their manager, but he was not available either. I left my contact information for Danny with her, and asked her to pass it on to him when he returns from being out of town.

I will let you know if she replies to me and joins us. She is still pretty busy with her appearances and is on the go a lot. That will probably be especially so as we approach Halloween. I miss her TV show, but I read somewhere that it is in syndication, I think. I will have to do some searching and find out. I used to watch it when it was on.

[GTE427]

I'm with Eric, the grass looks 24x larger than the car, so does the house, gravel, etc...