Planes of fame, scooters, and more…

Sometimes one of the funnest things I get to do is just wander around the CSC plant with my Nikon.   There’s always good stuff going on and every once in a while I’ll sneak in a shot or two that suggests what’s coming down the pike. 

And it’s fun being here.  I mentioned yesterday that we’ve got a full complement of Genuine Scooters in house, and between yesterday afternoon and early this morning I’ve ridden each of the Genuine models that are now in our showroom.  My personal favorite of the Genuine models is the Buddy scooter.  I rode the 125cc version and the 170cc version, and they’re both pretty cool.   The 125cc version I rode was all white with black floorboards, and that monochomatic treatment looks good.   The 170cc Buddy I rode this morning was the two-tone green “Series Italia” model, and I really like that one, too.   Might be fun to ride one of those to Cabo and back just to say I did it.

Hey, a lot of you liked that video I posted last night of the P-51 Mustang firing up.   Here’s another one I like a lot…it’s the “23 Skidoo” P-38 Lightning that’s located just a few miles from here at the Chino Planes of Fame Museum…

A few years ago Bob Brown and crew over at Brown BMW ran an event they called the “Shoot and Scoot” in which amateur photogs like me and my friends met at Brown’s and then rode over to the Planes of Fame museum. I grabbed some pretty nice shots over there, including shots of the very airplane you see in the video above. Bob Brown turned the thing into a photo contest. We all had a grand time.

You know I like photos of motorcycles, and you probably also know I like photos of vintage airplanes. There’s something about a California Scooter that’s evocative of WWII combat aircraft, and that theme even extends to the helmet I wear when I’m on my CSC motorcycle.  Here are a few of my favorites…

That one above is the Ercoupe we photographed just last month.

You might remember Witchcraft, another very cool airplane that landed here at Brackett Airfield last year…it’s a B-24 Liberator with a red Classic CSC motorcycle…

And here’s one of my all time favorites, showing Steve, our Greaser motorcycle, and the airplane that may very well have given the Mustang motorcycle its name…

And of course, as I mentioned above my Baja Blaster helmet is based on a WWII theme…

Of all of the airplanes I’ve photographed, though, that P-51 really stands out in my mind.  The P-51 Mustang.   The Mustang name and that P-51 designation just seem to go together.

Well, that’s enough for today folks…I have another photo from our good buddy Howard on his epic journey through the American West, a picture of a myocardial-infarction-inducing BLT sandwich that Carlos sent in, and a nice note from Dave Larsen at the Mungenast Museum…I’ll post all of these in another day or two.