1933 Chevy 2-Door Sedan
Over the 4th of July weekend, Joannie and I traveled to Dallas, Wisconsin to create a fantastic light painting of a 1933 Chevy 2-Door Sedan. A better way to describe the current state of this vehicle would be that “it was” a Chevy 2-Door Sedan. It has been transformed into a really hot Rat Rod!
Here’s what my setup looked like prior to the light painting of the Rat Rod.
I met the car’s owners, Tim & Sabrena, at Motorhead Madness in Duluth, Minnesota this past spring. They were the winners of my Grand Prize drawing for a $2000 Light Painting Gift Certificate! They were both very excited when I contacted them about their win! We just had to wait for summer to arrive and find a place to create their one-of-a-kind artwork. Much more on that shortly.
About That Rat Rod…
This beauty began with the body of a 1933 Chevy 2-Door Sedan with a frame and suspension that are custom-built. The paint job isn’t a paint job at all, it’s actually “natural patina.” Patina is a chemical process that happens naturally when metal is left to the elements. When viewed from a distance, it looks like an actual paint job (it did get a clear coat for its light painting), but it’s really all done by Mother Nature!
My name is “Rat Bastard.”
The Chevy’s body has been chopped 3″, sectioned 3″, and then channeled over the frame. Under the hood, (if it had one), is a 331 cubic-inch Cadillac Engine, that when started up, sounds just as cool as you think it should!
This is the second vehicle of this style that I’ve light painted in the past couple of months. The 1927 Spirit T Roadster light painting that I created for Brian down in Osage Beach, Missouri is similar in body style only. Both cars are truly one-of-a-kind!
Brian’s finished artwork!
Check out that cool 1927 Spirit T Roadster light painting at this link.
I believe that this car might also be a distant relative of a 1940 Chevrolet 2-Door Sedan that I light painted for Luke in Cambridge, Minnesota last summer.
The completed light painting of “TinMama”!
Check out that amazing 1940 Chevrolet 2-Door Sedan light painting here.
Auburn Rod and Custom
The 1933 Chevy 2-Door Sedan’s owners, Tim & Sabrena Schilla, are the proud owners of Auburn Rod and Custom located in New Auburn, Wisconsin. When you check out some of the vehicle restorations on the shop’s Facebook Page, Tim’s restoration work speaks for itself! The Rat Rod is no exception!
Here’s what my camera captured prior to the light painting of the Rat Rod.
Here’s the link to visit Auburn Rod and Custom’s Facebook Page.
Cahoon’s Garage – The Vintage Gas Station
I mentioned earlier that Tim was looking for a unique location to create his one-of-a-kind light painted artwork. Well, he hit the jackpot with this one!
The vintage gas station, which goes by the name of Cahoon’s Garage, is just as cool as the Rat Rod! The backstory on it is so interesting that you could write a book about it (and someone probably should)! It’s located in the town of Dallas, Wisconsin on the corner of 2nd Avenue & Anderson Street (what’s not to like about that street name?).
Upon our arrival in town, we met up with Tim and his wife Sabrena, and their daughter Sadie. We also got to meet the station’s owners, Corey and LaVonne Cahoon, along with their son Gage. The Chevy was already unloaded from its travel trailer and in place at the front of the building. And, unknown to me at the time, Corey had physically removed the stop sign from the corner of the street with an excavator (because it was in the way)!
We took a quick tour of the place before setting up all of our light painting gear. When you’re visiting with the Cahoons as they show you around, you can just feel how proud they are of the history of this building and what it means to them to have restored it for their town.
A Former Oldsmobile Dealership
The building began as an Oldsmobile Dealership over 100 years ago! It was originally owned by the Sylvan Ellefson Family. At the end of the evening, LaVonne took us into the fully restored office. There, she shared some of the history of the building with newspaper articles and much more. Then we visited with Corey and Gage as well (after Corey had reinstalled the stop sign back into the pavement). It was fascinating to hear some of the stories about this wonderful piece of history and some of its really unique contents. It’s too bad it was so late, I’m sure we could have visited for hours!
The fully restored office at Cahoon’s Garage.
On this post-light painting tour, we discovered that Corey loves to collect and preserve all kinds of pieces of history. Inside, there’s a collection of unique cars, trucks, boats, motorcycles, signs, antique toys, and so much more. As they say on the station’s website: “If it’s badass we collect it.” Joannie and I can confirm that, yes, they certainly do!
Cahoon’s Garage has its very own website! Here’s the link!
Light Painting the Rat Rod
After our short tour on the front end of the evening, we got to work deciding on the camera angle that looked best to showcase the 1933 Chevy 2-Door Sedan and Cahoon’s Garage as well. Once that was decided, I finished my equipment setup, captured a nice starting image, and then we waited for it to get dark enough to light paint everything.
Since it was only about a week after the longest day of the year, daylight-wise, we couldn’t get too serious about light painting until after 10:00 pm. I did manage to capture the sky that I ended up using as the sun was setting. It was a really beautiful sunset, but it wasn’t behind the station. However, the clouds that were visible did pick up some of the sunset colors which were really pretty.
The finished one-of-a-kind light painted artwork of a 1933 Chevy 2-Door Sedan.
All-in-all, we took nearly 350 exposures that Friday night and the finished artwork used nearly 100 of them! Our short “Build Video” that we have on our YouTube channel is linked to the blog post at the bottom of the page so you can see what went into creating this one-of-a-kind artwork.
A big thank you to Tim, Sabrena, and Sadie, for the opportunity to meet all of you and to light paint your fabulous Rat Rod! And a second big thank you to Corey, LaVonne, and Gage for your hospitality and the use of your wonderful landmark! We loved meeting you as well and we hope that our paths cross again real soon. – M&J