By Tim Odell
Mr. Coop has a pretty good gig. When he’s not working on sweet cars, he’s making some sweet hot-rod art. When he’s not doing either of those, he’s taking pictures of naked ladies (find that link yourself). In his down time, he heads down Mexico way for the running of La Carrera Panamericana.
What’s the Carrera Panamericana? It’s a week long road rally through the heart of Mexico featuring classic cars in full race trim. Technically, the current race is a resurrection of the original, which lasted from 1950-55. Rest assured, the original spirit remains, as a Studebaker has won the race 15 the last 17 years.
The pictures here represent but a small fraction of what Coop’s got stored up in his flickr collection. Do yourself a favor and be sure to check out the whole thing (Warning: his photostream contains stuff that’ll get you in trouble at work). The combination of gorgeous classics, serious race prep and serious race carnage leads to the inevitable conclusion that this is may well tie LeMons for some of the coolest automotive action on the planet.
For a great writeup of how it went, check out Gary Faules’ blog or Bring A Trailer. Ahora tenemos que empezar practicando el Espanol para participar en La Carrera el ano que viene.
Eric Trytko 
Kamil Kaluski
There is not one part of that car above, that is not bad ass
I cannot find fault with that statement. I stared at the grill and bumper for a full minute before checking out the rest of it.
I usually stare at the headlights for a while before checking out the rest.
Wait, what were we talking about?
I’m tempted to just grab my father-in-law’s Mercedes SL230 (similar to the first thumbnail above), enter the race, drive the sh*t out of it, then clean it up and return it, Ferris Bueller style. He’d probably never notice. It’s just a status thing for him and he rarely drives it anymore.
It's before noon, so does this count as morning wood?
Seriously cool stuff. If I wasn't so busy with work I could spend hours on Coop's Flickr stream. Stupid work!
I would someday like to race in La Carerra Panamericana. I just need a car and a team. Neither of which should be too difficult to find, right?
Oh, man I've wanted to get in on this for a long time, way before I discovered (REDACTED), LeMons, and now this nice little corner bar. The Carrera has got to be the most legendary race and potentially the most outrageous adventure possible. I had my buddies here stoked to do it with a '53 Packard Caribbean, but that fell through. I heard somewhere that the race was cancelled because of the drug violence down there, but am glad I'm wrong on that one. The thought of a week long road rally that runs the length of Mexico, along twisty mountain roads, with insane parties every night, driving vintage cars like that lovely Hudson (Paul Newman's smiling down on that one), gets me completely stoked. This is as Hoon as it gets. I wanna do this, badly.
I believe it was re-routed one year (2006) around drug cartel-MX military action in western Michoacan, the year I was supposed to be in Morelia that week when they just happened to be stopping there for a night. Missed it by a week or so…
Other efforts to intersect MX work assignments in Morelia or Chihuahua and the yearly Carrera Panabananas was unfortunately thwarted by the PHBs…
I can read a map. Just sayin'.
Well, I'm practicing my spanish. Where did you get the '53 Packard Caribbean?!
I meant to say Clipper. Yeah, my buddy had a '53 Clipper sedan. Flathead 288 Straight Eight. Ran fine, body was straight and unrusted, interior was trashed. Nobody would feel bad about gutting and caging it. We had a bunch of us here in Tombstone psyched to do the Carrera, but of course it never happened. Unfortunately, someone offered Gene a bunch of money for the car, more than it was worth, and there it went. Too bad.
Pit crew?
Some people just have the perfect life…wish it was me.
I fully endorse any racing done with a Fabulous Hudson Hornet.
Or maybe that one's a Wasp. Who knows.
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That would be so epic to do, and if I had my druthers, I'd do it in an old Chrysler, mostly because I like Mopars, and partly because of a line from ZZ Top's "Mexican Blackbird".
"Let's drive that old Chrysler on down to Mexico"
Heya! Excellent thought, but will this genuinely do the work?
Hey there this is somewhat of off topic but I was wondering if blogs use WYSIWYG editors or if you have to manually code with HTML. I’m starting a blog soon but have no coding expertise so I wanted to get guidance from someone with experience. Any help would be enormously appreciated!