Herman III

January 11, 2008:

Hallelujia, yet another Cushman on the block, that makes #5 for me. I firmly believe there's almost no such thing as too many Cushmi.

But anyway, some pics.

It's the weirdest Cushman ever, the missing link between Cushmans and Interceptors. Note the sliding hard doors, the covered storage area between the cab and the trunk, the metal framed cab, the side windows...

It came from the fancy pants town of Hillsborough (6th richest town in America!) so it's super plush: automatic transmission, 10 extra inches of legroom.. Yes, that means it's 10 inches longer than most Cushman, and yes I still park perpendicular to the curb, more on that later... But you might have noticed the roof is a bit strange.

I got it off Craigslist, the first fruits of my new little program CraigsWatcher. But it's funny, you couldn't see that the roof was missing in the original Craigslist ad... The text did say "needs upholstery, top, and one side window", but somehow I missed that little three letter word in the middle there. And the pictures were shot from the perfect angle to obscure its rooflessness. No biggie, who needs a "top" when you have waterproof upholstery and jumper cable clips...

But the problem with having nothing on your roof is you get graffitied. I don't know what it is about grafitti kids, but if you have a Cushman that's looking a bit shabby, you have grafitti in the morning. Damn critics.

So I'm officially in the market for a roof mascot to keep an eye on things. I have a piece of wood cut for a roof and a nice skylight dome so I'm thinking about making it the bubble car.

I made a nice wide seat so two people can fit, and it's nice and comfy since it's got that side wall. And note my state-of-the-art thriftshop soundsystem: a pair of 12 volt computer speakers wired right into the dash ($3) and a diskman ($5). Sounds pretty good actually.

Only 22,000 miles:

March 24, 2008: Meet the Bushman

After going through most of the rainy season with that "ragtop" I finally got a roof, just in time for San Francisco's rainless summer.

 
Windows for the doors even! Some architecture company was giving away craploads of plexiglass that they used in some exhibit and Jackie scooped it all up. So the tentative name for what was once The Charriot is now The Plexiglass Palace.... And note the temporary license plate since some helpful person stole my old one.

Another view of the front all nice and bulbous.

 
You might have noticed something green inside...

 
When you're completely surrounded by windows, you sort of have to grow some plants...

So I took some of my extra legroom and put a big pot. Growing some passionflower, which is growing amazingly fast.

Really fun to watch its progress. It grows little spirals that flop around in the wind (or, in my case, from the bumps in the road) looking for things to grab.

And when they find something they grab hard.

The passion flowers and I both love this twine.

Here's the view looking up into the skylight. I mounted the skylight to a piece of wood and figured I'd sidestep the issue of centering it on the hole by going the amoeba route. And note the twine under the roof, hopefully soon to be vine encrusted.

Gah! Still got graffittied.

 
I modified the Cushman logo on the side somewhat. I think I'm going with "Bushman". Some other names I tossed around were "The Greenhouse", "The Bush" (my favorite but everyone now winces whenever you say "bush"), "The Carbon Footprint"... But I like Bushman. The only problem is that Bushman guy who works down in Fisherman's Wharf. But its ok, I thoroughly stand in solidarity with Fisherman Wharf's Bushman.

March 26, 2008: The Horny Bushman

What are those red things across the top of the Bushman?

Yup, airhorns...

They play La Cucaracha obnoxiously loudly. I mean really really holy shit loudly.

Actually I should say they almost plays La Cucaracha... I got two of the pipes mixed up but can't figure out which two, and the thing is so damn loud it's hard to troubleshoot without getting troubleshot. Here's the air compressor and sequencer mechanism mounted just inside the windshield.

I mounted the stereo in the trunk, safe and sound. I turn it on from a switch on the dash and have a little 1/8" jack for an ipod or whatever next to my seat. It cracks me up every time I get to drive around in an old metermaid buggy blasting hiphop.

A view of the planter in the rear, not sure what I'm going to do with that yet. Margie gave me a baby fig tree, but I'm not sure if that will handle the rigors of potholes, intense sun and crackheads, so I'm thinking maybe some jasmine?

Time will tell how long my crackhead overlords will let me keep the airhorns and the plants...

March 28, 2008: The Department of Silly Little Cars

I've always wanted to make faux official stickers for the sides, so here we have it. Note the latin motto, my favorite part. The silhouette is from The Photoboof, which was what I had handy, but I'm hoping I'll convince myself to swap that for a regular Cushman profile. But I don't know, I really like the crown. The thick outer ring is to give me a little slack when cutting.

If you want to futz with the Photoshop source files, they're here, modifications definitely welcomed. I printed it onto glossy photo sticker paper (about $1/sheet) and cut them into 6" circles using a circle cutter. The little white dot in the center is to help me place the needle of the circle cutter.

I sprayed one with Krylon Preserve It, which claims to double the life of digital prints, and some UV goo. It gives the stickers a nice gloss, feels like vinyl actually. We'll see how much better the treated sticker does than the untreated one...

Here it is mounted on my door.

Here's the Bushman in his nightly resting spot, looking like an official silly little car.