BangShifter Newell Ruggles sent us some great photos from Viva Las Vegas 2013, along with his adventure in getting there behind the wheel of the “Black Widow” 1960 Plymouth Valiant with his pal Ramzy. The show was great, the photos are awesome as always, and there is tons for you to see. Tomorrow we’ll have a second gallery for you to check out,  and as an added bonus, Newell sent us the quick and dirty version of their trip to share with you along with some cool photos from the road in the “Black Widow”.

Enjoy….

READ ON FOR NEWELLS ADVENTURES ON THE WAY THERE.

Viva Las Vegas was an awesome weekend full of cars, music, and more. Much more. We drove up in my slant six powered 1960 Plymouth Valiant, dubbed “The Black Widow”, which was an adventure in itself. We stayed up until 1am the night before we left, with our A-Body Mopar guru Jeff Chong, swapping in a different rear end and getting the car roadworthy after sitting for 4 years. What fun is a road trip without a last minute thrash?

After the thrash, we filled up the tank, and charged up Cajon Pass doing about 65 with no problems at all, and once we got out on the dessert we were doing 70 and getting about 20 mpg. We’re guesstimating of course, since the speedo, fuel gauge, amp gauge, and temp gauge didn’t work correctly and flopped back and forth like a metronome.

When we rolled into Baker, home of the “World’s Tallest Thermometer” (134 feet), for some Alien Jerky and rock candy and noticed a loud howling and bad vibration. We figured out that “we”, or as my co-pilot Ramzy pointed out…”I”, was thrashing on the car too hard, broke the trans mount, and so the trans and driveshaft were crooked. After getting it up on the jack, Ramzy yanked it back into place and temporarily bandaged the problem. (Editor’s note: We hope they used a hose clamp all Freiburger style.)

When we cruised into Vegas, we notice that the problem was back and even worse. The next morning we found Charleston Auto Parts, who were as surprised as us that they had a new transmission mount in stock.

8 bucks later, and after using Back Country Jeep Products back parking lot, we were back on the road cruising the strip with the sliding rag top back blasting Johnny Cash on the radio. It felt like we were back in time. We got a lot of looks, and “what kid of car is that?” reactions from people.

After a great rest of the weekend enjoying Viva, taking in the bands, the cars, the rockabilly lifestyle, and losing all our money gambling, we jumped in the old reliable Widow with a trunk packed with a Toploader and Super T-10 that we picked up in town from some local Air Force Ford guy we found on Craigslist. After adding some oil and 87 octane we mashed the one-barrel leaning tower of power to the rust, and made it home without a hitch.

We’re already on the lookout for an old Cadillac project to take next year.

Words and Photos by Newell Ruggles