24 Heures du Mans (24 Hours of Le Mans)

The greatest auto race in the world starts tomorrow, the 24 Hours of Le Mans. It's our favorite because since 1923, people have been racing whatever they could bring for a whole day without stopping. There have been cars taken straight off showroom floors: Porsches, Corvettes, Aston Martins, Jaguars, Ferraris, Maseratis, Lamborghinis, Bentleys, Lotuses, Cobras. And then there are the prototypes--the no holds barred version of racing that exists nowhere else. These are the fastest vehicles on the planet with bleeding edge technology that defines where automobiles will be decades in the future. Or not. Some of the ideas are downright weird and fail miserably. Racing doesn't get any better.

Join us for live coverage at: http://en.lemanslive.com/
http://www.24h-lemans.com/live/en/

Start: Saturday, June 13, 2015, 3:00 PM in Europe, 6:00 AM in San Francisco

First Guiness World Record for an Auto Body Shop?

At Almost Everything Auto Body we were flabbergasted when this plaque arrived via our friend Mike Camicia and his cabal of students & ne'er-do-wells. Mike is the local racing legend & Gunn High Auto Tech Instructor.

Gunn High School Pizza Planet Replica at Speed during 24 Hours of LeMons, Sonoma Raceway

Mike & team won the award racing their their Pizza Planet Delivery truck (a replica of the cartoon version from the movie Toy Story.) According to Guiness, "Almost Everything Team Pizza Planet participated in the following record event: The most participants in a car race was 216 cars at an event organized by John "Jay" Lamm and The 24 Hours of Lemons racing series (USA) at Thunderhills (SIC) raceway park, California, USA on the 13-14 September 2014."

Gunn High School Pizza Planet Truck Replica

Almost Everything's admittedly small part in the adventure was sponsorship and moral support.

Almost Everything-mobile in front of Gunn High Auto Tech Team & Pizza Planet Racer

Gunn High Auto Tech Team: Micah McElravy, Matts Lark, Karl Rodgers, Mike Camicia & Nadine Camicia with Pizza Planet Racer

Believe it or not, this is NOT the first World Record that Almost Everything has been a part of. We also sponsored the "Beaver Geezers" 2009 World Speed Record Volkswagen Beetle.

Formula 1 Pitstop 1950 vs. 2013

Thanks to CpatainCanuck for sharing.

Motor Trend Stages "World's Greatest Drag Race IV"

Enough of collision repairs and car paint nuances--let's spend a few minutes with some really cool, really fast cars, some of which we can afford and some priced in the stratosphere.



Thanks to our buddies at Motor Trend for sending us an e-mail announcing this year's results.

1999 Mazda Miata Race Car Paintjob!

Almost Everything's Car of the Day is a 1999 Mazda Miata.  This agressive little track monster came to our shop shiny, yet weathered and tattered from lots of fun track days.  Not wanting his race car to look like such a...race car the owner and driver of this machine came to us with Two requests; Make the car shiny again, and keep the price low.  We met both of those requests with our Enamel Single stage paint, using the car's original color!

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Lloyd Read at Long Beach Grand Prix

Almost Everything's very own Lloyd Read takes on the Long Beach Grand Prix in the #28 Bryan Herta Autosport Indy Lights car.



Read won the 2011 Goodyear Formula Car Challenge Series for Almost Everything. He led the series again in 2012 until crashes caused by other drivers put him out of contention. In 2013 Read piloted the #16 Almost Everything-JDC Motorsports formula car in the Star Mazda Championship.

For more information on Lloyd Read, Indy Lights and the Road to Indy, visit:

LloydReadRacing.com
Facebook.com/Lloyd-Read-Racing
indylights2014.com

1998 "Honda Integra" Paint Job!

Almost Everything's Car of the Day is a 1998 Acura Integra. This Integra underwent some surgery before coming to our shop, its front end had been converted to the Japanese Domestic Market type body. In normal terms, this is how Integras look in Japan, where they are not branded as "Acura" rather they were sold under Acura's mother company name; Honda! With the replacement front on being white, naturally the car needed paint, we began by sanding all of the chips, scratches and other imperfections out of the old paint, sealing the car with a primer and finally painting the import in its original color with our Premium "Base Coat / Clear Coat" 2 Stage paint!

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Almost Everything Sponsors Gunn High School LeMons Racer

Almost Everything Auto Body is extraordinarily. . . no. . . stupendifically proud to sponsor Palo Alto's Gunn High School Auto Tech in the infamous 24 Hours of LeMons! This year's super enduro for sub-$500 vehicles takes place (at least in California) at Sonoma Raceway, Sears Point.

Join Us!

Date:    March 22-23, 2014

Time:    . . . it's a 24 hour race. . .

Place:

           Sonoma Raceway

           "Sears Point"

           29355 Arnold Dr.

           Sonoma, California 95476

Spectator Admission:   $30

That's right, unlike the $140 NASCAR race a few weeks later, this one is nearly free!

Gunn Auto Tech students created as their LeMons entry a replica of the Pizza Planet delivery truck made famous by Pixar's Toy Story. 24 Hours of LeMons is a humorous take on the oldest, most grueling and prestigious auto race, the 24 Heures du Mans. The real LeMans race is held annually in LeMans, France with top auto manufacturers competing with the fastest cars in the world. The 24 Hours of LeMons is NOT like that. It was established in 2006 by Car & Driver editor Jay Lamm as “Endurance Racing for $500 Cars” (i.e. lemons.)

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Almost Everything provides support for youth programs in the San Francisco Bay Area through regular sponsorship of the Washington High School Car Show, California School for the Deaf internships, Gunn High School and many other local events.

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Mike Camicia is the Gunn High School Auto Tech Instructor, an SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) champion and local racing legend. Mike quips that his wife has actually won more SCCA championships that he has. Our kind of family!

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Frank Barnard, Almost Everything's General Manager, says, “Kids that learn to build and race cars for the 24 Hours of LeMons better understand the need for safety, the potential and limitations of cars in general, and the potential consequences of an accident. It's a great education."

Pizza Planet Rocket under development:

Pixar/Pizza Planet Trivia: amazingly, the Pizza Planet truck has appeared in nearly every Pixar movie to date including: Toy Story (where it first appears), A Bug's Life, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, Cars, Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up, Brave (apparently, pizza and Toyota pick-ups have been popular since the dark ages.) See Wikipedia for the complete list and descriptions of how/where the truck appears.

More info. on Gunn High School Auto Tech, 24 Hours of LeMons & Sonoma Raceway:

http://www.gunnautotech.com/ (Gunn High School Auto Tech Website)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hIkpOIwSV4 (Gunn High School Auto Tech Video)
http://www.24hoursoflemons.com/
http://www.racesonoma.com/

Jaguar's Good to Be Bad Promotion

Jaguar are promoting their new F-Type sports car (and we do mean sport--it is completely, unreservedly awesome) with their #GoodToBeBadContest.

The most recent contest "mission" was, "Tell us what song's playing when you're at your most villainous." It brought to mind a song that I used to blast on repeat while road racing along cliffs and mountain roads on the California coast above San Francisco.

So. . . here is Frank's (from Almost Everything's) insane driving theme song, "The Floral Dance" by The Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band (#2 on the British Pop Charts in 1977) . . .

Nissan GT-R End-Over

Here's something you don't see everyday. Almost Everything's Wreck of the Day is a Nissan GT-R Racer. In the video several GT-Rs pass by during the 2014 Long Tom Hill Climb race in the town of Sabie, Mpumalanga, South Africa. The last car takes the turn a little too fast, flips several times before disappearing down a ravine. This was the fourth run of the day for 47 year old driver Wilhelm Baard. Fortunately he was not seriously injured and attended the awards ceremony at the end of the event. Baard won South Africa's Knysna Hill Climb in 2011 in a GT-R.

The 2014 Long Tom Hill Climb took place on January 25th and 26th. It was sponsored by Renault (Nissan's parent) and the Sports Car Club of South Africa. The race covers 6.3 km (3.9 miles) along the banks of the Sabie River in Mpumalanga, South Africa. The next video shows cars leaving the starting line and beginning their assault on the hill. The sounds are great.

Many thanks to the spectators who recorded these videos, our friends at WreckedExotics.com who reliably find an astonishing amount of this type stuff on a daily basis, and to AutoEvolution who provided us with the background story and more images of the event.

Ferrari Pit Stop - Incredible

1991 BMW E30 Re-Paint / Color Change

Almost Everything's Car of the Day is a 1991 BMW E30 318i.  This sporty little european car came to our shop in in typical E30 form: old, faded and sort of strange looking.  The owner of this car had a recent accident where the driver"s side fender and frame rail were the unfortunate victims of an unforgiving freeway barrier, with the help of used parts, a light pole and a "come along" he got the body to line up straight again.  The car now needed paint due to the new mismatched body panels, instead of painting just the donor parts the owner decided to have us repaint the entire car with one of our "Single Stage" paints in a very unique "Battle Ship Grey" color for an intimidating military machinery inspired finish that didnt break the bank!

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