Just the title of this should have caught your attention since up until now ScottieDTV.com had no such title or person. So let me introduce myself and give you a little background on what I hope makes me qualified to hold this title.
My name is Larry Crain, and I live and breathe hot rods, street rods, customs, classics and almost everything automotive new or old. This passion as an auto enthusiast alone does not qualify me to hold this title. It is decades of busting knuckles, breathing paint and exhaust fumes that do. I learned mechanics, metal work and painting from what I thought were the “old guys” who started me down the road to where I am now… “the new old guy”. I have turned wrenches for a living in shop bays, worked in and then owned a Napa parts store, then worked as a Powerhouse Engineer for almost three decades. During those years I built many hot rods, classics, customs and street rods, only contracting out upholstery, which is the area of building that I will not attempt.
All of this gives you an idea of my mechanical, paint, bodywork and fabricating background. But that still is not all that makes me who I am as a gearhead. You have to throw in the fact that I street raced and drag raced my ’68 Camaro in the late ’70s, then moved it over to autocross for a few years. From the need for more physical competition I made the move to the dirt track for some time in a ’70 Plymouth Duster stock car. One really bad wreck that nearly killed me and one really mad wife (now ex-wife) had me looking to do something else with cars.
The early ’80s saw me with my ’68 Camaro hitting the cruise night scene that progressed into outdoor shows that led into indoor shows. Too much show & shine time, plus hanging out with street rodders, got me into building my first street rod, which was a load of primered fun in the form of a ’48 Chevy coupe. The second street rod I built, a ’37 Ford slantback sedan, sat in the winners circle at the ’98 NSRA Street Rod Nationals as a NSRA Safety Winner.
Around this same time I was running an automotive event website called Southern Cruisin’ News, which helped me make friends in the automotive community all across our great country. This website also helped me to meet Ray Martino, the editor and publisher of Cruisin’ Style Magazine. I worked with Ray for several years as a Regional Representative for the magazine then moved up to Associate Editor. I stayed with Cruisin’ Style Magazine for 15 years until health issues forced me into an early retirement from it and the powerhouse where I had worked for 27 years. As you can tell by the time lines or by reading between the lines, I held down between 2 and 3 jobs at a time. Those days are behind me now but I do some freelance photography for a few event promoters and an occasional feature article for Cruisin’ Style Magazine.
The great thing about all of the years that I was growing and changing into who I am now is that without my passion of all things automotive, I would not have seen, been a part of so many things and met some truly great people…including the woman I married over six years ago.
Another person I met around that same time was a young guy with a great idea about doing video interviews of car owners and their cars, then posting the videos on the web. This young man called himself ScottieD and now you know the rest of the story.
What I hope to bring to Scottie D’s website are articles, photos, interviews, how-to ideas and so much more. Be patient with me as I learn this new way of communicating what I see and photograph to you my friends.
