Ripley...

...she might be my car, but she's RCC's baby. 

RCC has always been a gearhead and has done cool things with his vehicles.  Like building Tinkerbell...

Tink is on the left, The Bitch on the right
The Bitch is a full-sized Dodge Ram and Tink dwarfs her

Tinkerbell started life as a Chevy step-side thingamabob; she ended up an incredible rock crawler (hence the name RockCrawlingChef).  The Bitch has been modified, though her mods are mostly to the engine and not visible.

Lil Blue BoX, his Jeep, got well loved, too...

Water crossing at Onion Creek Trail in Moab

He sold Lil Blue BoX and parted out Tinkerbell and then was left with idle hands.  And while the saying, "idle hands are the Devil's workshop" doesn't necessarily apply, it does mean that his little gearhead hands have to be kept busy on a car project, which just happens to be Ripley.

He's become friends with one of the salesmen at the Kia dealership and often takes Rip over as soon as he's finished a project on her.  Because of the modifications done to Ripley and RCC showing them off at the dealership, she's pretty widely recongized there.  She had to go in for her annual physical and while RCC was there with her, he met the owner of the dealership, who told him to bring her back on Saturday to get her picture taken with Hamstar, the hamster from the commercials.

What commercial, you ask?  The Party Rock commercial...



We were assured Hamstar would look just like the one in the commercial, so we made plans to stop by the dealership after our Steel Challenge match, on our way to get Rip's "new" rally stripe.

Well, he looked more like a bear with a pig's snout than Hamstar,
but it was still pretty cool :)

Sadly, we didn't get to see Hamstar do any shuff-ff-ffling, but then I don't know how the dancers in the commercial pulled it off - with costumes that big, every move had to have been completely over-exagerated.

We ran off to my friend Stein's house, and after a couple hours of BSing, the boys got to work on Ripley's rally stripe while Wife Stein and I hung out and drank Strongbow.  After a while, we decided to check in on the boys and see how they were coming.

Initial placement

Getting started

Removing bubbles

Hood is done!

Wife Stein checking on hubby's work

Laying the roof stripe

Manly men doing manly things

Tailgate stripe

Ripley's mostly done with her new rally stripe.  There are a few "problem areas" that we (by we, I mean the manley men)  need more time for: the area under/around the spoiler; the small spot between the windshield and the sunroom; and the two inches on the front and back bumpers.  Stein, RCC, and Mez would have finished them last night had we not run out of warmth and daylight.

I pretty much love her sporty new rally stripe!  It's the one modification I've been dying to get and we've had the stripe in the closet for soooooo long, I was beginning to think it would never happen.

Next up, RCC has designed and ordered me some body decals that will declare Ripley a "1911 edition" Kia Soul.  You know those body decals will call for more entries into her baby book.