About Fuelled and Framed
Fuelled & Framed sell totally unique, precision-engineered steel & aluminium photo frames. The shape of the high-quality frames is inspired by an automotive / Hot Rod icon, the classic dropped ‘n’ drilled I-Beam axle. We also sell photos as prints, and all our Signature Collection images are available to purchase as digital downloads.
The photos you see on the site are a tiny fraction of our back catalogue! We will be adding images to the site all the time, but for now, if you can’t see what you’re looking for, please get in touch, we may well have your perfect photo! Follow us on social media for updates in the coming weeks.
For a more in depth look into our story, and how these unique frames came about, please scroll on down!
GARY'S JOURNEY
I’ve been a petrol head for as long as I can remember, standing on beer crates and looking on in awe as my dad pulled apart and rebuilt tired old engines and gearboxes, restoring them to perfect health. I guess modifying cars was always in my genes.
My first memories of Hot Rods and Drag Racing were from magazines like Custom Car and Rod & Custom in the 1970’s…
That was where my pocket money went. I remember painting a black and white image on my school bag, copied from Rod & Custom, of a T bucket and Model A pick up. I don’t know where all of that came from, as back then I didn’t know any Drag Racers, or Hot Rodders, and none of my friends knew anything about them, or were interested in my ramblings on the subject!
I briefly lived in New Zealand after leaving school at 16, starting my mechanical engineering apprenticeship there in 1980 working on cars, trucks, forklifts etc. You could drive at 16 in NZ too, so there I was, a petrol head Pom, cruising up and down Queen Street in downtown Auckland on a Friday & Saturday night, thinking I was in American Graffiti, surrounded by dudes driving V8 powered Hot Rods and Tri Chevys – and the memory of being wowed by a beautiful flattie V8 powered ’32 Ford pick-up will live with me forever. My first car was an $800 (around £400 then) sh*t brown 100e Prefect, although I could still drift it if the road was wet and I was pointing downhill… Hot Rods were still on my radar though, as I vividly remember a right royal rollocking from my boss for giving the workshop forklift a custom flame job!
Back in the UK in 1982, I went through a succession of Mk 1 and Mk 2 Cortinas, all ‘hotted up’ of course, and a 3.0 Capri Ghia, before a decent spell with a V8 powered ‘72 Aussie Charger. Plenty of fun and smiles in this car, including many trips to the Springer meet, where I met local Hot Rod Legends like Merve ‘Magoo’ Barnet. What a guy, so many stories about this man, gone too soon, universally respected, admired and loved. If I could press the rewind switch on my life, there’s a man I would’ve spent much more time with. The Charger took me around the country, from the ‘Run to the Sun’ in Newquay, to my first taste of Drag racing at good ole Shakey or ‘Avon Park Raceway’ as it was back then.
My first V8
The Springer
Mel Chave ’34
Somewhere around 1986 / 87 I started on my first Hot Rod build.
A 34 Corner body and chassis, Jag back end, Yorkshire Street Rods IFS, and, what else could I do, I was now a MOPAR lad, so a 440 lump was relieved of its Jenson Interceptor duties. The car was never meant to be a show winner, and certainly wasn’t a great build, but I learned a lot and had miles of smiles in this one too. Highlights were cruising to The Supernats at Knebworth, The Billing Fun Run, The Hot Rod Drags at Shakey (still dead chuffed to have won an NSRA ‘Dirty Dozen’ award one year!) and a long-distance cruise to The French Street Rod Nats. Then one day I spotted an advert in Custom Car for applications to the inaugural Street Eliminator in 1995… I liked the sound of that, so there I was, for a year or two, trying to make the old girl go much faster than originally planned. Twisted half shafts on the Jag IRS were a common thing, as were high 11’s quarters, with a best of 11.6 – in the end she threw a rod at Shakey, and the gods of speed & safety were telling me it was time for a major rethink…
Building the 34
My ’34
In good company
1996 saw the 34 stripped down and completely rebuilt over the following three years.
I made a better job of it second time around, far from perfect, but much better. We all have help along the way, and I had plenty of help and advice, especially from the local Bristol Drag Race & Hot Rod Fraternity. I was blessed to be surrounded by so many great builders and beautiful cars, people and cars that inspire me to this day – Lee Pike, Jerry Denning, Zane Llewellyn, Phil Thomas, ‘Dr’ Bob Jeffries, I could go on for a long time, but whether they fully know it or not, they’ve all inspired me along the way. The 34 made it back out into the big wide world in 1999 and completed another season in the Custom Car Street Eliminator, running a best of 10.1.
The Groom’s car
Rebuilding the Coupe 1
Rebuilding the Coupe 2
The finished Coupe
The Coupe in the Street Eliminator
Santa Pod with the Coupe
Within a couple of years, however, ‘normal’ life got in the way of racing.
The birth of my daughter, the start of renovating a derelict house that had been empty for 20 years, and splitting a business partnership of 10 years, all meant that something had to give, and I reluctantly (foolishly??) made the decision to sell the Coupe.
Life’s rollercoaster kept me busy for quite a few years, but Hot Rods and Drag Racing were always in my blood. I still went to Santa Pod and local Rod Runs, but now as a spectator with a camera in hand, not a shifter! I’ve always had an interest in photography, so I honed my skills taking photos of the cars I love from the stands & around the pits etc. Plenty of people were encouraging me to share my images / sell them etc, but I knew I needed to improve & also save the pennies for better kit before I could do that. Fast forward to today, and I’ll let you be the judge ref the results of my photographic endeavours.
The ‘Dropped n Drilled’ I-beam frame…
I’ve always had a bit of a problem with the usual offerings in photo frames. People rarely think outside the box and they’re generally pretty much all the same. I’ve made a few ‘rustic’ frames from pallet wood etc, and they suit many things, but not the kind of automotive works of art I love to photograph. Somewhere around 2019 I casually sketched a new idea for a photo frame, beautifully curved & drilled, and inspired by the shape of a ‘dropped n drilled’ I-beam axle – The Hot Rod Icon! Being a busy lad, I didn’t think about it again for a while, life’s hustle and bustle once again getting in the way of creativity. The idea never quite went away though, that voice nagging away at me to do something with it. Finally, in the summer of 2024, encouraged to ‘get on and make one’ by my partner Kirsty, I set about making a prototype out of MDF.
The ‘Dropped n Drilled’ I-beam frame…
The cunning plan stated with a short drive down the road to knock on ‘Dr Bob’ Jefferies front door. I’m sure he thought I was a crazy fooool, but he humoured me and welcomed me in for a catch up and coffee. We swapped a few Hot Rod tales, and the good Dr let me squeeze between the spindle mounts on his stunning Gold Pearl ’32 three window. I traced the curve of the Vintage Chassis Works dropped & drilled I-beam adorning this gorgeous coupe… the same coupe that dropped my overjoyed daughter to her school prom just a few years before, and the same coupe that shared space with my 34 in the March 2000 issue of Custom Car. A sheet of MDF, a weekend’s spare time & a can of ‘chrome’ spray later, we had something tangible… did the theory work in reality? Well we thought so and encouraged by this we decided it was good enough to invest in a prototype, machined from aluminium.
Dr Bobs gorgeous gold pearl coupe
The Icon - Dr Bob’s Vintage Chassis Works Dropped n Drilled I-Beam Axle
My Story
We had the prototype finished the day before the Hot Rod Drags at Santa Pod in September ‘24.
I took it up, covered in a sheet (all very cloak and dagger), and showed a few trusted friends. They all loved the idea, but all said the same thing, that we should get the Intellectual Property protected before showing the world… so back under wraps it went! The last few months of 2024 and the first few months of 2025 were spent getting the trademarks and IP protection, finalising ‘production’ models, working on the logo, the website, and organising my archive of photos for the site.
To sum up...
Kirsty and I hope Fuelled and Framed delivers something fresh and new to the world of automotive art. A product that’s been designed to complement any car or bike, but with its roots deep in Hot Rod and Drag Race history. We know the frames look fantastic adorning any wall, in any space.
Over time the aim is for this website to become a hub for not just my photos, but those of guest photographers too. I hope to have images crossing many automotive genres, but it all started from a small boy sketching Hot Rods and Dragsters when he was still knee high to a Chevy fender. I hope my passion for the subject shines through everything on this site. If you like what you see, just remember there’s only one place you can purchase this unique frame and there’s nothing else like it in the world. If you see us out and about at meetings, come say hello!
Gary & Kirsty