chillin' with the cheaters

When I hear about someone being a fan, I usually think of screaming teenage girls. Or soccer fans. Or dinosaur fans. But I would never ever consider myself being a fan. Of anything.

Except maybe for this: It was on a sunny afternoon in 2004 or 2005. I was hanging out at Custom Parts and Wear, Switzerland's only hot rod store and shopkeeper Stöffel just had received a dozen or so copies of a book called Cheatersville. It was a nice coffee table book by Laurent Bagnard, a French photographer. And there wasn't much text in it. But the book was packed with bitchin' photos of a bunch of young hot rodders, of their rides, of their parties and their road trips. Those hot rodders weren't from the US, hell no. They were from goddamn Switzerland. It fucking blew my mind. From that moment on, I became a fan of the Cheaters Geneva. And I still am.

"A fan, sometimes also called aficionado or supporter, is a person who is enthusiastically devoted to something, such as a band, a sports team, a book or entertainer." (wikipedia.org)


Stephane's chopped 1950 Mercury.


Franck's blown 1932 deuce sedan.



Laurent's shoebox Ford.



Xavier's daily driven El Camino.