Road & Track Magazine, vol. 32: Family
2026 1st place ASME award winner for Best Cover.

This cover was a true passion project for me. The issue theme was Family and I immediately knew that I wanted to find a way to incorporate many different types of families on the “scene from the garage” concept. I reached out to the extended Road & Track family (long-time contributors, staffers, artists with a deep family connection to autos) and asked them to send in photos that someone might find taped to a home mechanic’s toolbox.

Now a little known fact: Photographer and all-around Renaissance creative Ian Allen is a collector of vintage tools. You might find him in studio shooting hundreds of balls of paper before he finds the exact right one, but you’re equally likely to find him re-roofing his cabin or building a centrifuge to create rosemary extract for one of his culinary explorations. Fortunately, the day I reached out to see if he had a toolbox on hand, he was available to take on this shoot.

Ian didn’t have the type of toolbox I wanted, but he immediately got online and tracked down every shape and size toolbox he could find within a reasonable driving distance, and ended up finding the perfect one.

Fast forward through the vintage tools Ian compiled, the vintage stickers I tracked down, the used oil Ian took from his truck so the rag could be authentically stained, and the days or minuscule adjustments to image selection, magnet placement, tape amount and location, sticker angles… you name it, it was tweaked. Days worth of tweaks in an effort to make the scene look effortless. I made a BTS motion piece (below) to show just a little part of what went into this weeks-long effort.

When we finished, the scene we had created was even better than I originally pictured and felt like a genuine representation of the family-themed stories in the issue. Down to the smallest details—oil stained overalls, a smudge of grit here and there, a shop light hanging “just so” to mimic a home-mechanic’s setup—this cover if overflowing with emotion, texture, and all sorts of family members.

I’m especially fond of the shot of my Grandpa Zobl. From the Editor’s Letter:
“Young Laurence Zobl in the early Thirties behind the wheel of his first car, a natty 1928 Chevrolet three-window coupe. He was setting off to pick up his soon-to-be wife, Lucy Harris.”

(below: my Grandpa Zobl on the left, Grandma Zobl on the right.)

Being able to hand an issue themed Family to my actual family members, then watching their faces light up when they saw this photo… it made all of the extra hours, the late nights, the weeks of tweaks completely worth it.

And the cherry on top? We (Road & Track ) won a 1st place ASME award for Best Cover for this labor of love.