Colour traditional tattoo on a calf showing a turbocharger, a red rose, a spark plug with a DAD banner, flowers and a partly visible skull.

Traditional turbo, rose and spark plug on a calf

Traditional · Calf · Colour · Photo

The tattoo covers a calf and combines a turbocharger with a red rose, yellow and blue flowers, a spark plug with a banner reading DAD, and purple smoke. A partly visible skull and red droplets sit on the right side of the leg. The bold black outlines and solid fills of red, yellow, blue, green and grey give it a classic flash look, set against pale skin and a white couch.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Dad,

Keep reading

The Morris came in on Tuesday with its nose in a hedge and a cloud of blue smoke trailing behind it like a bad wedding veil. Mr Tully wants it running for the Saturday market, so I've had the head off and the sump drained twice over. Nobody in Hollin Market has ever seen a blower bolted to an exhaust pipe, and I'm not sure I believe in it myself, but the fitting came from a surplus crate in Hull and it spins up like a kettle wheel when the throttle goes down.

Mum says you'll want news of the rose bush. It finally came into bloom by the back gate, the red ones you planted the spring before you went. Two petals dropped into the bucket while I was topping up the coolant, so I fished them out and pressed them between the pages of this letter. Mind the crease.

Thursday night the smoke stopped. Just stopped, all at once, the way a kettle does when someone forgets it. I fitted the last plug, the one with the chipped porcelain, turned the key, and the whole engine caught with a noise like a bedsheet being shaken out over a line. Mr Tully stood in the yard with his cap in his hands and said nothing for a full minute, which is the highest praise he's got.

I've put the spare plug in your old tobacco tin, next to the one with DAD scratched into its base. Don't laugh. It's the only thing I've ever kept.

Love, Tom

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