MAGAZINE

We are shipping Hop Up 2001 now, and the price is $12.95 + $1.95 shipping in the U.S. 50. That’s $14.90.

For Canada, add $1.00.

--> Use this order form!!!

For UK, Europe, OZ and NZ, read this

2001 Cover

WHAT'S HAPPENING - THE GRAND NATIONAL ROADSTER SHOW

Here's what the River City Roadsters Official Roadster Show Committee Formed to Praise Cool and Bash Geeks had to say:

A bunch of roadsters. Apparently the new guys read the posters. Thank you.

Buddy Pepp's 'Lowe-Boy '32 ' is a way cool car (see hop Up 2000) and we pick it for the Bruce Meyer Award. Jim Palmer's 'Pacific Gunsight Special' is the most notable old car there. The new customs from the name guys were nice but not as avant-garde as usual; maybe a little too 'formula'. We'll look for more customs at Sacramento. Club displays had some primed cars that looked great, including a whacked T coupe, our picture of which was too dark to put in here .......rookie frickin' Jimmie Olsen Cub Reporter...... the car's presence just points to the fact that the Greaser style is recognized as a sub-element of the big picture, and isn't seen as an 'on the way up' fragment. There's more cool in their scrap over there, more gut, more walkin' the walk, than in any other segment besides, maybe, the moto- cats.

TRUTH WAS EVIDENT AT THE SHOW

The So-Cal guys pulled in with heir ballyhooed chopped Merc convert that is typically perfectly done but we gotta say, "Petey!" Christ, man. Why would you foresake the simplest restyling clues just to make a 'statement'? No skirts, no radiused corners, no welded seams, no Frenched headlights. These were the most base, correct, indisputable customizing tricks, all done for unarguable reasons, for the improvement of the illusion. Things the factory would have done if they could have afforded it. The obvious. Leaving it kind of undone didn't make it better. It's plenty cool. We love the color (Beard paint job, we 'spect), and you WILL see it in all the mags, so our poor penmanship won't be necessary here. The top is neat and correct - tops are a sensitive subject 'specially on roadsters (don't get us started)- and it folds, mechanically, thanks, they say, to Shane Weckerly, the So-Cal cat who defected to Holley when those two outfits did their merge-buy-out-throw-in-deal.

FRONT VIEW WAS BETTER BUT THIS IS WHERE WE WUZ STANDIN'

One prerequisite of River City Roadster membership was, according to the by-laws constructed on a bar napkin, ownership of a big block hot rod. One guy only had one in a late model, but they let him play anyway. So most of the Committee was impressed with an unassuming full-fendered deuce roadster - restorod lookin' - with a stock 21 louver hood, that had a Biggie showing if you squinted through those skinny louvers. That one caused glazed-over eyes and rambling talk about turnarounds and high-speed passes and we don't think any of them really saw anything except the movie on the inside of their eye-lids for about two rows. A date was set on-the-spot for the next turn around. Then the trance was broken when some guy said, "Hey, Asshole!"

And all four of them responded.

WE LIKED THIS 'LADY LUCKISH' BUCKET

We did not see even one pickup with chromed brake drums and gymnastic pickup bed, but we did see one proudly standin' on all-threes to brag-up it's rear disc brakes.

Low riders were there with their usual perfect (most of them - one was painted with a Hudson Sprayer) execution, all accessorized with chrome and plastic bird ornaments, and shades and flaps and Hot Wheels wheels and o-ring tires and all kindsa doo-dads....................it'd be awkward to call a low-rider a Gook Wagon, now wouldn't it?.....But they are fine cars.... ........

The probable star of the show was covered up (Barry White's yellow whatever it was) so we'll know all about that one soon enough. Pflueger's Ardun Nose job was looking good all 'round and could be a contender if there was no politics ( kind of like a Moal roadster with a different approach). The 'four wheel drive' front tires/wheels won't help, in our seldom-offered opinion......And Meador's Moal-built roadster was there lookin' better in life than in pictures, and politics COULD work here!.

This is being written the day before the awards, so we'll leave it inconclusive. You will all know the results before you read this, anyway.

We're looking forward to Sacramento in February, and we will NOT be going to the show at the Coliseum. It kind of reminds us of the OTHG moving in on the Early Times and causing the first - to our knowledge - acrimony between car clubs in the modern era. Horse shit.

L.A. ROADSTER FATHER'S DAY SHOW

DRIP PAN

LUKE CAUGHT THIS-A BONE AT LAR EVENT; LATE CHEV BANGER, BUT GREAT PATINA

ANOTHER A IS REAL SIMILAR YET TOTALLY DIFFERENT

LET'S DO MORE OF 'EM ON A FRAMES

RON JOLLIFE HAS A CLOSED CAR (ROCKET SCIENCE 88) BUT MUST PREFER HIS ROADSTER IN THE SNOW!!!!!

ROAD AGENTS GARRY, CHARLIE AND HERBIE WAIT FOR JESS. WHAT IS IT YOU WERE DOING, JESS?