MAGAZINE

FOLLOW UP.

Well, actually, Bellman called him and said, "Ya better hurry over here and read Hop Up, so you can defend yourself"

He read it and it musta been meaningful. It made an impression. It may have fomented a little shame...... embarrassment........guilt.....introspection........maybe self-doubt.

Anyway, that deuce is blown completely apart, the chassis is wire brushed and repainted, the crossmembers have been tweaked and are mocked up, awaiting the Welder Who Makes House Calls, and Dougie is in the middle of the thing, measuring, sighting, chasing parts, bolting, unbolting.......................we're gonna have t' eat our words. (Remember saying that to ME once about 25 years ago? Ed.)

What we ARE going to do is take credit for getting him started. Maybe he was going to start on it that week anyway. Maybe not. He can't prove it, though: The article came out and, about an hour and a half later..... he was slingin' sheetmetal off that thing like a whirling dervish!

He was fired up, as would be any self-respecting Hop Up Guy who found himself immersed in the details. Those details become the mini-battles of the war. The Holy War against the demons of metallurgy that try to foil ya................ you been there, right? The dirty frickin' lyin' measuring tapes who change their story after you've cut something.............defective Optometrists whose prescriptions won't allow you to (fore)see well enough to avoid covering up something you haven't finished and then ya have to unbolt fifteen nylocks to get back to it.............professionals. HA!

Then there's the one part you wanted to have a nice round of paint on and it gets stinkin' fisheyes in it......"some billet guy musta snuck in here last night and sprayed WD 40 on my primered parts. I know that's what happened. I know it is. Who didn't lock that barn door last night? Who was last to leave?"

But Dougie is luckier than all that. He's got great advisors....the support of his BUDS. He's got it thought out. It's on the fast track, he's in the groove, runnin' up in the marbles passin' everything in sight.

And, by the way: he sold that Riviera in about three weeks. Made a few sheckels on it, so he'll certainly be able to afford the incidental expenses on the deuce project. And he's lookin' for a Merc.

But he missed out on a good one he'd been looking at.....................R.Dub bought it.

Whoa, Daddy!

 

BRASSTAVAGANZA? BRASSCAPADES? NOPE:

Can't tell ya where it was (you're sick of hearing that, right? Oh, play along with us.) It was a Horseless Carriage Club deal that - like every other damn thing - has been found out. We told ya. Once WE find out, so has the rest of the free world - Philistines included - and it will never be the same. It was real cool anyway. Even though WE got to go!

Two of the three Mercer raceabouts we know of were there; a Duesenberg convertible coupe with a ...........GLORY BE!!.......chopped top, chopped in the 30's and considered unique and acceptable because it occurred so early, we s'pose. T's, Popes, Packards and Lincolns and Auburns and when you add up the hot rod guys that were there and identify them (not a few Hop Up Guys, too) you realize that some of our kind like all kinds of cars. They're car guys.

The HCC event is limited to pre '33 cars, no hot rods, and that's a pretty easy definition. But for the 'exceptions' the illusion of weaving in and our of scenic, high-end housing tracts, single filing over incredible bridges, and around beautimous City Parks in real early iron....it is a sight....it is a feel........it, with it's single and double rear-mounted spares, brass, 33" wheels...(did we say BRASS?)......with 36" windshields, four cylinder motors with slugs as big as a 3 lb. coffee can, 15 foot wheel bases and more....is incredibly nostalgic since it would have to have been real early in LAST CENTURY for the same event to have been in-time.

So we putted a Rajo T. Felt right at home, amongst kin, and noticed it runnin' a little marginal late in the day. Hmmmmm. Must be low on gas, i.e. low fuel in tank, modest atmospheric pressure on remaining fuel, thus not enough fuel pressure to satisfy that fire-breathing, gravity-fed updraft Tillotson carbie.. So we stop for gas. There, Mitch notices gas boiling out of the carburetor while we were just sittin' there....so we hauled butt back to the burger joint where we could shut off the fuel and commiserate.

About that time up walks Steve Beck, the mechanician who put the Rajo together. "Hey," we sez, mockingly,"What's the warranty on this P.O.S.?!!"

He grabbed a screwdriver, pulled the bottom off the carb, wiggled the float, threw it back together and it ran like a new thrashing machine.

"What was it?"

In his best C.W.Moss imitation he says, kinda squinting, "Simple...dirt in the fuel line."

We been wanting to hear that for 30 years.

.A little later we were savoring a celebratory cold beer and burger and Don Small (participant in A-400 Omelete-Getter and under-cover Hop Up Guy) walks by, laughs and says,

"Hey! Is this THE FULL JAUNTY, or what?!!!!!!"

We asked permission to copy, and now, THE FULL JAUNTY will be what we call our future Brasscapades.

Anywho, it was jaunty, noisy, putt-putty, and in some cases smoky, and the weather was 70-ish all day. Shirt sleeves on December 30. Holy Crow. What a cool day.

*************

"When you're a Jet you're a Jet all the way,
From your first cigarette to your last dying day.
When you're a Jet they can do what they can,
You got brothers along, you're a family man........"

*************

MILD MOD GETS PAINT?

IRONY: THE CAT FROM 'PRIMER' PAINTS MITCH'S CAR!!!