Hopupland
HopuplandFirst thing’s first, Boys. The ‘smug satisfaction’ issue is…on sale. Send money fast, we wanna do a road trip.
HOP UP VOLUME VI ‘TRUE TO TRADITION’ IS ON SALE!!!!!!!!!
(PSSSSSSST! NOT AVAILABLE IN BOOK CATALOGUES!)
Send $17.00 (includes S&H) to
Hop Up PO 790
Riverside, Ca. 92502
OR use PAYPAL..click on Speedshop over there…to the right:
………….specify VOLUME VI ‘ True to Tradition’
(for outside US, see American Auto Mags in Links)
Look in Speedshop for other past issues and all kinds of shit that’ll make you slap leather and send us some of that sweaty cash you been tryin’ to hatch down in your ass pocket.
Yeah…you.
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Anywho, it was a groovy summer in Hopupland and all the cool cats and kittens made their game……….. from sea to shinin’ sea. Yeah, Baby, everybody was lookin’ so good, actin’ so cool and the rides? Supremo. Hop Up Iron, new and old, was being revealed all over the place and people who know how to use it were goin’ all over the place with the nasty ol’ hunks. It may be a long winter a-comin’, but whadaya wanna bet we fill it up with memories anyway? Some of us will use the stuff out west..some will work on it out east…but it will definitely be about the iron year ‘round…………..Yeaaah……
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Did you hear about the Burt Monro movie being made at B’ville during the October meet?? Hop Up Guys were called on to wrangle the cars: Tardel brought a bunch of his cars, Lattin brought a slew of race cars and we hear it was pretty cool. Rustman was there with his Hop Up Racing Team roadster to get the 100 MPH Club underwear and he reports clement temperatures, less crowds and good times. How not?
Late word is that Shug, yeah THE Shug made 105 in his V4/BGS tank…the T shirt’s on the way, Man, along with our congratulations. We rode that poor man hard but now we gotta cut him some PRAISE for the accomplishment. This he did with discarded parts and no real investment.
If anybody acts like and thinks like our heroes…SHUG is the man, and he’s the quintessential example of the Hop Up Guy.
Congratulations, Man
The Huns is growing and more folks plan to get in next year.
It’s a banger institution and we ain’t even tryin’…………………………
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We’re a little out of ‘monthly’ practice, so forgive us while we gather some direction here ….. recollect some of the tacky crap we like to report on…trouble is, it’s hard to dig up the shit because we’re so blessed with good that the pseudos have a hard time penetrating the veil. It’s like….we’re pretty good at avoiding social climbers and dodging the people who write their own fame….. we just hip-fake ‘em, downshift, and power toward the gaggles of real hot rod types who – under cover but doing the real deal – mercifully take us in and…give us completion.
It’s Hop Up Daze, Boys. Thanks for schoolin’ us………..
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DICKWEED’S GOT A PROJECT?
Remarkably far along, Ol’ D.W. ‘spects his rig will make it to Rattle Can (not) or some non-event like that later in the year. His 3W went away (there’s a story for ya) so the energy is all on the roaster……… except when he’s helping on the Teaser, doin’ wiring and like that.
Pretty good at it, too; he uses the cloth insulated wire and makes nice loops and has a few laughs while he’s doin’ it…..maybe absorbs too much beer………so…..warranty work was handled up by Mild Mitch.
Anywho, the roaster will be on the hiway , near you, soon enough.
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FASHION
So, you get an orphan car because you can’t afford one that has proven aesthetics, and you chauvinistically, extremely, over-modify it to be ‘different’ and your peers say, “That looks so cool!”?.........Isn’t that what they said about the orange Mohawk the ugly kid had in high school?
They meant, “You are making a helluva statement, and you are very different, but that does NOT look good.” Avante garde, yes.
Good? No.
Believe it.
Punkrodders must be punkrockers with cars…………….. done the way they do (did) their hair. We wanna be pals but shit is shit, Boys. Make ‘em come to the party…………..different isn’t good enough.
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PATRONIZE THE ALLADIN HOTEL
Our official fave, Dudes: whenever you’re in Las Vegas…it’s The Alladin. See ya there during SEMA, and So-Cal L.V. open house.
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Just read that a 30’s pickup, if not channeled, is an old man’s truck.
We’ll take the unchanneled truck and leave the ‘authoritative’ messenger…to grow.
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NEW MONTHLY COLUMN
Our Brethren in Upstate New York are doing a Rollin’ Bones car for one of our Cali cousins..Dennis Varni. Now DV has done lotsa stuff but only just recently got this ‘hair’ for a Boner. Hmmmm. The same guy that gives us the righteous grub in the pit’s at Bonneville, the same one that entertains us so much in the Califonia Mille Miglia…………a Boner???
Yeah. Bank it, Boys.
He know.
Ken Schmidt and Keith Cornell will be forwarding progress shots and a Ken will submit a paragraph or two each month just to keep us up to date and to challenge us to do something as cool. Can we??????
Thus we proffer:
TALES OF THE EVIL THAT MEN DO TO EARLY IRON: Scene 1
By: The Grin Reaper
As night falls the ominous glow of the midnight oil burns through the dirty windows of an ancient barn. Long rumored to be the haunt of the “ ROLLING BONES HOT ROD SHOP “, stories have been told of innocent 32 FORDS lured through the rickety doors never again to be seen in their original form.
Why, just the other day there was a group of street rodders , dusters in hand , standing in a parking lot full of 350 / 350 , what-color red , who’s-wheels street rods….. all eyes shifted to one as he spun his tale of the atrocities he had witnessed.
There was a full moon that cold night as he made his way , finally reaching the stone foundation of that awful place. Taking a deep breath he pulled himself up just high enough to peer through the window.
’.....JUST HIGH ENOUGH TO PEER THROUGH THE WINDOW…....”
“IT WAS HORRIBLE!!!!” he cried, “JUST HORRIBLE”.
But he simply COULD NOT look away. As the stench and oily smoke filled his senses he found himself mesmerized. He simply could not resist returning night after night. And he did…
………….only to discover………… (return with us next month to exorcise your fears and hear the fate of the innocent unwashed, Ed.)
Signed in grease: THE GRIN-REAPER
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TALES OF THE EVIL THAT MEN DO TO EARLY FORDS
as told by the GRIN - REAPER
Scene 2
While the group , dusters in hand , leaned forward , minds spinning with visions of EVIL , the street rodder continued……
“ I SAW IT ”, he exclaimed , I saw it through the window. It lay there in the dust open to a page that read “ RECIPE FOR THE DENNIS VARNI HOT ROD “.
As the smoke began to clear our street rodder, Billet (, lets call him Bill for short), could make out the outline of a 32 ford tudor. She sat there on jack stands , still bolted to her original frame , but the warm fuzzy feeling soon turned to horror when Keith appeared seemingly out of no where , hacksaw hanging at his side. Billet , er I mean Bill soon realized there was a 5 inch wound to the back of her neck and as his eyes uncontrollably moved toward the front of the sedan the cuts were even deeper. As much as 5 ½ inches where the front posts had been laid back to meet the top.
“....STILL BOLTED TO HER ORIGINAL FRAME…”
Strange thoughts began to take shape in the back of his mind.”YA KNOW” by chopping the car like that it keeps the top at stock length and the wedge with the laid back posts make the proportions just flat “BITCHIN ‘ ” .Bitchin’ Bill asks himself where did that come from? I know its on jack stands but “ DAMM “she looks like she’s already movin’.” SHIT” , I wish my tudor had a nasty chop like that. “GOD WHAT AM I THINKING “!
Shaking his head to clear his mind Bill’s focus turns to the huge black kettle boiling over in the back room. While Ken reads from THE BOOK OF GOW Keith and Dave add the ingredients to the ghastly brew. A stock drilled 32 axle is tossed in as a god-awful puss-like liquid splashes on Dave. Laughing , Keith throws in a pair of drilled split 32 wishbones jumping back to avoid the sickening slop. Next its model A crossmembers then a T rear spring. “ IT JUST DOESN”T MAKE SENSE “Bill cries out.. Suddenly realizing all eyes have turned in his direction he runs. Tripping , falling , scrambling back to his feet , knees bloody , jeans torn and his gold chain lost along the way Bill reaches the safety of his pickup.
Resting his foot on the trailer hitch in order to retie his shoes,”MY GOD he thinks, where’s their phone ? The 1 800 send it parts ? the latest must have ? Suddenly the realization sets in “THE STORIES ARE TRUE , THEY BUILD HOT RODS ! Bare bones , huge cammed , multi carbureted , nasty sounding , vintage engined , make your heart pound, your blood boil , full of attitude, just flat bitchin’ HOT RODS!
Catching his breath, he knew, he didn’t want to, but he knew as the midnight hour approached he would go back.
See you next month
Signed in Grime: the GRIN - REAPER
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“ I been cooped up all week long….
I been work-in’ my fingers to the bone…….”
The Judds
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Who is the Forest Gump of the car hobby?
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NEW BOOK
By Peter Vincent, called “Hot Rod’, is big coffee-table lookin’ thing that is so chuck fullo’ correct hot rods, it is so much better than it’s counterparts from other eh…persuasions, we can hardly stand it; it has a buch of Hop Up people and their cars in it, too. (So what did you think we’d say about it??!!!).
BUY THIS FROM MOTORBOOKS INTERNATIONAL. THEY’RE LISTED
The text makes it all the more interesting; it’s not some compilation, chronicling magazine pieces of the decade and purporting to be ‘historical’, rather it is a dead-on look at trad hot rodding today. Hop Up hot rodding, Boys.
We recommend it for all the reasons.
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RATTLE CAN NATIONALS
If there ever was a nearly impromptu, casual event..or non-event..that was perfect in size and vibe ……it’s RCN; 25-30 cars, about 50 people strewn out on the lawn, p-lot and such, some making margaritas, some cookin’ up hot dogs, clustered in groups of 2, 3…5 or more.
EVERYBODY OGLED LARRY PARADIS’ ROADSTER -
WHICH HAS ALL (WE MEAN ALL) THE RIGHT PARTS
The peace will be broken now and again by someone who casually gets in his car, pulls around, and does a burn-out thru the lot (we’re quittin’ that ‘un, tho’), and there isn’t even a band. OR Mustang Sally.
The iron is fine and the hot rod intellect, and human character of the participants is…stellar. NO self promoters who write letters and send pictures of their cars to all the magazines and organizations, and no slippery back-biting pervs…cuz they’s not invited, Homes. (That’s Homes as in Homeboy, not the incorrect allusion to an old detective).
YOU CAN SEE THAT PAINTED OR KINDA PAINTED CARS ARE WELCOMED, TOO
There is a vibe at this little meet-up that is hard to describe. Mellow seems trite.
This kinda stuff seems to be the norm in Hopupland..
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HOTRODARAMA
CHIEF SWINDLER IS ‘EDDIE’ SEAHOLM WHO’S JUST FINISHED THIS WORK TRUCK
James Wyanski fills us in:
“The 3nd Annual HOTROD-A-RAMA was a complete success with over 350 real hot
rods, bitchin’ customs and some of cool bikes braving the early rain to make
the event. There was great music Friday night at the Swiss Tavern and Music
for most of the day and well into the night on Saturday when The
Supersuckers headlined. King of HOTROD-A-RAMA was awarded this year to the
former Ed “Axle” Stewart ‘32 roadster now in the care of Ed’s son Bob, who
drove up from Portland in the rain to attend.”
(Hop Up is a ‘sponsor’ of the ‘Rama, Ed.)
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MONUMENTS
There was a commercial on TV a few years back where this cat had a rug store but wouldn’t put rugs in it cuz people might buy them from him. Wanted to keep ‘em.
That’s reminiscent of our buddy who built the perfect roadster, did most all of it himself, including the proverbial mile-deep black paint…..but won’t drive it.
I told someone about it and they said , “Well, I’m guilty of that, too, since I had this old grand piano beautifully restored…..but don’t play it.”
Yeah, but you don’t know how to play a piano…or you would…..and my buddy knows how to drive!!!!
Like we’re always sayin’: this-here car life is an individual expression and each of us does it a little differently than the other…so we’re not supposed to be critical of a guy’s decisions and practices…..but it’s hard to keep your trap shut when this really special car can’t go anywhere.
Is it hoarding?
Is it worshiping in some funny (perverted) way? (Gosh, we hope not! That’s a bad visual!)
Is he troubled by the prospects of barkin’ it up on the road and having to fix it again????
AHA!! Maybe he don’t think he can get it that good again!!!!!
If it’s gonna be static art……. a monument to the past…….like a statue in the park………….and never used…then whydja put a automatic in it?
(A ’39 box or even a Saginaw with no gears in it woulda been cheaper…museums do it all the time!)
Besides, Man…We’d- a all pitched in for a fake clutch pedal!
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“
…I keep my ends out for the ties that bind………………….”.
Johnnie
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PREGUNTA
How do you say “baggage handler’ in Spanish?
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(Be sure to read Drip Pan,T n’ A and Mort’s Shorts)
