Hopupland
HOPUPLAND
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THIS MONTH’S COVER
Dave Simard’s Ex-Al Berton Cab. We wondered when he’d start messin’ with it….got a Steve Pierce top (we gonna get one o’ those, too!) and rolled it out on the yard to take a picture for Hop Up. Now we’re not cabriolet fans and we were curious how it would happen that we’d like this one…because we knew we would….and…damn-o-shit-o-dear…..he’s done it again.
Cover Girl is Lisa, other half of the team.
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HERE’S THE COLLECTOR’S BOX/SLIPCASE
(Limited, numbered edition of 350 includes a certificate of authenticity and some lousy decals)
There’s a run on the 350 available so send the cabbage and we can go on to other things-
like side-steppin’ fraudrodders…!!!
$149.95 + 11.62 sales tax Cali only + $5 ship..so:
$166.57 California
or
$154.95 in the Free World
To:
Hop Up
PO 790
Riverside, Ca. 92502
or
Use Paypal, click on ‘Speedshop’ over there to the right.
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HOP UP VOLUME IX - SEANCE
Click on ‘Speedshop’ and use Paypal or send $17.95 to:
Hop Up Volume IX
PO 790
Riverside, Ca. 92502
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GRAND NATIONAL ROADSTER SHOW
We wuz there. Saw Pals from all over the country, had Mex cuisine and brew with a bunch of them at the Rancho Notso Grande and ......as is becoming the expected…the show was good. Tradition ruled, well, except for where it didn’t, but it did everywhere we looked.
The winner (America’s Most Beautiful Roadster?) was not the right one at all: poorest, least-inspired top we have ever seen. And Hot Wheels wheels. ‘Nuff said.
Timebomb John’s ‘36, Spencer II, Dore? Didn’t they see those?
Alex’s Suede Palace was better than ever; it’s become an attraction/icon, a permanent fixture in the show; definitely some Hop Up talent in there.
There were some real tasty hot rods to see. Orosco had one, Poteet had an incredible delivery in there, Cunha’s race car… several special ones (as we said above) in the Suede Palace….oh ...and some customs, too. Tom Branch’s roadster has color on it now and Fabian has some more yet to do before the full Shiny-Bitch look is accomplished. Look for it Father’s Day and then…later..in a big-ass feature in (on) a really bitchin cult magazine.
We gotta be there at a deal like this all weekend to kiss hands and shake babies, see, so Jim Cripps, Phill Whetstone, Jay Ward, Marc D’ Estout and Mitch Allen helped with the Road Show portion. We appreciate all the help we get, in print and in fact.
Alex Xydias hung out with us in his favorite chair..yes, we’ll drop names, alright, especially that one.
SAMPLING OF GEORGE CANAVAN PHOTOS
So-Cal afforded us a nice parking place for a car and then lent us a bitchin Model A coupe with a fresh Shinechop to put in our booth. One of the winner roadsters was a So-Cal customer car, ‘32 dark blue (above), reminiscent of Jason Smith’s a couple of years ago….the perfect ‘who needs more’, sensible deuce hot rod.
We think every big city should have a show.One. They really are just car shows, ya know?
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MORT’S SHORTS IS BACK - CLICK ON THAT ONE OVER THERE>
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THE FIX
We usta think the ‘fix’, the spike in Male Pattern Cool ya get when you score a car or part or a ride .....suggested addiction. The need for such gratification…the continuing need…..was shallow. Whimsical. Greedy. Then we realized it is what it is...an’ got over it.
Next??????
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GRATEFUL CONTRIBUTORS
BUDDDY GEORGE IS HONORED TO BE INCLUDED IN THE CURRENT ANNUAL.
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HURT TEAM EVEN LOOKED GOOD TO CHEVY FOLKS
Steve Batterton saw this picture on Chevytalk.com; we guess they know there’s a 427 in that F-100? Anyway, thanks, Steve and yes, we’ll see you at the 100 MPH Club Bang-quet again this year, only it’ll be on TUESDAY afternoon. Same gag: free Brats and Brew, celebrate the new member of the Hop Up Magazine 100 MPH Club - that’s anybody who clocks over 100 in the V4F class with a FORD block.
And whether or not I get the record back from Mitch? Who cares? Really! The only thing our car got this winter was MORE CHROME!!!!!!
We’re runnin against ourself, here, ya know?
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T ‘n A
Greg Stokes writes from far away:
“Here it is, all finished. Ownermade chassis with torsion bar suspension front and rear. Model A mill with Winfield head and twin carbs on a Thomas intake and a T5 gearbox. Dropped Model A axle, 48 Ford brakes, 16 inch steelies, 40 Ford caps, Firestones etc.”
There’s everything to like about this truck; Stokes used it continually while he morphed it in to this completed rig. I want to hear it run, ride in it, drive it, see it on the road…...........
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MORE T ‘n A?
Uh huh. Dang, we might even need to start doing that page again, too.
We saw TV and Hotrodvon at the GNRS and got a look at the newest race car project outa their shop…a 16’ (I think they said!) tank for another V4F car, this time blown. Gawd, these guys got it bad, and got the stuff to make these idears happen. Two car Quick ‘n Easy Racing Team? Wow!
Also caught up with Jim Jard whose new 100 MPH Club costume sure looked smart..and he and Jolliffe will be back on their banger race team deal in May and again in August. There’s room out there for more of you..Jim Lindsay is wrenching on one…there’s an unlimited supply of 100 MPH Club T Shirts, decals and soon hats and jackets.
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If a guy doesn’t like lowered cars or lowered tops…it proves that his is a naive eye, etched by the familiar and devoid of imagination. Car designers always draw the cars low and leave the tops low because they look right that way. But marketing and engineering types raise the cars and their tops for all of their other-than-the looks reasons. One of the reasons for the raised height may have been the crappy roads in the thirties, no? No gas shocks and all the other tricks you sometimes need to make it work. And you can. Ya just gotta want to.
Customizers lower them, tighten the suspension some and avoid chuck holes; they duck their head getting in to the car…and they don’t wear tophats. Easy.
Those other guys are wrong.
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1980 - You Win Again
We mighta told some of this before, but not the Jerry Lee Lewis part: We’d traded a pretty bitchin ‘29 RPU for a ‘35 Five Window and a Jag Sedan. Got two fer one but the Jag DO 6 was hagged and we knew it was, so it ended up with a 327. I was supposed to have sold the RPU for enough to repay the scratch I’d borrowed to put down on our first house. Got two cars instead of money and ....sorry…..we still run that kind of ‘logic’. The beat goes on, 30 years later. Who cares, right?!
RAN IN TO ‘CHEEZY’ A GUY WE WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL WITH!
The coupe had a ballsy 327 in it with a Holly that squirted gas every way but in to the intake manifold. If it would run at all it just scalded ass and I knew this one was going to have to act like a (ugh) streetrod, so, dazzled by all the horses, I had my Dad put a milder cam in it, I got a tame Quardrajet, painted up some steelies Tacoma Cream, and then we went to a Nats of some kind in San Jose. The only people we were going to know there was the guy who got my RPU; he had a flamed ‘40 vert and he and his ol’ lady were fun, an’ it ended up kinda rauckus.
Before we tied up with them, though, we went to the A&W somewhere where they were all cruisin’ and we’d had a load of Miller Lite, we had this good casette player in the glovie with fine speakers and we rocked the shit outa that A&W, such that we were laughing the other night when we played some Jerry Lee and “You Win Again” was goin’ and, shit…...we commenced to gigglin’ about that night and some cat who, as we cruised the A&W, jumped right on the runnin’ board to get closer to the sounds and ride with us with that music crankin’. We handed him a brew and he drank it as we cruised around the joint…Good Gawdomighty that was fun. Guess it still is. Just not in the A&W, eh?
The Jag was another story. We got time, right?
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SEE MORT’S SHORTS, AND DRIP PAN, TOO?
