MAGAZINE

HOP UP 2000 - The Annual

IT'S ABOUT THE IRON

The Order Form (click here).

HOP UP 2000 LOOKS LIKE THIS

WHAT'S HAPPENING

ROB'S CAR FIXES THE ORANGE COUNTY-HALLOCK LOOK AS WELL AS ANY WE'VE SEEN

Went to a 'secret' run the other day. 120 miles of flats, hills, (fake) snow on the mountains, twisties, long straight runs, stop light drags (oh, no!) and saw nothing but traditional hot rods: coupes, roadsters, cabriolets, pickups, r/p's, tudors (probably no Fordors), fenders, no fenders, tops, no tops, flatties, bangers, sbc's, hemi's ( in the static show, that is) nailheads.......you know..........kelseys, steelies, lots of bias ply tires. Oh yeah. We took bias ply tires OFF our car and put the 15" radials back on it for this run. It was going to be in the mountains, the car handles like a slot car and, I know, I know. What a sell out. What a chump. They didn't have radials back in the day!!!! OK. I'll make up for it some other time. But it was worth it. What a ride. Grabbin' gears so those Lincoln brakes wouldn't get hot. Drag racin' it between the corners, down-shiftin' and lettin' compression back her down just enough, bring the revs back up, hands ten and two, find the line, accelerate through the apex, upshift, tap the brakes, down-shift................this is just like the Carrera, Boys. We are some kind of road racin' fools. That Porsche ahead can barely stay out of our way. .......We are a happenin' deal......waitaminute.......the Porsche..........that dark blue one? .......Yeah?..........It's a SUBURBAN!!! ........A SUBURBAN????.....We can't even keep up with a stinkin' Suburban?

So much for Juan Manuel Mortoni.

T 'n' A.

FENDERED FLATHEAD FOUR BARREL FORD

Charlie Hascall's full fendered A roadster with Winfield flathead.. We've run across Charlie before on the net, and at Paso, Bonneville (are we followin' the guy?) then this past weekend. This car is not a familiar one to us, and when he drove in to the que we didn't know who he was. "Who's that in the A-Bone with the banger in it?"

"I dunno. Oregon plates."

Oh yeah! That's gotta be C. Hascall.

He said that when he came over the (forgot the name) Pass it was so cold he had to tape up the radiator to keep the engine temp up! They wanted to come South pretty bad!

But that's what a lot of Hop Up Guys do......a little hardship sometimes figgers into the equation, you know, kinda payin' penance for the good time you expect to have. Earning it.

Well, they, of course, made the grade (all of them!) and had a good time, and made us look so goood. Someone said they'd never seen so many bangers in one place, except a banger meet. That's how we see it: bangers, flatheads, Olds, Cads and nailheads, and even a comatose hemi, integrated with the sbc's.

Who was the lucky guy with the hemi?

But go back to the Hascall's Roadster. Big black 16's, of course, chopped folding top that looks like a 50 year old bunch of canvas with no tears, etc. Has Charlie figured out how to patina those things? Come clean Charlie. Inquiring Hop Up Guys wanna know.

Full fendered look is really bone and we think that fenders are going to cycle (there's another idea!) into fashion for a while. Of course, the fenderless look is the real deal, but Hop Up Guys are ambidextrous.

The banger sounded so good and ya know, Boys, we want bangers with every one of the overheads we ever heard of, but.........there's a flathead in our future. Flathead with two 'bergs on a Burns manifold, velocity stacks stickin' through a hole in the hood, (ala Cox?), B trans with V-8 gears, and, can anybody tell us if we need the Columbia, or is that four barrel torky enough without it?

But we have to find the 'Model A Ford Club' donor car. '30-'31 coupe. Black. 15 year old babied restoration. And we'll have the Kennedy Brothers compress the top, and spot the paint, and then we'll head North and visit the Hascalls in McMinnville, Oregon.

But we'll probably do it in the Summer or we'll have to go around the (forgot the name) Pass! Brrrrrrrr!

MAY I HAVE MORE T, PLEASE?

Today we needed to take a ride in a T. Flipped the light switch from outside the cockpit, saw the reflection on the rollaways and figured we had juice. We KNOW it has gas because ya hafta fill the sucker every time you head home so there's enough gas in it to get to the fuel line at the front of the tank when you start up the hill toward home. Last precaution before contact is to whack the knockoffs once so there's still four Buffalos on it when you get to the BOTTOM of the hill. Right rear. Right front. Left front. Left rear she snugs up, then spins. No. Snug up. Extra whack...she spins. Not a good sign. S'pose t' snug up, Baby.

"THAT'S ANOTHER FINE MESS YOU'VE GOTTEN ME IN TO". OLIVER HARDY.

So we start taking it apart, and call 'T' Wood about a new hub and cussed a little because our stinkin' parade got rained on (rode a motorcycle to Philly's gig and that wasn't so bad) and didn't have the puller because our tools are in two different places and looked, and the car is up on stands in the back, two Buffalo wheels are paid out at the back of the thing, some tools and rags are sprinkled about and.............it warmed us up. We're involved in something. We are gonna learn something more about this little car. What's that shim stock around the axle? It's GONE on one side. Is that good? Weren't BOTH axle nuts to be safety wired? Is that drum too scored to use again? Will it be a bitch to fit the drums again with that internal brake shoe in there? Will I have to take the Rocky Mountain Brakes all the way off to slide that mutha in there? Don't want to ask ALL these questions, because DOING it will provide most of the answers.

We know this much: having asked the questions, and having put it back together once and having felt the vibes of the fix , we will NEVER have to be retrained on that task. And the process of doing it, and fitting it into our artificially-distressed leather bag of tricks is one of the reasons we enjoy this stuff.

Don't WISH broken parts on yourself (did we need to say that?!), but look at them as part of the price: a willing price paid to be a Car Guy. *

*Footnote: We mean once. If it breaks and you fix it, good. If it still doesn't work and you have to do it again, that's a pain-in-the-differential.