MAGAZINE

Some of the guys who began with it and somehow have made a living out of it have lost the vibration. Some of them don't have a car. Every time they get one of their own half done, some consumer has to have it, the craftsman need the money, so the project goes away. But there are others for whom some heaven-sent coincidence of genes and environment has kept the fever high, and, in spite of doing it for others all day every day, they can still find time to do it for themselves (and a friend).

Our shop project got to the point where a Ford body was gonna have to get levitated up on to it's chassis. So we called a handful of guys to help. We thought we were ready for them. You know, prove to them that we know what it's gonna take to do the job, have the shop tidy, tools ready, parts qued up, welting punched and aligned and you know what ? We knew it would happen. It was like taking a final exam. The professor came in, looked 'the paper' over, grunted, said ,"Ummm-hmmm", made a couple of polite suggestions, gave us time to react to them.....and then the fur flew. Well, after vaporizing a cubic foot of tacos!.

The project was just really getting under way and one of 'em stopped on his way back from the bench grinder, looked around and said, "This is just like it was when all the guys got together and worked on a club car in somebody's Dad's garage!" He smiled and went about his business.

One of 'em was cracking up about how the other guy was so good at this he could probably make a living out of it. One commented that the other guy could probably be retired now if he had just got into it early enough. The banter should have been recorded; most of them had just spent the whole day doing it for pay, one really is (early) retired and had been doing it all day for fun.....and here they were working until 10:30 P.M., laughing their asses off, doing admittedly easy tasks but doing them with the finesse that you would expect from their likes.

Just watching them work was worth the money......er...........tacos.

They, of course, wouldn't let us put a hand on anything. "Morty, ya got any 3/8 flat washers?" "Morty, is there another Coke in there?" "Morty, ya got another drop light?"

I thought we wuz MANAGEMENT.......and........... maybe we wuz!!!!

Just another day in the life of a hot rod project. One of those hundreds of days that result in a drive some day next spring in a new Hot Iron. One of the days that will be revisited over and over while driving the car toward yet another rendezvous with still more Pals from way east of here. One of the things that subliminally make you dig a car, not the materialism of it, not the possession of it, but the memories, acquaintances, friendships, and experiences that (the project) morphed into.....a five window coupe with a smashed lid.

The favor was supposed to be the lifting of the body. Nope. The favor was the company.

John Carambia, Tim Beard. Jim Jacobs. (Applause)

en hopup veritas

Hop Up Honor. Stay Honor.