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MAGAZINE

July 2000

HOMILY

A recent sighting has reminded us that Hop Up Kinda Guys are guys with hot rods and jobs..........and some guys certainly aren't. It's base. It's simple. It's truth. e hopup verita. From Hop Up: Truth. COOL in our type of motorsport and the best thing about it is that everyone doesn't get it. If you don't need everyone to get'' what it is you are about, if you only have (we always say) a small group of peers whose approval you value, then you are the iconoclastic, independent thinker, and psychologically OK human that it takes to know that it's really about the iron and the people are just the drones that wiggle the iron around!

And how bout that hot iron? It may not be any big thing in a hundred years but, Hey! It's a happenin' deal now.

Keep that job and build (buy?) another hot rod. It's the nuts to have two, ya know? Then someday you'll grow old (Greasers think they never will, huh, Guys?), and a Hop Up Guy may someday be somebody with a comfortable retirement, two hot rods, a pile of parts, a nicely-equipped garage, a list, vision, hopes, and plans that make it flat-ass impractical to die. Too much left undone. Might need a hoist to get us up off the creeper, but we'll do er.

The people part will follow; guys in the know' find one another and that results in lifetime friendships that we probably take for granted because we weren't in it to make friends in the first damn place. We wanted to be around their IRON. We got friends. But you'll look around some day and say, "God, I sure do count on that goof ball a lot. I wonder if he knows how much I value this rain dance we do over hot rods every day?"

And then we go on and ridicule him at the next opportunity, and claim his fortune is found money', and that he's got no taste in cars, and that he can't diagnose a loose plug wire and........you know? I wonder if they know? Naw, I ain't gonna tell em......................

Prob'ly wouldn't be cool.

FATHER'S DAY

We went to So-Cals open house on Friday night and the show was real tasty. Most outrageous car there was a Duesenberg- powered Ford roadster - (33-'34) that appears in some early Duesy books. We had figgered that the thing had been parted-out so the engine could compliment some million dollar restoration, but oua la: the hot rod got restored, Duesy engine and all. A regular Leno-esque car, this thing has a 5" diameter head pipe on it, and you'll see it in the real mags. The thing really sounds bitchin, mean lope at idle and a baritone note that sounds like it could never achieve 2500 RPM. Airplane-like. But we're sure it makes more than that, and must really haul ass.

What is poignant in all this (to restorers) is that the drivetrain is as significant in a Duesenberg-engined hotrod as it would have been if added to some rebodied chassis (we think). There is a remarkably high percentage of J Duesenbergs that have been preserved - for good reason - so we think it is appropriate that this restoration has come around in this configuration.

Whodathought?

T n' A

Rudabager. Rudeo. Roadster cat from Alamo. His car is too nice for the Rattle Can Nationals (which BTW, will be this fall ). So he went out and found a heap that he can band-aid a little and thereby engage in play with the rest of us low-lifes...........we'll follow up with reports on what kind of alchemy it takes to resuscitate the nasty ol racer.

Nice flockin' catch.

BOB RYAN ROADSTER

Based on the company he keeps we expected no less from this near-the-tundra hot rodder (Hop Up Guy, too........has a pretty good job) and the stealth look, flathead, 25 louver hood and caved-in posture make us think he's been readin' our freakin' mail. We promise.......we thought of it first.....we thought.. He's on the road with his, and our parts and plans, and dreams and schemes just don't make it when compared to his tire-squallin', livin' and breathin' real-deal car. We concede. But we'll race ya some day, Bob!

THERE ARE MORE OF THESE ON THE ROAD NOW THAN FORD BUILT; BUT A REAL ONE, DONE WITH PERFECT TASTE, IS STILL THE FOREMOST, MOST DESIRABLE AND SYMBOLIC EXAMPLE OF WHAT IT IS WE DO TO GET OUR YA-YA'S.

FLATHEAD IS PROPERLY APPOINTED; GENERATOR AND ALL.

BIG CAR DASH PANEL WORKS TOO GOOD!

BOWTIE/STOVEBOLT 5 WINDER

Deputy Dawg sends these photos of his pal's Chevy coupe, all dressed up to go to the Kennedy Inauguration.

But , WHAT??? How's that? No radius rods, no hairpins, no bones........oh.

We get it. Chevy's are four springers. You don't suppose that's why so many old race cars, modifieds, etc., had Chevy frames, do you?!!

THE LOW-PRICED THREE (CHEVY-FORD-PLYMOUTH) DIDN'T LOOK TOO DIFFERENT FROM ONE ANOTHER IN THE LATE 20'S

WE'RE BAFFLED

AUSTERE DASH IS PERFECT FOR THE CAR

ROTTEN CUSTOM

Commander Stroupe, of the Northern Front, Champion of Goodness, Lowness and the Hop Up Way, forwards this shot of Bud DeCastro's tail-draggin 36, replete with the touches that define the genre: Olds bumpers, Lasalle grille, whack, spats and ........ah, FO'GET ABOUT IT!

IN ARREST-ME' RED

DO THIS

It's flat-ass the thing to do: make some chicken soup out of chicken poop. The Mild Mod, seen in recent issues of this respected journal (insert bone-finger to detractors, here), has dropped four cylinders and gone from a Cad flathead V-8 to a flathead banger. It has the coolest bunch of Ford pieces you can imagine, and His Mildness is doing major problem solving to make it all jive. It will and does.

AND DO THIS

This is what they used to do, and some of you REAL hot rod guys, who go out to the garage and do rodding, know what we mean. "No Honey, I know it's our anniversary, but I just got this thing tacked together and I don't want to lose my concentration.....er, momentum and .....besides, ain't I gonna take you to the Rattle Can Nats with me..................someday?!!!"