MAGAZINE

T 'n A-V8

Jack Underwood is the Pope of the Donut Shop. Holds court out there Saturday mornings, advises guys, shares his racing knowledge generously with the newbys, has a pleasant greeting for ya..... and his trusty A-V8 is always at his elbow. If you are going to imitate a human or his car - either one would be a good choice.

Terry (Braveheart) Seaholm sent the photos of Bruce Donelans' '29 with only 5 miles on it.

"Not for long", they said!.

It's a bitchin car, faithful to the Underwood piece including the Divco wheels (that even Bob Ryan could hardly find) and we are pretty sure that Jack is flattered. It's a mixed deal when someone copies you (if SRM was black and white, you'd think WE were in it this month, but look for more than a second...... it's not stogie time).

Flattery .....on the one hand and a dilution of the illusion on the other...guess there can't be enough cool hot rods.

This one is expected to be a mile-maker so watch it show up at a lot of events and........yeah. Tell 'em you saw it in Hop Up.

Looky:

SLICK ROADSTER COMES FROM SEATTLE AREA

DASH AND INSTRUMENTS ARE OLD STUFF IF TERRY HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT!

DRIP PAN

TONY MILLER HAD TOO MUCH HEADROOM IN THIS RIG, SO TOP IS BEING 'LOWE'-ERED. 265'S BEEN IN THERE FOR 40 YEARS. WHOA!

TONY'S FIRST TASTE OF 'GLORY' AT HIS HIGH SCHOOL CAR SHOW! .

HOTROD JOE RAN A TOPOLINO DURING COLLEGE DAYS IN THE 1940'S

SUEDE MERCURY AT VLV

MORE VLV SLEDS

FRANK MAC SENDS 'LLOYDS' OUTDOOR SHOP' FROM 1938

MAX MCLEAN POINTS OUT THIS HANGAR IS IN CENTRAL VALLEY - NOT SANTA ANA

POSSON SCULPTURE "RUNNING AT THE LAKES" NOW AVAILABLE THROUGH HOP UP

Just after WWII, hot rodding got a start when young men took their cars out to the dry lake beds to see what they would do.

They began a whole new industry right there on the dry mud.

"Running at the Lakes", a new bronze sculpture by Steve Posson, captures the spirit of the early lakes meets.

The car has Kelsey-Hayes wheels, a dropped axle and a race car steering wheel, but everything else is pretty much stock.....and well used.

The '29 body has the cowl gas cap and the '32 grill still has its original trim and cap. The interior is tired, the door handles sag, but you know all the work is in the motor!

The racers are in blue denims with rolled up cuffs, t-shirts and boots.

"Running at the Lakes" is 26" long, carefully made by hand in lost-wax silicone bronze on a marble base. There will only be 15 made. $8,000.00

For more details contact Morty at (909) 788-2500.

Miss Information's Automotive Calendar of Events

Monthly listings of all things automotive in Cal, Nevada, Arizona
$15.00 per year:

A.C.E.
6475 East Pacific Coast Hwy. #375
Long Beach, Ca. 90803

A real car guy will get more satisfaction out of wanting a certain car, than some people get out of owning it..

You can't buy that.

MESSAGE BOARDS

Some guys call them the 'CB Radio' of the millennium and there's some truth to that: anonymity if desired, a place for shy people to have relationships of sorts, a place to practice an alter ego (like a web page) and like that. They're fun until the personality quirks of the few overtake the anonymity but that doesn't happen too often.

The most successful and interactive board in the traditional end of the hobby is the Jalopy Journal's HAMB (Hokey Ass Message Board) and - just by the computer literacy of the registrants - you can tell they are the younger faction of the rod/custom population. And some of the questions or topics may betray their minimal summers. No complaint here. These cats are happening , have their hands on their cars and are either Hop Up Guys, will be Hop Up Guys, or already are their interpretation of Hop Up Guys.

For example, some of the cars seen at the Antique Nats reflect stance unattainable by some street rod types. They go past the familiar to a learned interpretation of what looks good, and what is clever, seasoned with what is nostalgic. Once in a while one of the guys (or chickies) will ask a question that would seem fairly naive if you didn't know that the questioner might have been born after the '73 gas lines. He might have not been around yet when the hostages got sprung from Iran. And he certainly wasn't around to be pissed at Nader for doin' it to Corvair. (He might have been around, though, for 60 Minutes to do it to Audi).

So he may not have spent early days laughing with his Dad at the old beater Model T in a parking lot somewhere, or noted the daily driver A somewhere in town. Or seen someone driving a Baker Electric through the neighborhood. These cars had got to be 50 years old or more before he was born and they didn't occur as an old, but daily element of his formative car culture. They were, for some of us, no?

So if by some mis-alignment of the stars the guy (you will note that a whole hell of a lot of them have hot rod or street rod Dads) latches on to old Fords and their less-frequently hopped up competitors, it's a pretty cool deal.

Now, the ones with the hot rodder Dad are more likely to be well founded in the difference between a T and an A. The life style cats may be sheetmetal-challenged sometimes but the point here is that - at that same age - I'll bet I would've asked the same frickin' questions if I had had the gumption to ask them. Woulda been too embarrassed to let anybody know I didn't know, though. I had to have an old car, did, and was pitifully naive about them.

Looked good, though. Oh, yeah. Looked cool....and I had Woods to cover for me!.

So if we seem distant when some fool - pity the foo' - starts raggin' on these guys, don't mind us. They are the great greasy hope, and even though we (?) invented it...they are cool, and we applaud all they are doing. We don't envy their youth - we had one they'll never beat - and what we are drawing to now is plenty OK - but we admire what they are doing and just.....goddammit....... we gotta find a way to take credit for it!!!.