MAGAZINE

T 'n' A

In the meantime, we will have to watch a bunch of other guys jump ahead of us. Maybe we can profit from their experience. Dougie, Jack P., and Robbie are all three doing A's. Two are Vickies, one will be a tudor.(Ours is still coming through the dream-fog as a coupe.) Don S. has his A-400 done, we think, and Hey! Maybe we can find one of those 31 Tudor phaetons to slam and smash, Kelsey and Winfield and go for a cruise with the rest of them.There we go changing our mind again.... again.

John C. has his Cragar ready for the season, and another pal of his is piecing together a roadster body he bought in 1971, to wrap around his four port Riley motor. (Or maybe not.)

Jim and the rest of the Four Ever Four people have had it on us for years. They must be crackin' up, that we are just now coming to the party. But we are coming along. At least our stripes have been earned in traditional rods and customs; we think we get it, even though we got it on a different lap.

Part of the need to four barrel is being actuated on the hillclimbs. Mildness and Rustman and Don S. are all working on Hillkillers, as well as some other secret competitor who is building something to kick our Cragar's butt. We don't know yet who it is, but we, too, may have added a trick or two by the time we get to Auburn! Eventually, those street versions, above, will probably be at the races. But we need more hills. We are not sure (doubt) if there will be another Temecula race this year, so, "Somebody stop me!" we are asking if anyone has any ideas about where, who, etc. Rusty says Kansas City will host a hillclimb this summer in conjunction with the MAFC nationals, or something. That'd be OK, no?

Again, this is a report from the area immediately around River City, so it's narrow in focus, but we'll bet that everywhere else (Charlie in Oregon, for example) the same thing is going on. The Hot Banger Nationals ought to be held by SOSS or FAST. The neuvo A' guys would surely support it. In the meantime we'll keep the planning going on, living vicariously through those projects conducted by peers, reading SOSS and FAST newsletters voraciously and trying to beat YOU to that rare cylinder head in the classifieds. Whoa!

HOW I SPENT MY WINTER IN NEW HAMPSHIRE

THIS IS A 5 WINDOW BUILDUP!

Howard Towne, Rumney, New Hampshire, is assembling a deuce 5 window from "horrible old reject parts and pieces from old stock cars". It appears to be the ultimate gesture of optimism to those of us with no talent, but we hear the project is coming along quite well.

Tis the season for 5 windows, we guess..........the Hop Up 5 Window Build-Up is snailing along, Howard is out there, Brent Bell is on one (coming soon on these pages with paint, to boot!) and we speculate that the cycle has left 3 windows and roadsters in favor of 5w's and soon it will be all about Victoria's and Phaetons. Really. We smoked-over a Pal's phaeton recently that is on the back burner while he gets another project closer, but trust us on this one................the TRUTH is going to be found in the open four-door. Whoa.Whatcha wanna bet it's a feature in "Hop Up 2002"??

But for the moment, it's all about our 5 windows on-the-cheap.' Cool cars like Howard's.

LOOKIN' LIKE A WHOLE CAR

ROTTEN CUSTOM

When is the Riverside Custom show? The one put on by West Coast Customs?

Bill, would you e mail us with some info? We really would like to have some custom stuff on this page, but we no got much of it. And are the Sultans doing another Bellflower Boulevard deal? Paso is on, of course, and Hop Up will be there. Incognito. Incognito because we'll be slidin' in the slammed'. We've got total anonymity anyway, so, breaking our chain, finding a ride in a mild custom rather than a hot rod, we will really be under cover. So be careful when you moon that Riviera drivin' by......the guy might just have a camera!

And Cads. It's no real news that Cads have always been good fodder for custom touches - they don't need much more than lowering, usually, but there sure seem to be lots of them turning up. Belle-Mon is grooming one, Rustman has the ultimate "late model" ready for the "All Cad Beer Swill and Cigar Smake Picnic", coming to a drive-in near you. The killer though , is Richard Graves' Brougham. We plan to ask him to save it for debut in Hop Up 2001, but one of those slippery pro-photo-journalists will probably scoop us on it. Do they pay?

We'll see.