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MAGAZINE

November 2003

HOP UP VOLUME V - FORM AND FUNCTION

VOLUME V ON SALE NOW!!($16.00):
ORDER HERE

ORDER HOP UP VOLUME V NOW!! $16.00 Includes S&H

Order it now, and it will arrive on the woven doormat of your cabana before even the stores get it. It's called "Hop Up Volume V - Form and Function" and you should sign up now, for delivery in a few weeks.

Are we sure you're gonna like it? Yeah, we're sure you're gonna like it.

Sign over that miserable paycheck you got this week (you DO got a job, no?) And send it to:

(Still $12.95 + shipping and handling : $16.00)

Hop Up
PO 790
Riverside, Ca. 92502

Buy a bunch of the things (where you gonna get Christmas gifts as cheap as $12.95?!!!!) AND the Six Pak is still $77.70 (free s&H)

Aaaaaaaaand: specify Volume V

Be assured that this, like all Hop Up Annuals, is the gas. It's the stuff. It's the shit...... next years first and last word. You won't see rerun pics from the old days. No. Not a reprise of pics that the bigs had in their books since it became en vogue. You'll see private archives of cats what CHOSE Hop Up to debut their two hunnert year old personal scrapbooks. You will see the rods and customs of blood. Kin. Da kine....yeah, Buddy....hot rod and custom Daddy-O's like YOU.

And you will sense, feel, appreciate and savor....style. Hop Up Style.

HOP UP ANNUALS FOR SALE HERE

Hop Up Volume I is sold out.

A hard bound version of the few remaining books will be offered soon, as will VII, VIII, V IV.

VOLUME II STILL AVAILABLE ( $14.90): ORDER HERE

VOLUME III STILL AVAILABLE $15.30): ORDER HERE

VOLUME IV ON SALE NOW!!($15.95): ORDER HERE

Fourth in the series of Hop Up annuals is now available, shipping this month, in time for your holiday giving. Yeah, you got a job, no?. You got unwashed pals who could use a dose of truth, right? So what's stoppin' ya?!!! Buy the Six Pak Deal (free shipping), give the books away to five of them and watch how it transforms them..............finally we can envision a perfect world.

Until now there has not been a better Encyclopedia of Cool.

For reference.

For reverence.

It's just a bad sonofabitch.

When ordering:
For Australia contact Dragnetink.com
For UK and Europe - American Auto Mags
For Canada - Add $3.00

THE FIRST 12 ISSUES
click here for order form

The Reprint

The Reprint of the original first 12 monthly issues of Hop Up Magazine (from 1951) is available here (see order form) for $29.90 s&h included. If you don't yet have this one...why not?

COVER

This months cover is a shop scene from Jon Bradstreet who is also an artist; his Hop Up Cover sample appeared here a few months ago.

RATTLE CAN NATIONALS

Smallish. Valid. Several of the 19 of you were there, and a few others popped in, 25 or so cars at a time and someone counted about 60 overall, off and on. Quality time is a cliché, but...............

Its like...you have all your toys in a bag and you turn it upside down and empty it and they all look so neat all played out down there and you like all of them and don't know which one to grab....and the other kids are in there with you so you all just all mellow out and....chill....an' savor the environment..the stuff...and the folks...an' then all of you grab one and play with it for a while til you get distracted by another one; RCN has never had an agenda.... with the exception of the traditional Snocker Practice. Other than that, its extemporaneous foolishness and carmaraderie.

A tight little group even stayed over another day for more of the same and...............the big hot rod world just went on by....did you know that some people were even Northbound, headed for Sacramento and an NSRA deal? Hows THAT work, on RCN and CHRR weekend?!!!

Quality time is not a cliché if its not....a cliché.

NIGHT RIDERS

They'd been on the road for four days, floggin' hot rods on New England two lanes and four-lanes, hard-chargin, open headers, and trying to scare the fall countryside in to thinkin' it was Armegeddon.

The group would change from three cars to five, to four and like that, depending on what the various individuals had in mind, but everybody knew there was a picnic on Sunday and that they'd all meet up at the whiskey bar there on Saturday night to compare relative experiences of the previous four days, and maybe top that a bit.

Some had visited people, some had been focused on sights, and all of 'em remarked on the impromptu welcome parties that were put on at most every stop: seems people knew the little entourage was travelin', got the word out and demod their local hospitality.....just long enough for some eats, some tire kickin', then top off the chicken shit little fuel tanks in the hot rods and, Lock an' Load. This bunch had a drill sergeant-like leader, ya see? Full-on Alpha Dog. Most of the rest are Alpha Dogs where they came from and found it to be a relief (sometimes comic) that someone else was in charge for once.

Its too easy. Which car do you want me to drive? Go where? Stop when? Race which one?

The events, laughs, buzzes, sights and sounds of the 750 miles before the picnic were memorable. The picnic turned out to be all it had been pumped-up to be. Perfect. All the component elements of the perfect tale to tell; sensory overload. An well go back.

But we were born to run, ya see? We'd run hard all the way there and............after a loooong week, longer couple of nights and a day FULL of every sensory experience......the Sergeant said - about nightfall - We gotta get somethin to eat...this is a long ride at this time of night. We were going on the flip-flop................now?!!!!

He meant like RAT now.

Switch gears. Pasta. Reminiscence. Recap. Tentative good-byes to those who would not go as far as the first gas stop and......top off those tiny tanks again.....and switch in to a warmer highway costume (no winders, right?).....and I got in the passenger seat...(had just dropped my car for the cradle-ride back home)...of an uncorked, sinister car that was made to be in the night. The car most proximate to us was much like ours: severe chop, no fenders, no door glass, no mufflers and..........no time to waste. He chirped off in to the night and became two not-quite distinct 41 Chev tailights up there in the darkness. You could hear him better than see him ..........and then.......only when we were shifting.

It was all business. The business at hand was to give these cars their last flog of the week, and to deliver the strangers to a place where they could escape back to their own reality. But the purpose of the week, all the resources expended for that week: plane tickets, servicing of cars, days off work, fuel, meals, sleep deprivation, time away from those at home...days of our lives......all boiled down to this ride.

I had just read The Dominators. Buddy George from Mass had sent it to me, and it chronicled the street racing and drag racing exploits of a New England bunch back in the 50's, 60's and the ride we were on felt like the Dominators driving home late on a Sunday night, returning from a day of drag racing somewhere across one of those State Lines they have every few miles back there.

There was purpose in what we were doing.

It was uncorked

It was fast.

And bias-ply'd.

The sergeant had handed me a fresh set of ear plugs as we pulled out of the gas station, and I slumped in to the comfortable seat, eyes just above the dash, still able to see out the drivers window opening just fine and....with a belly full of pasta ....shaken up by some of the best belly-laughs of the week...I settled in.

It was black night and precious little was lit up by the coupes headlights. More landscape showed up if one of the other cars pulled up along-side ...................and when that happened, I didnt care about the scenery, other than to watch those vibrating lights play with the hot rod next to me. That car would move up in a slow-motion pass...and I could see every square inch of it lit up, framed by that night of pitch, the illusion changing spookey-like with the cars undulations.... confounded by those of the car whose lights were making the show.

Once, when that black car inched past us on the drivers side, he lingered with his pipes right at our drivers window....crackling (automotive writers usually use the word cacophony here, but well resist) ......no labor......perfect pitch........and haulin' ass. Our lights had him lit up from the door forward and...while that sound track played...ours droning and the other car cacklin' through that window....I studied every nuance of that bad-ass hot rod......and I knew that there had never been a better vision in my hot rod life. While this was playin' out, I kind of subliminally reviewed the pleasure of the last four days.......

Whoa, Daddy.

The cars pounded into the night with resolve.................... to take the boys back from whence they came..and they did it with style...and with no one lookin'.

After about four and a half hours, the last three remaining uncorked cars pulled in to the motel in Burnt Hills, NY...about midnight.....and .....as the strangers got out, shook hands and shook heads.........cars idling, uncorked...all three ready for four more hours................Chang came out of the motel office in his pajamas...Why you no alla time be QUIET, Missa Mawtan?!!!!!!

We were part of a Henry Gregor Felson novel that had never been written.

Joe Mac Rebuilds Ford Stuff

Hell, NO! Nobody wants to work on your V8-era trans. OR the banjo rear-end. I sure wish Joe Mac Clelland was around....................

He is, of course. The trans-master turns them around in about a day and you can find him at: (909) 371-3111, in Corona, Cal.

fritzart.com The Official Website of Motorsport Artist Tom Fritz

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