MAGAZINE

HOP UP 2001

Order Hop Up 2001, Specify Volume II and in a few weeks you will get the second volume of truth. The second installation of The Bombe. Another look at today’s vision of the rods and customs of the past, done today. HOP UP STYLE. And not a few visions of how it was in the day; proof we’re gettin’ it right today, if you will!

Remember: after publication, postage of $1.95 will be charged.

Nice talkin’ to ya!

2001 Cover

Order Form (Specify Volume II).

For Europe, OZ, and N.Z., contact :

Tel. 01606 558252
Fax. 01606 559211
Email - graham@americanautomags.co.uk

UK price £12.95 including postage & packing
Europe £13.95 including airmail
Australia & New Zealand £14.95 including airmail

We accept Mastercard & Visa

MAIL ORDERS FOR ANNUALS COME WRAPPED IN SOME COOOL ENVELOPES!

WHAT’S HAPPENING?

But we made the best of it. A little cruisin’ around, some beer and ceegars, a few yuks with some folks who were worth the time........and some more cruisin’ around and beer and ceegars.........a few gold-chain sightings.......more than a few.....had an offer to Q with Tubby Tom but saw where his hands had been before serving the hors d’oeuvres...........took our Sweet Thangs out to dinner, blew home to get ready for Etta James the next day at another venue.

She rolled out in one of those motorized fat-broad carts and we thought, “How long have we waited around listening to over- the-hill acts just to hear another over-the-hill act?” WRONG. The woman has got the goods - 216 years old or not - has got the goods. “At Last”........... “I’d Rather Go Blind”................WHOA!

Get back in the Bluesmobile............knowin’ you’re lookin’ good....crowd in the parking lot all over the thing..................doesn’t matter.....lookin’ straight out over that birdy hood ornament about six feet away.......quiet reflection........ silent reverence for those notes.......those pipes.

Those pipes.

What a way to end the weekend.

WHAT’S THIS? NAME IT AND WIN DIDDLEY!

HOP UP TV GUIDE

He called it the “Shifers Car Show”. Is that because you didn’t want to tell em what the F in FTB stood for?!!!!Hahahahahahaha!. You goin’ mainstream on us you wild man, you?!!!

THE THIRD RATTLE CAN NATIONALS

MCFADDEN AND ROGERS MADE THESE UP

Same size as before, with a slightly different mix of folks, but the same formula. Hard core lethargy. Some rusty parts were brought along, gawked at, maybe a few got swapped but we rather think these shrewed consumers had more fun insulting each other about their capitalistic pricing.

Some scrapbooks and literature was drug out and a couple hours of reminiscing and appreciating those who had passed before us took place.........it was noted by a sage participant that these photo scrapbooks revealed a surprising number of cars that had survived and had been restored or (better) resuscitated and were in use now.

Brings to mind the folly of taking an old hot rod and ALERT: AVERT YOUR EYES IF YOU ARE READING THIS FOR SACCHARINE, POLLYANA, EVERYBODY- LOVES-EVERYBODY, LET’S-NOT-DARE-TO-OFFEND-ANYBODY CONTENT ‘restoring’ it to some modern, smooth standard. We think if you want to build a fashionably smoothe car, then start with all the cool products available for that purpose; those cars, whether steel or glass, are all designed - people go way out of their way - to make them look like new, glass cars. Removing the door hinges, etc., of a metal car makes it look just like a.........glass car. Same with several other features of correctly done smoothies. There are still enough stock steel bodies to do it though, if you just gotta. So do it to a stocker or a glass one or a repro one. The idea of taking an early hot rod and undoing it to make a modern one is wasteful, because there is nothing you can use from the old car. But society could have BOTH of them if you sold the old rod, bought a stocker, and smoothed THAT one out. It can not possibly save money to mung up the early-done car.

Anyway, we headed back from the ‘Can in a caravan of one........got to run a little harder than we had on the way up ( get some LEGS, Bellman!!).......on a cool Central Cal morning.......and the 283 was hummin’....we had got the motor out of an inherited car (we musta told you this) with 264000 miles on it .The heads had never been off the thing; we commissioned Larry Allingham to rebuild it, specified good parts and my, oh my. We’re running on pretty good interstate, bias ply tires, caved-in buggy springs and the thing takes on this real flat 75 MPH saunter...you know how that feels, right? The truck kind of efficiently floats over the lanes....there’s hardly any Sunday morning traffic out there and you get that dreamy “It doesn’t get any better than this..” deal goin’ on.

You look out of the ‘shield from several different angles and watch the horizon over the hood ornament and across that patched and checked lacquer hood; you look down between the hood and headlight and watch the road skipping by at a pace that Henry’s commercial designers never imagined; there’s a musical pitch comin’ from the pipes...........and then you realize that you kinda missed the last 40 miles. How much gas is in there? Flakey guage, flakey speedo. Crap. This thing’s gonna run outa gas. How many miles we gone? What did that last mile marker say? What time did we leave? Don’t even have a watch!!!

Then the mathematics start. OK. It’s probably 125 miles to Grapevine. It feels like we’ve been gone two hours.....naw......one and a half........................good thing we don’t have a radio... to distract us.

Can’t wait to do this again.

WANTED: ‘29 ON DEUCE RAILS (PROJECT) TO MAKE APPROPRIATE HOME FOR THIS MILL