MAGAZINE

Center of all that is holy. Home of the Church of What’s Happenin’ Now. Where cool is defined and then strived for. It’s skyline is punctuated by the Hop Up Towers from which the entire staff is directed to spread the Word of Winfield. It’s a place where hot rods and jobs compliment one another, where it all makes sense. Where the truth is.

And it’s no different than your place.

Hop Up Guys have a code, an ethic, a solemn purpose that transends the material. The Hop Up Towers, Rivercity, is a state of mind shared by our buds all over the great, civilized US of A (our pals overseas are not to be excluded). Gettin’ it right. It’s like.........some kind of psychological hold on you that gives you the assurance that the way you do it, your taste for it, your obsessed indulgence of it is OK. Because it is OK. You don’t screw with anybody about it, you don’t harangue the unwashed, you just don’t care about them or their way of doin’ it. They’re golfers or bowlers or archers as far as we’re concerned and they do not exist in your world. You are at peace.

From outside, some pretend that it is materialism and it is not a PC way of doing things. But that crap, resenting someones achievements, is just failure to compete effectively. That’s why the ones who pitch Socialistic types of collectivism (let’s make everybody equal) are usually the ones who couldn’t prevail when competing in a capitalistic society, so they look for legislation to bring the winners down, rather than work harder, and push the losers up. Havin’ stuff is OK, Boys. Don’t let ‘em smoke ya.

It’s not materialistic of you to enshrine your car, if the more important things are more important. Family, relationships and all that, honesty, ethic, and fair mindedness and all, if accomplished, should leave room for obsession about the iron. Yeah, we’re tipped-over, but Hop Up Guys know whatsawhat. The car is just what you do with your hands and eyes and ears and mind. You explore passion - a kind of love - for something that is more than a symbol of your wealth. It symbolizes - in our case - a satisfaction with a base simplicity - an appreciation in detail of what that marked-time means in rods and custom evolution.

Because our style has not evolved very much, we probably tend to know more in precise detail and appreciation of the history, evolution, execution, and use of the things. Hop Up Guys love the nuts and bolts; love them finished or unfinished. They are able to be satisfied, knowing that doing something for the right reasons make it right for them, and the rest don’t matter. It’s a good exercise in.......finding that peace to which we alluded earlier. Sitting around the ‘Rattle Can’ last weekend, there were 25 guys at peace. Know that.

Betcha they didn’t even notice the Chartreuse ‘40 heading south toward “Route 66”.

en hopup veritas

Hop Up Honor. Stay Honor.