MAGAZINE

EDITORIAL

Since the early 60's (for us), the two have gone hand-in-hand. If you didn't have a job, you couldn't have a hot rod . Since you had to have a hot rod, you had to have a job.

Some of you successful guys who are retired are going to point out, "I've got a hot rod and no job." But we'd counter , "You had a job!", or you couldn't be comfortably retired with a hot rod. Besides, if you make that obvious argument, then you're just using this as a forum to discuss your success and that's braggin' - #1 Hop Up 'Thou Shalt not...." (More on the Hop Up Ten Recommendations later.)

The idea that some lucky cats are born rich and become real gearheads is Oxy-Moronic. The two mutually exclude one another except in rare, gene-defective cases which, we can say with some authority, has occurred, We seen 'em. Some of them are the forged, balanced, 3 pedal version. Don't hate them cuz they've got the geeters. But if they should try to stick it up yer ass..........avoid 'em like an 8 foot 4x4 in your lane. But lots we have observed are generous, modest, informed and....lucky.

So we've got a job - or had one - or would work at one if we needed to - and we got hot rods. Oh, man. Hot rods. The kind of ride that makes you take the long way. Makes you not quite ready to go straight home, so you stretch it out by hustling up The Ortega Highway, just to drive the whole thing with no brake applications, seeing how smoothly you can make the upgrades and descents using RPM's and gear-changes only....feeling the dropped axle and buggy spring do everything it needs to, to deliver a fine ride and great cornering. Because it is set up right, you can tax your own driving ability (the radials don't hurt) and.....oh, man I could go on and on......anyway, because we drive them we have to work on them. Someone has to, anyway. And that is a big part of the pleasure. Ya gotta have your hands on it. (Sidebar: If you are reading this for clues on how to look like a Hop Up Guy, remember that even if you set up a shop, buy some tools and show it all off to everybody, people will still know that you're not out there when no one is looking. Don't waste your money!)

So you take a kind of perverse pleasure in wearing out the parts, changing them, and restoring the damn thing one piece at a time; seeing it develop the patina. That's gonna be an overworked word but it's right for now. What is cooler in a hot rod (or Classic, for that matter) than the rub-thru, the worn leather, the slightly gone chrome, and that pesky haze left on the windshield from 40 or 50 thousand miles of exploration? Let's go for a ride, Dude.

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