MAGAZINE

ROTTEN CUSTOM

We got mail from Kurt and Amy Mc Cormick. We already knew the names and had recently been dazzled to hear (in Rodder’s Journal) that this couple from Missouri had just completed the restoration of the Buddy Alcorn Merc. Yowza!

We had watched the car languishing in suspended animation for over twenty years with the leak (every four or five years) to the magazines that it was ‘now under restoration’.

Right.

Viola! Someone got over the moat and made a deal and yesiree, the car is now part of the collection of the McCormicks.

Soon they will begin the restoration of a Westergaard car. Thank you, Kurt and Amy, for saving the car, and for sending the September cover shots.

We gotta meet these folks.

ALCORN/JACKSON/MCCORMICK SLED

RODS ARE NOT FORESAKEN IN WEBSTER GROVE, EITHER!

WE WONDER IF THERE ARE 50 OF THEM??

EVER NOTICE?

The coolest scam, the most serious flimflam, smoke and mirrors and put-on is the registration of kit cars as actual cars.

There’s a guy in Orange County (that’s behind the Orange Curtain, you know) who has got this piece made from......we don’t even know what it’s made from.....probably a ‘69 Dodge Coronet or something, whose license plate reads " 34 BENZ" It looks like a Mercedes Benz, but it’s mostly fiberglass (maybe a steel MG body, or some such foolishness), it’s strapped to a modern chassis, and when inspected, it really isn’t that close to a good knock-off. The cat shows up at all these parking lot charity car shows and gets pissed - really - argues about it - if he’s passed over for a trophy. (We know because we have been there a couple of times because the charity benefits research into the disease afflicting a family member.......so don’t screw with us for having been there.)

Most kit cars have to be registered as ...special construction or something else, we suppose, but had you noticed that you can buy a new stamped set of rails, a glass body, crate running gear and reproduction stainless, instruments, wheels, and windshield.......... and call it a ‘32 Ford for registration because we are crafty at imagining numbers that fall between those that are still registered!

Why our industry is the one that can do it, but the ‘Gazelle’ and fake 300SL people can’t pull it off is amazing.

Even so, we’d still rather see fraud rods than fraud classics.

ROLLS and PLEATS

A new little book is being produced in France. The guys are pals of Hop Up and the first issue is 60 pages off righteous stuff, quite a lot of which is from here. Oakland, Shifter’s Las Vegas, and the coolest of the Eurohappenings. Take a look.

Single air issue to US: $6.50 postage included
4 issue air mail sub: (1 year) to US: $24.95
Checks payable to : "Jerome Desvaux" (Not Rolls and Pleats)

THE BEEF

Rebellion is OK. Not accepting the mores of the multitudes is OK. Be an iconoclast.

But if you are truly an individualist and you are sincerely comfortable that it’s your peers you want to be with/impress/glorify, then you shouldn’t have to do it in the presence of - in the face of - those whose taste you disdain. The disdainees are usually disdained because they are shallow, transparent, other-directed, and don’t get it. Why, then, would you waste your time having a gathering in THEIR own backyard, clamoring for the attention of THEIR spectators or participants? Clamoring for the attention of the unwashed is the shallow, other-directed style (or lack of it) activity that you are supposed to be rejecting.

What’s all this angry young man horseshit? Relax.

LOOKS LIKE STEWART HAS GAS, AFTER ALL!