MAGAZINE

And he has two of the best, most real hotrods you have ever seen and you HAVE seen them because they were too cool for the real mags to have missed, and they are on (in) the good calendars and..you know?

Anyway. these are the conversations where, when I am about to say something , I don’t. A real car guy, when emoting, can be as articulate, as moving, as insightful as Zubin Mehta talking about Bach; as joyously reflective as a cat who just hit homerun number 77; as appreciative as a rescued shipwreck victim. LISTEN.

Paul Bos is soft-spoken, does not chase glory, but is it’s inevitable recipient because he is cool. Has all the moves. Thinks for himself, runs in league with a small group of hot rod (Hop Up) guys, and as much as we have always respected his taste, build-execution, actions, etc., and as much as we KNEW his passion for hardware existed.....you just have to hear it in his own words.

He tells about being 12 years old, working a paper route, and coming across an A roadster pickup. Musta been his favorite car in the whole world. He had almost enough money, an uncle made up the $100 difference and he had a car. Clandestine. Under cover. The folks didn’t know about it. But Paul was in debt to the tune of a c-note and, since it was a truck and all, went in to the trucking business. Really. He got $1 per Model A pickup load to pick up chicken poop at the chicken ranches in the area and haul it away.

Wanna know where he took it? Yup. Right to the orange groves where he sold it for $1 per load as fertilizer. (J.C. Agajanians’ father got started this way schlepping restaurant garbage to hog farmers). By the time Paul’s dad caught him driving the truck, the hundred was half paid back, Pop paid the rest, and demanded that Paul retire, and not drive until he was sixteen . "He said I had to disassemble the truck so I wouldn’t drive it, and he helped me tear it down so far that it took the rest of the time until I was sixteen to get it running again!"

By that time, it was running a Cragar overhead and there’s a story about the Cragar laying waste to a new hopped-up ‘56 Chevy owned by the rich kids in town. As it should be.

Most Hop Up Guys have a tale something like this. If you ended up HERE, something recessive - or meaningful - has happened in your development, and you have gotten it; you probably find comfort in the iron and can get real thankful when you reflect on what THE IRON means to ya. And, yeah, there are some hairy-legged goons around who, but for this commonality, may not have been in your acquaintance, and they’re OK, too.

So pay attention next time some of these hicks begins to describe a car. Don’t jump in and say, "Yeah, but the one I saw was like this...". Let them finish. Let them go past the superficial, and they’ll get to what this stuff means to them. Let ‘em open up. Hop Up Guys tend to have something to say.

They’re worth listening to.............................. and they don’t brag.

Hop Up Honor. Stay Honor.