Hot Rods So,.... What lit the fire in you ? The car that inspired you FIRST ?

Me either. However, I can say the first thought that came to mind was a neighbor of mine. It was the sound more than anything. He always had some rowdy sounding cars. The sound might have hooked me first...

 

Watching Norm's bucket -T on The Ozzie & Harriet Show, then riding in my uncle's 40 Chevy business coupe. Later watching a guy drive by my bus stop every morning in a souped up 40 Chevy coupe. The rumble of that engine as he sat waiting for the light to change. Car magazines & car shows in my late teens & going to the dragstrip on Saturday nights on a date. I was hooked for life. I had another uncle that had a 57 Ford sedan delivery that he used to pull his fishing boat. He let me drive it when I was 15. I always wanted that car but never asked him to sell it to me.

 

Hello,

When we were little kids growing up in the Westside of Long Beach neighborhood, we used to walk in front of a row of small community oriented business shops. From a small grocery store, to a bakery, to a liquor store, to an optometrist’s shop, and to several shops catering to women in the neighborhood.

But, when we walked by the optometrist’s shop, right out in front was the coolest custom truck we had ever seen. It was a show quality truck with bright Tahitian Red or Candy Apple Red Paint, White tuck and roll upholstery, chromed reversed wheels, shiny exhaust pipes, and an unusual chopped top. No one we knew had a car or truck with a chopped top. We saw some in magazines, but never on the streets.

So, every time we saw it, it was a custom car/truck car show and we were totally immersed in dreaming about cars/trucks. Luckily, our parents knew the owner and took us to the shop many times. But, the shop goodies were not the main interest, it was parked outside on the street, right in front of the big floor to ceiling, glass display window. No photos or magazine articles, but it had to be in one of them due to the fact that it was an cool, well built, custom truck.
Similar in look, but the front grille had tubular bars, delete those slot wheels and add in chromed reversed wheels with small smoothie hubcaps.

The front had multiple straight chrome bars across, from headlight to headlight. The chopped top was at a slight angle with the front windshield taller than the rear. The roofline was slightly sloped. The view out of the front windshield was still wide and open. It did not feel like being squashed. Although, being a little kid, I would not notice the view difference.
old Friday Art
We knew the owner and over time after moving away from the Westside permanently in 1998, we lost track of the owner. After several tries in contact, his sons told me that they have no recollection of that truck, but at the time, the owner had passed away and it was a confusing time for the family.

Jnaki

If that one custom truck was not the starting point, my brother’s friend’s 1934 black Ford 5 window coupe with a big Oldsmobile motor and LaSalle transmission sitting on a lowered rake was a frequent visitor to our house during those teenage times for my brother and his friends.

The coupe parked on our driveway every time and I knew it was arriving when I heard the motor coming down the street. Then with a final rump-rump, he shut the motor off in our driveway. That was music to my little kid ears.

Web photo on left... but similar. Right is at Lion's Dragstrip

P.S. One ride in the custom truck was the first ride and what an experience it was for a little kid. The more frequent rides in the 1934 Ford Coupe with the Oldsmobile motor, just started the whole hot rod/drag race scene for a young teen. In 1956, who knew it would last well over 66 years of interest and memories!!!

 

I do not recall reading books about hot rods or motorcycles. My dad had a subscription to R&C and some off the wall no longer in existence motorcycle rag. That is not what inspired me I am afraid but they were there.

On an given Saturday morning dad's shop was a stream of hot rods and motorcycles. I cannot say what actually inspired me. Perhaps it was the Ol' Man's roadster, or any number of other cars. I came home from the hospital in a '41 Willys pickup with a nail head in it. I really do not physically remember that truck. But in my mind while I am not a nailhead guy a hot rod sounds like a nailhead with Smithy's.

The truth is that I have been around bikes and cars and the men who drove or rode them all my life. I got an idea that my inspiration comes from that.

 

Having my '40 coupe since I was a 5 year old kid, I had three very inspirational coupes that were the influence on me.

First is the Gene Sonnen '40 coupe. I first saw it in slides dad shot at Peoria, 1970. Loved everything about it, and it planted the image in my brain that my '40 coupe would have flames and 5 spokes.
Second on the list, Gary Opitz '40 coupe. I think Dennis Parks shot this pic around 1982, at the Roarin' 30's Rod Run at Lindenwood College, in St Charles. The stance, bronze glass, and of course, 5 spokes. The car also has a nasty SBC with a gear driven cam, which I'm thankful that I didn't follow that desire. The gear whine would drive me nuts today!

And the third would be David Mock's '40 coupe. I don't have a cool Merc bumper, but David's car has always been in my top three. I remember the first time I saw pics of it was in an issue of SRM back in the 80's. I believe he had a small blower on it at that time, and caused all kinds of dreams.

While the flames on my coupe resemble neither of the previously two mentioned '40s, they were a layout that my ol' buddy Dale West sent to me, copied from the '40 pickup that he was driving at the time. I chose to make the top of the hood symmetric, rather than how he had his, but Dale's truck would definitely be in the inspirational '40s, and since I have known Dale for over 50 years, I am quite honored to have his work on the car.

 

As for me, it's gonna be my 1957 Chevrolet 3100 that has been in the family for a few decades. It'll always be around, and I can't wait to finally decide on something official to do to her!

 

I was into cars before I knew what a Hot Rod was so it wasn't any one car that started it. My dad was a car salesman at a Chevy Dealer in Columbus, Ohio when I was born that same year he became a dealer rep for Dodge Division for sales in southern Ohio. I built model cars for years and then one Saturday I saw a NASCAR race on Wide World of Sports. I became a Fireball Roberts fan then later a Petty fan with the passing of Roberts. I bought a 1966 Plymouth Sport Fury when it was 4 years old while in high school. I took it drag racing before bracket racing came along. I won class with it many times then bracket racing came and I didn't like so I quit. Four years later a friend asked for my help building a bracket car that got me back racing until 2021. So here I am shoehorning a 57 392 into a 39 Plymouth.

 

my neighbor growing up was a bracket/street racer.. he had a wicked 55 Chevy and later a panel Painted 61 Corvette.. those cars and the memories and rides when I just a little kid set me on my path.. RIP Roy A.

 

Wow !.... What a old thread, But I thought it might be fun to shake the dust of this thing, and give some of you other guys a chance to contribute.... what do ya say ?

 

William Day's Tales of Inspiration



It was fall of 1952. We lived in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, right smack on the Atlantic Ocean, sandwiched between Marblehead, “Home of the American Navy” and later the site of the fictitious city of Paradise in the Robert Parker/Tom Selleck made for television mysteries, Salem, “The Witch City” and Gloucester, of “The Perfect Storm.” My dad was a paraplegiac, confined to a wheelchair as the result of a sniper’s bullet in Patton’s Push across France following the Normany invasion. He enjoyed short car rides around the area, but this time my parents had decided to try an overnight trip down to Cape Cod from our home in Cape Ann. Turned out to be a logistical nightmare due to the complete lack of handicapped access facilities. I was as much into cars as I could be for a nine-year old in a very provincial part of the country. Around Beverly Farms the closest thing to a custom car was a nondescript sedan with a glasspack muffler and maybe a squirrel tail tied on the radio antenna.

In this time before interstates, we got as far as Brockton, a suburb of Boston, by lunchtime. The only place we found was a teenage hangout but it advertised hamburgers so we stopped. We were reading the menu and deciding on what to order when in pulled a primered 1939 Ford convertible with loud mufflers. It was chopped and channeled and didn’t have a hood, so the flathead engine with dual carburetors topped with chrome air cleaners was clearly visible. The driver got out and went into the diner. He wore bluejeans, boots, a white tee shirt and a black motorcyle jacket. A few minutes later he came back out, got into the Ford, fired it up and took off in a cacaphony of rapping pipes.

I was way, way more than impressed. I had never ever seen anything as cool as that. Ask anyone with a hobby or special interest how they got into it, and they are usually hard pressed to provide an answer. Today, sixty years later, I still have a vivid recollection of each detail and know that brief chance encounter was the first step on my lifelong interest, or perhaps obsession is a better term, with custom cars. It took me awhile to identify the make and model of car, and even longer before I could appreciate the extent of the custom modifications. In a year end issue of Life Magazine that showed cars that had driven on Goodyear Tires, I saw a Lincoln Continental, which is essentially a sectioned and lengthened Lincoln Zephyr. It’s a custom 1939 Ford convertible on a more grandiose scale.

Three years later, Christmas 1955, I got my first issue of Hot Rod Magazine (January 1956) and the following Christmas the Trend “Best Custom Cars of 1956” annual that featured Doug Rice’s chopped and channeled 1939 Ford coupe, the “Bonneville Boomer.” This showed me the same modifications that blew me away on the 1939 convertible at the diner in Brockton could also be made to a coupe. I was hooked for life.

Over the following years I picked up several examples. The day I arrived in Las Cruces to begin my university education at New Mexico State University, I saw a chopped and sectioned 1940 Ford convertible and was able to buy it six years later. I found a over-the-top full custom 1939 Ford convertible (chopped, channeled, sectioned, molded, genuine Carson top) in Alamogordo. When I began teaching, I bought a 1940 Mercury convertible with full custom modifications – everything except a chopped top. It is Cobalt blue, deep channel, fenders raised and molded, hood sectioned, dual spots and an early Cadillac OHV-8 with a Cad-LaSalle floor shift tranny adapted to the Mercury torque tube. [The Mercury was financed short-term by a girl I dated through college whose parents both died tragically. It was also instrumental in showing me that my wife of 40 years, who is French, would be a far better marriage prospect than the girl friend, but that’s another story.] Last, a 1939 Ford convertible, chopped, channeled and sectioned that West Coast magazine reporter and author Neal East (former owner of the Duane Spencer 1932 Ford roadster) helped me purchase after I saw his article in Street Rod Magazine. I also acquired several 1941 Lincoln Continentals.

I bought these cars at a time when custom interest was more on late model stuff, and long before anyone was using terms like “old school”. Consequently, the price was right and condition good for “builders.” The remarkable thing is I was able to hang on to them.

I belong to a Car Club in Louisville, Kentucky – Obsolete Iron. Arriving at a meeting eight or nine years ago, I thumbed through a copy of National Street Road Association’s “Street Scene.” In the back, near the classified ads, was an article about Blue Ridge Community College in North Carolina that had started a program in auto restoration with emphasis on classics and street rods and customs, much like the one at Wyoming Tech. The article was illustrated with two photos of a chopped and channeled 1940 Ford coupe under construction. I jotted down the phone number for future reference.

A couple of years later, I was assisting my wife who directs the University of Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture since 1900. I had access to wide area telephone service and time to kill. I dialed the number and was promptly connected with Stan Ducker, the coordinator and head professor of the auto program. We spoke for a while, and I told him how much I liked the 1940 coupe and wondered if it might be for sale. He replied, “Oh no, the owner is very proud of that car, he built it himself and he helps me with the courses. In fact, he is an older man, but since you are interested in cars like his, I’m sure he would enjoy speaking with you. His name is Ralph Turnberg.” As Stan was looking up Ralph’s number he continued to tell me how Ralph had been involved with cars all his life. “Yes, he said, “Ralph grew up in Massachusetts, and I am looking right now at a picture of him with a custom he had back in the day – it’s a 1939 Ford convertible with a bunch of stuff done to it.” It was at that point that a cold chill began working its way up my spine. I called the number and soon was speaking with Ralph. After the usual formalities of introduction, Ralph started telling me about his coupe. I mentioned that Stan said he grew up in Massachusetts, and I asked Ralph where. He answered, “Brockton.” My next words were, “You’re not going to believe this, but, we met quite by accident, over 50 years ago” and I recounted the chance encounter at the Brockton diner in 1952.

Ralph and I stayed in touch by email, and I finally met him and his wife Nay Ann several years later at the NSRA Nationals in Louisville. They were driving the custom 1940 coupe. It did not go unnoticed by Kev Elliot and Kevin Lee of Rod & Custom magazine who selected it for a feature in 2009. Tragically, Ralph suffered a massive heart attack in December 2012. It was not until his passing that I discovered what an inspiration he had been to many other custom car people. He will be greatly missed.




Here is the final photo of Ralph Turnberg's completed 40 Ford coupe with Ralph.


Here is the photo of Ralph Turnberg's 50 coupe under construction.


This is a photo of Ralph Turnberg's 1939 Ford convertible I saw in Brockton Massachusetts in 1952 that inspired me. It was published in Rod & Custom.

Photo above with two 1940 Ford coupes is a mistake. The chopped and channeled Ford is the Fred Cain Coupe and I bought it from a HAMBer ten years ago. But that's another story.

 

I've got to find out more about this one!!

 

Quite honestly, I only remember seeing the car two times, but it seared it's place in my favorite Forty Ford list instantly.
This was the first time, and this pic hung in every school locker and workplace walls.


The second time I remember seeing it was shortly before Gary passed away. I stopped by to see him and we walked out in the garage so I could see it. It had the 5 spokes on it that time.

Gary told me that it spent time as a drag racer. I don't know what the SBC is or the transmission behind it, but for a 14 year old kid hearing it when he fired it up, it sounded REALLY cool. Gary had bronze tinted glass in his car, unlike a lot of guys who used the grey glass back in the 80's. Consequently, when I first got my coupe on the road, I put bronze glass in every opening except the doors. When I got the upholstery done in my coupe, I pulled out the bronze glass, but have migrated back to it, just because I REALLY liked the bronze windshield.

My understanding is that Gary's family still has all of Gary's toys, which he had a LOT of, including several Cushman scooters, a few Swing bicycles, and all kinds of other stuff. Gary always said "It's the last thing I ever needed!" when talking about each of his toys. LOL

 

@bchrismer thank you for the picture and the great story! I think I share your fondness for that one!

 

My mom has always claimed that my first word was car, I have always been obsessed with them. In ’79 when I was 9, I had bugged her about going to the Frog Follies, as I was seeing the cars all around town. I finally broke here down on Saturday and she dropped me off at the main gate and handed me a watch and me to be back at that spot at 4. If I wasn’t ruined before, I was then!

I wasn’t a very strong reader when I was a kid, at all! My grandmother, who worked at the local historic library, had gotten a subscription to Rod and Custom, for my birthday in ’81. My mom was upset that I was reading the magazines all summer instead of books on the summer reading list and my they kind of got into it. My grandmother told me to read part of an article to my mom and I blazed threw it and she asked me to describe what I had learned about one of the other cars and I was able to rattle it off with out a problem. I’ll never forget my grandmother saying, “If you want to learn to read, all you needed to do was give him something he likes to read about.” I used my grass cutting money to get a Hot Rod and Street Rodder subscriptions, that’s where I learned about Fat Jack, Lil john and Boyd. In ’83 I remember going to my first Street Rod Nationals and WOW! I’ve been going ever since. Then in ’85, here comes Fat Jack’s ’46 at the right time for me! It engulfed everything that I found myself interested in! I ended up becoming a machinist and then on to get mechanical engineering degree. Growing up as I was told cars were not going to help me get a job, I’m the only mechanically inclined person in my family. It is my opinion that I kind of proved them wrong, my reading grades ended up matching my other grades and have made a pretty living off of what cars lead me to. I owe thanks to Boyd, Lil John and especially Fat Jack.

 

i was maybe 10 when i saw luke doolin roll that '50 at the start of "thunder road." i was hooked!

 

My 11th birth day when my father in trusted Mike Frank’s (Blue Mountain Drag Strip ) with my care in the stands and the tower. Hook was set.
Finished the deal for ever when Wes showed up driving this and parked across from the Main Attraction my freshman summer. The rest is explained in the build thread. I don’t have a car like the one that started it all for me. I have the car.

 

Gary Kessler's roadster. Saw it at a Roarin' 30s meet in 1980 (?). I think it was owned by Don Ward by then. Read Hot Rod magazines ALL the time as a kid (the 60's) but hadn't seen too many rods in real life. Bigs and littles and that paint. WOW. Hook, line and sinker.

 

Growing up as a kid of a Roarin' 30's member, I have always been fascinated with that roadster and Dickie Carroll's '34 hiboy which since grew fenders. I actually got to drive Dickie's roadster home from Mount Vernon, IL back to St Charles, after the '99 Nats.

 

Iv'e been into cars as long as I can remember.. One of my earliest experiences that I recall was Summer vacation 1968 at the Thunderbird Lodge at Big Bear lake CA. If I recall correctly it was the owners son who had a dune buggy based on a shortened 50s ford chassis with a Y block with straight headers and dual rear wheels. My Dad actually let me go for ride ... Pretty exiting stuff for a 5 year old

 

Needs a Moonyham blower.

 

When it comes to pre muscle car era cars.... 53 Ford Victoria that was a survivor custom built around 1960 that I could have bought for $300 in 1997 that I passed on being a 13 year old that thought that'd be impossible to come up with lol. At some point I'm going to try to mostly recreate that car from memory. Despite having sat in a junkyard a couple decades it was still a good looking car

 

The car that inspired you first. That is the question. What’s my answer you ask? This. I do like trucks after all.

 

This Beach Boys album, and this 1/8 scale model in the hobby store window in 77-78ish. I was 8 or 9.

 

Flat Top Jr's car in Dick Tacy comics, about 75 years ago. The car could do everything plus he lived in it. Of course' it didn't hurt that we lived next to a car dealer that, back then, was open 7 days a week. Always a place to hang out.

 

My best friend growing up, his Dad street raced an orange '57 Chevy. Nose was kind of in the air gasser style, big block Chevy power. The car had "Don't look Ethel!" (Think the Ray steven's song the Streak) painted on the lower front fenders. The claim was he was never beaten in a street race around our parts. That car started it all for me. I wish I had a photo of it.

 

Charlie Durso's 1948 Buick custom did it for me when I first saw it on my way to high school a long time ago.
Charle Durso radical built custom........... | The H.A.M.B. (jalopyjournal.com)