Jive-Bomber submitted a new blog post: Bringing One Back From the Dead... Continue reading the Original Blog Post
"All that electrical stuff leaves me cold. I like 27-liter aero engines with stubby exhaust. It's much more fun as far as I'm concerned."
"If you could bring back a hot rod from the dead. . . ?" That's a really good question. So many to choose from but I immediately thought of a local hero back in the day. He had a wicked Chevy 11. Very wicked. It was a 65 with a violent motor in it. He had "Novadose" in big letters down the side of it. That car met its end in town when it caught fire. The fire department showed up and the owner said "let it burn." They did and now it's gone
Since the subject is cars with airplane engines, anything that had an Allison V-12 in it would work for me - is Jim Lytle's chopped '34 still extant? How about Fiat Topolino with four Allisons in it? Is that one still around? It was never subtle, so I can't imagine how one might have misplaced it.
When it comes to racecars that people have been killed in the need to be cut up, and left that way or in the case left buried.
I'm glad that someone looked at the rotted car and thought hey that makes a fantastic restoration project. Which makes it all the more impressive when someone finishes it and gets it running and driving. That's my favorite part of the car hobby is when it looks like hell still give it a fair try and who knows it will be a heck of a lot of fun when your done.
“So this leads me to my question: If you could bring any historic hot rod back from the dead, which one would it be?” @Jive-Bomber Hello, Why is this truck that has no recollection from the sons of the builder so important to me? It was a sight to see when I was 10-11 years old. We lived in a small Westside of Long Beach house and owned it from 1953 to 1998. During the summer of 56 and into the fall of 57, we started seeing a cool custom truck, straight out of a car magazine, so we suspected. So, as a custom truck from 1956, it is in the “historic” category. Now, only if I could find any magazine photos… We saw it almost everyday as the walkway was leading to a park that we went to for all of the sports, from baseball, football and basketball. The custom truck was painted a Tahitian Red color and some would call it Candy Apple Red because we always ate those, when we had access to them at carnivals and amusement parks. The owner had a small business that involved almost everyone that wore glasses. There were three people in my family that wore glasses from a long ways back. I was lucky that I did not need glasses for any reason until 60 years later. But, for all of the magazines we read and owned, we could never find the photos. The sad thing was, it was too nice not to be in a magazine. The custom details were top notch, not from the big names in custom car world, but the local merchants and mechanics we knew in our neighborhood. 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, those were the daily stop over places. The mechanics and builders had shops located in the gas stations buildings and industrial areas near our houses. Jnaki 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, in the late 50s. This is the closest online photo I could find. It is similar in look, but the front grille had straight 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 did not notice the view difference when I got a ride from the mechanic’s shop to the owner’s storefront a few blocks away. 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. If any HAMB member wants their own collection of HD digital copies of my early drag racing films, please find the Tahitian Red Ford Truck in any magazine from 55 to any year. I can send you the HD copies via a powerful email server in reply/Thanks… once the ID is made and certified. I will even add your name as a contributor to the large public library reference files, once my other project is finished, too. Thank you in advance… What a nice way to spend a warm, "snowed in" environment reading old car magazines in search of this early Westcoast Tahitian Red, Chopped Ford Pickup Truck. Photos and story to be included. It may even have things I cannot remember, but it did have all white tuck and roll from inside roof to kick panels. Thank You...
HOWARD JOHANSENS TWIN TANK with its original v8-60 engine. admittedly it apparently didn't work well, and if you can find the rex burnett cutaway you would realize that the engineering was "questionable" but different, and cool as hell.. heck yeah!
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