I have heard my dad and some other people refer to an old car as gowjobs, just wondering if someone has a slang definition??? let me know
I grew up in Southern California in the 40's and 50's and never heard the term used, people spoke of hot rods, fast cars, soup jobs, lakesters (This term or lakes car covered anything that ran at the lakes) jalopies. but I can;t recall the term Gow Jobs being used. In fact I never heard of it until the last few years when people started to write about the good old days. I think it must have it's roots in the east or midwest
dictionary.com is a wonderful thing gow 1915, "opium," from Cantonese yao-kao "opium," lit. "sap;" used as such by Raymond Chandler, etc.; by 1950s meaning had expanded to "pictures of **** or scantily clad women," hence gow job "flashy girl," which in teenager slang came to also mean "hot rod." So there you go, flashy girls make your rod hot, it all makes perfect sense.
You mean the thread where people argue the dictionary definition? Thanks but I'll take the dictionary over a couple hot rodders speculating about chinese dialect. If you didn't get the pun about flashy girls and hot rods, they make a pill that'll help your rod get hotter.
Hop Up magazine invented it. Those guys are whacked-out nicotine breath typewriter type folks Trust me, if it's a Gow job, you don't want it. The culture is bigger than the cars...
I did a little research and found a poem written or anyway printed in 1941 that use's the term and it was in a publication devoted to the dry lakes compe***ion but I don't remember hearing it. But I wasn't out there at that time. Didn't start messing with GOW JOBS until 1948 or 9. We went to Santa Ana drags in my friends mother's brand new 1949 or 50's Plymouth 2 door sedan and my friend won the stock cl*** with his mother's brand new Plymouth with a flathead 6. We weren't into ET's but the speed was 72 MPH
Oh ****. I read this. I'm so confused. It's all in good fun man, all in good fun. Can anyone truly pin down the origin of any slang? Was probably used by hundreds of different people hundreds of different ways before becoming mainstream enough to "stick". And thus there's probably 10 different right answers. the poem would be cool to read even though I wouldn't believe it.
HAHA wow, i expected a simple answer but what I got was a whole lot more. I guess somethings can't be easily answered but what I take from GOW JOBS is when a guy removes fenders kind of old model t or a and makes it a real hot rod. I am asuming it is a posotive term as some people refer to some women as gow jobs. anyway got into more than I can chew. Opium, chinese, hot girls, hotrods. I could see a connection but tracing slang back to the accurate meaning would be tough. Matt
I lied, the poem is in Dean Batchelors (not sure of spelling) book Dry lakes and Drag strips, the poem uses the term Gow jobs if you take the trouble to read it also look at his glossary of terms and get his take on the term. I think the Chinese angle is far fetched at least. I think it is the figment of some one's imagination
Loosley, The Term GOW JOB is the same as a HOT ROD but was used very early on... In the Teens & '20s when a guy would build a Hot Rod of sorts with what they had available before any aftermarket parts were available.
In the 1950 movie "Hotrod" the term Gow is used as the word Go would be used. "You'll get a lot more Gow [go] with that setup."
Batchlor calls it an obscure term that probably used a mispronunciation ( is that a word?) of the word go. I don't remember it being used and I started flogging "T"'s and "A"'s in the late 40's.
that is a quote from Petersons "complete ford book" they say it was a slogan ,to capture the youth market???
I dont speak with the authority of history, but I think modern usage is thus: speedster - pre-1925 hot rod gow job - 1925-1934 hot rod hop up/supe job - 1935-1945 hot rod hot rod - 1946-present hot rod At least thats what I mean when I say it. -Dave P.S. There is a parallel jalopy/beater/rusto rod/rat rod dichotomy that I wont get into.
It was before my time, they were just hotrods by then, but I have a memory of a film and a young hussy is saying go, but accenting it so it came out gow. That is my understanding of it, sort of like the way other words have gotten stretched around and mutated into popular slang , such as beeyatch!
i'm 42 and the 1st time i ever heard the term was mid 80s... ish. grey baskerville used it in an article in HRM... wouldn't be the 1st word grey coined either!
Now that you got what is a gow job what the hell is a streetrod. Another stupid term used by the magazines You either have a hotrod or custom. And muscle car sounds like a ***ual problem.
In defense of the term, I think it was useful and necessary in the era when a lot of race cars were modified production vehicles. It sets apart a race-only hot rod from a street-driven hot rod. -Dave
I want a Hummer. I've only been around since the mid '50s but the old man was building and racing before the war as were many of his croonies. I never heard the term until the later '90s or early 21st century. Doesn't mean it wasn't a real term but it probably wasn't a term used in Nor Cal. Here's something that might make you think a bit I wonder if it wasn't a term a lot like Rat Rod, it may have been an insult at one time and we just decided it sounded cool and began to use it like as though it was. Just food for thought.
The Jalopy Journal
