History "GOW" GOWED UP...History for me and evolution..

I was born in Merced co hospital, lived in Modesto nov of 1953... My mom used to tell me when I was born they brought me home in a shoe box, took about 10 years for me to figure out it was a 1950 ford w/ carson top... My dad hung out with the winfeild group, had a 36 carson, then a 41 carson top...
when I was about 3 , we moved to hayward, thats where my grandpa lived and worked for Oakland Ford... he was one of those never angry , never cuss, grandpas, but one thing he would say , instead of someone F'd this up.. he would say gowed..

around about NOV, 1957 Dad and granpa both bought 1958 ford ranchwagons, right after that we moved to vegas..

 

And ?

 

So what I remember about gow, it wasn't something good.. and in vegas got changed to ***** rigged...
so we get to vegas, all's well , got moved into a place with a phone...only there a short time and the phone rings, my dad is hollering on the phone, with "GO F' YOURSELF" AND hanging up...next day... my Dad is arguing w/ grandpa ... seems that my DAD financed his 58, grandpa paid cash..., they made some mistake and sent the title to my dad, and payment book to grandpa , the last thing DAD said was... thats their F"N problem and hung up...

 

a few days latter, come home from school, and we have a new 1959 ford...every week end DAD messed with it... lowered it, crome reverse wheels Appleton's duals...

bout a month goes by, grandpa shows up, not happy... Dads out messing with the 59, grandpa walks up and says what cha doing Junor , Gow'n up another car?????... MOM came out and got us kids,.. that was the last I seen of grandpa for over 25 yrs, Dad never talked to him for that long.. but like it was yesterday... but to this day I remember grandpa telling me never pay juice, and from what I learned in the bay area... gowed wasn't some thing good...

 

so just guessing,.. Dad ran out and sold the 58 cause he had the title, took the money, or part of it, and bought the 59 so they couldn't repo it, never heard what happened on my grandpas side...but know this... my dad had a horrible life after that, drank all the time, and in 1963, he went to work and never came home...

 

so any way, there seems to be a big movement to make copys of the "GOW" jobs... replicas ...period correct builds...but what I'm seen'n,.. master craftsmen with lathes, mills , tig and mig welders . I drug these cars out 50 yrs ago.... angle iron, plumbers tape, bailing wire, clothes hanger , brazing rod, walnut sack rusted out body.. and what ever engine they had that ran was in them... I got a 29 RPU out of bakersfield... total hacked together... it had an industrial hemi motor out of an oil rig... most of the wiring was split extension cord..... now it has to be period correct clot covered wire...

so now, I hear Gow job, ... and think... this is not a gow job... this is a work of art...I follow all the threads to see the amazing work done.. the machinist ,fab work, body work... my hats off to you.... but never will you hear me say that you gowed it up.....carry on...

 

I think GOW JOBS preceded hot rods but were essentially the same type of animal.

 

A Gow job was cutting edge technology at the time .
The Gow job era had no speed shops , magazines , aftermarket parts supply .

or the big one . MONEY . No one really had cash laying around for this kind of Tom foolery .

but since the invention of the wheel….. man has always wanted to go faster .

the Gow job

The Hot rod

The … what ever big dollar LS powered stupidly fast crap the kids are doing now-a-days.

Hot Roding , as much as this site wants to keep a narrow focus on it , ( which I love ) is a fluid ever changing beast that strives to look cool and go fast .
Pick your poison .

speed is just a question of money , how fast ya wanna spend ?

 

Eight for gow
Four for plow.

Derisive taunt to the guys running those hot, hopped up four cylinder bangers after the V8 flatheads became available in wrecking yards. What could be worse than “a tractor motor”?

 

Yep. Only the name has changed. The concept stays the same. As the younger generations come through they stamp their own identity onto it to make it their own. Still happening now, and will continue to do so......

I'm having more trouble getting a handle on what "dad" did to "grandpa"..........

 

POPCORN POPPERS When my wife bristles at one on the road,
I tell her, "He spent money to sound like that"

 

GOW and HOP were slang terms for OPIUM. Drugs were used to enhance the performance of horses and human athletes, by extension a car modified for speed was "gowed up" or "hopped up"

 

yep, ol timers would see a car that some kids took all the fenders and roof off, run straight pipes out side of the car speeding around ,and say in their words, look what they did.... must be on drugs... and the term used was taken from the Asians of the bay area.. they musta got gowed up to do something like that... and it didn't mean they though it was good...

 

Gow….. modified from what you had or could find for improvement.
Mostly done on the cheap because you had no money. The first “rail” drag cars were probably the epitome of a gow job but not to be compared to what was used daily by a young man with a mind of his own.

 

To no one in particular..........

Don't know why, but I just dislike that word, and it seems that most people won't have any idea what someone is talking about if someone does insert it in a conversation. Then someone has to explain it. Seems easier to just say what you mean in the first place..........to me that's Kooler. "Rat Rod" ................now there is an appropriate and understandable expression.

 

If you think about it, a Rat Rod could be posted on here as long as it meets the basic criteria of the Hamb and you just don't call it a Rat Rod. If you look at the pictures posted below, you will see that cars referred to as "GOW" were also referred to as "Jalopies", but the same cars could just as well be called "Rat Rods" by todays standards.










Couldn't the more recent picture seen below fit into any of those categories as well?



We may not want to use the name "Rat Rod" in this venue, but you have to admit there is a family resemblence.

 

The difference is that all of the period pictures lack the "LOOKATME! LOOKATME! design cues that RR builders seem to love. The best quote about RRs (I wish I could remember who said it) is that "RRs are built to make a statement, and that statement is usually ‘I can’t weld’."
The second pic in particular is miles away from ‘rat’ status. The proportions may look a little off to a modern eye, but the shortened bed is expertly blended into what appears to be the front half of a touring body. Add the well-polished paint and you have a cared-for custom, not a RR.

 

I think the idea here is that opinions vary as to what category a vehicle may fit in, and in many cases they can fit into multiple categories. Some don't seem to fit well in any particular category. I have seen some pretty well built RRs, with lots of ingenuity that wasn't just cutesey things attached to them. Some real engineering and some decent money went into their build. Cars that are built for "car shows" often can choose from several categories when entering. I disagree that the older cars didn't employ the "look at me" mantra by adding certain things, but the whole idea of many builds is that people will notice the vehicle. What's the difference between what many RR builders do and the "wild look" of many show cars of the 60s. Here is a picture of a Riddler award winner from the 60s. (3rd one down) Gimmickery abounds. The difference is that the builder chromed and painted it all. Put some primer on it and call it a RR today. Watch the video to see all the gimmics. It got the award in 68, but it was emulating some of the styling top name builders had been building for several years before that.

www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?&q=1968+Ridler+award+winner&&mid=6C6DF22F38E24D8B87536C6DF22F38E24D8B8753&&FORM=VRDGAR

Some other examples........








Look at the car below.........Would have been right at home in a 60s car show, but is it a RR today?


Then in the next picture, a little gimmickery on the sedan exhausts......but is it a RR or just a hot rod being built over time and enjoyed while building....or is this the finished dream?
Then look at the gasser style 55 Chevy behind it that proudly proclaims itself to be a RR.




So, I'm just simply saying that all RRs shouldn't be considered bad any more than all show cars are beautiful or well done.

 

To me it's all about what "fad" is in at the time.

Rat rods are just another fad just like the early 70's gasser, mid to late 70's bug look with the ass in the air and wide tires and nose on the ground. Then street rods etc.

Fads have been around longer than all of us and will still be around when we are all gone.

Agree with @ekimneirbo I've seen some really nice engineering on some rat rods, better than some hot rods. I've seen some that used really cool stuff to make cool brackets etc and some that really came up with great solutions to problems encountered.

It all depends on the builder and his dreams for his car....

...

 

I was into this in a major way in 1968 (the first "T" bucket I built was registered by me initially in 1966), and I can tell you there is no way that anyone could have built that "C"-cab firetruck for anywhere near $10,000. There are several other issues I have with that "gentleman's" opinions, but they aren't important here.

 

With a lot of my 77 years hearing terms used by individuals from different areas of the country or world I can say that things like Gow Job do not mean the to guys who are from different regions or towns. Back in the 30's, 40's and early 50's I'd think that there were a lot of differences between the Bay area and the LA area and the San Diego area lingo wise and slang wise. Modesto to LA = 313 miles that in the 50's was a long ways. San Diego was another 121 Miles down the road.
LOL I remember back in about the second grade we were having reading class and they were talking about something being a lot of "truck" The teacher who was pretty sharp minded for what we thought was a cranky old woman told us that used that way in the region that the author of the book lived in "truck" meant garbage. That was my official introduction to understanding localisms.
Had a hillbilly from Houston about blow a gasket in Nam when I made a comment about a part of my anatomy with a common term used where I am from that means the direct opposite in Houston. Even a couple of other northern guys from other parts of the country looked at him a bit strange but we all let it end there.
Gow job vs rat rod. To me a Gow job is pre 1930's car that was stripped of everything that it didn't need to go fast. You didn't add anything for the sake of appearance outside of maybe some brushed on paint or lettering. Real rat rods on the other hand seem to need X number of non automotive items added in the mix, Plus a couple of questionable chassis mods and at least one serious safety issue. A good friend of mine has a little rat rod sedan that he built that when you look past the add on crap is a pretty nice basis as a hot rod and could be rolled in the garage and de ratted and cleaned up into what would be a pretty nice unfinished hot rod sedan in a long Saturday.

 

I think a lot of guys are forgetting the average rat rod say twenty years ago before EVERYONE referred to all old rods as rat rods. Often they were decently done without a bunch of extras. What separated a lot of them was non traditional parts like newer chrome valve covers etc. Seems like about the time fat fender bobbers started getting big is around the time rat rods started getting goofy over the time. Prior many rat rods were a traditional engine and wheel and tire swap from true traditional rod

 

Well, to paraphrase someone about something else... "I don't know exactly how to define it, but I know it when I see it."

And that ain't it.

Or maybe it is, it. You know what I mean.

 

Actually, in 1966 $10,000 was a pretty sizeable investment. If memory serves me correctly, I was making less than $100 a month while in the Navy. When I got out, I bought a house for $12K, and my mortgage payment was about $80. I took a job as an apprentice machinist and was making $2.66 an hour. So $10,000 was a lot of money in the 60s. As for" issues", not looking for enemies here, so if you would like to resolve any issues, PM me and maybe we can clear them up. As for my opinions, I just try to be honest and objective and try to stay away from personal stuff. I think the simple point here is that the meaning of certain terms vary by locale, and usually any time someone says that something is always true........they are incorrect. So saying that ALL RRs won't fit within the HAMB requirements is debateable. What's wrong with that opinion?

 

I mean .....the purposeful "patina" craze was part of the rr craze. Yet look at how many purposefully rusty cars are on here