I don't even play the radio in the garage anymore...I just bang away on that rusty death-trap in the heat of day and let my thoughts bounce around inside my head as I rack up smashed limbs, new gashes, sore muscles and strive for progress..however slow and painfull it might be! Last Friday evening, I was hangin' at a local cruise spot, and stopped to check out a Model A. If I saw it going down the road, I'd hardly give it a second look...not my style at all...but I like to see how other people do things, so I'll look over a car I don't particularly like when it's conveniently parked in front of me just to get a feel for how it's put together. This particular Model A was a nicely built car...very well executed and nice in just about every respect. Looked like a solid, safe driver. But, it was also cliche' and boring as hell! Bright paint, small block Chevy, yadda yadda yadda...YAWWWWNNN! I'd write it off as just another cookie cutter Goldchainer ride, but the owner happened to be standing behind me running his mouth to a buddy of his about how some other car there that night wasn't worth bringing out of the garage because it was so ratty looking! The other car was a small block Ford powered t-bucket. Deffinately low buck and built on the cheap...but pretty cool overall! It lacked the polished execution of the Model A, but it wasn't a cobbled up death rod, either! It was just built with a little less attention to show & shine, and with a little more emphasis on fast & fun! Tell me I could drive either one home, and I'd take the Bucket without question! The A-bone was a NICE car...but the Bucket was a COOL car, if you see my meaning here! I know, a car can be nice AND cool, too...but most people lean towards one mindset or the other...and will generally flock towards either nice and polished show rods, or down & dirty hot rods! It's no secret that I tend to favor form, function and "coolness" over glitz, shine and sparkle...but I can appreciate a nicely done car in either style! Just sorta bugs me that some high and mighty yuppie rodders look down their noses at cars that are infinitely cooler than their generic showpieces! If I hadn't heard this Bozo's lecture on how trashy anything less than his 1-800-CASH ROD is, I would have actually stopped to congratulate him on a pretty well done car..and probably would've asked him who built it. Ha Ha...I can't wait to back my abomination in next to his, then sit on the fender drinking a cola and spouting off as every NICE car rolls by "Aw, what an overpriced terd THAT is!" or something! I'll hafta bring a camera for the look on his face! It was a long, hot uphill battle today...had LOTS of time to think and cuss as I wrestled that******* into place and fought the engine into position. My neighbor was asking why I didn't clean up the engine compartment and paint it all nice, and I gave him a look like he'd just pissed on my leg! "Fuck that! I'll be estatic if this heap just RUNS...all that show & shine***** is for the birds, Man!" He laughed a little, but he's always been one to favor nicer cars...cool that we get along anyway! Ha Ha Ha...oh well, time to heal up, drink a few and get back into the fight tomorrow! Wonder what I'll be thinking about as I try to figure out how to mount this mess where it ought not ta be in the first place?!?! V8? In THAT car? No*****ing way...a dinky V6 barely fits! I sure hope to see some local 49-52s around sometime...just GOTTA see what they're runnin' and how they did it!! It'll never be NICE...but if it runs and drives...I'll consider it cool!
sounds like some progress in the real GARAGE GROWN world . Oh-BTW Thanks for the really cool Model, Hack-Ill take good care of it! Keep it up Man-You'll figure it all out- It WILL fly -I believe it .
hmmmmmmm i always built the nice and cool car. once its done and painted all pretty and shinny with all the chrome good stuff im done with it as far as working on it or cleaning and polishing it. every cruze nite i stop by people get pissed as i sit on the hood/fender of my 64 corvette eating pizza drinking a soda and ashing on the paint. all of the restore corvette guys cry as people love my car and they see how i cut up a pefectly good 64 radio delete fullie car to make it into a 70's throwback with flares shaved markers big street slicks big block threw the hood and 6 tail lights what fun is it sitting around wiping the car with a diper and saying how you had this guy do this and that guy do the other thing
At the Sloan Museum car show this past weekend, Flathead Pete, Kritz, and I all rolled in with our rides. As we're backin into our spots (back to back with some gold-chainer resto-rides), Pete kills the bucket and hears one of them*****ers say "Great, there goes this show..." WTF??? The funny part is that we easily had the nastiest, rattiest cars there; and any given one of our cars got WAY more attention than the 3 of theirs combined!!! It was pretty*****in funny! They wouldn't even talk to us even though they were sitting in their lawn chairs about 5 feet from us (we were sittin on our cars on on the tires of Pete's bucket...). What a buncha******es!!!
Interesting stuff goes on at the rod runs. I haven't heard any trash talk directed at any particular car and folks seem to get along pretty good. Prolly cuz this isn't the biggest Valley town in the San Joaquin and like you say - Mr. Hack - the fun is in the driving anyway. I find myself going to fewer and fewer of the rod runs. I made one this summer and that's it so far. I'd much rather fire up the roadster and run errands in it on a weekday than spend an evening sitting around a hot asphalt parking lot. It's all about the driving and the all-important question . . . do you like your car? If you do - If not - why do you bother? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Along the lines of the first liar never stands a chance I think I saw the ultimate lawn-chair car guy couple of weeks back. Sweetie and me are in the middle of moving to sunny Arizona and trailered the 31 and some stuff over to daughters house in Las Vegas. From there, we ran down the road to Laughlin. Rooms at a good hotel are $19. for the first night and second night free . . . such a deal. We used that as a base of operations to look at houses in Kingman which is 30 miles up the hill from Laughlin. Left the box trailer in the big hotel RV parking lot. When I went out to get it hooked up etec. for the trip home Saturday morning I saw another box trailer parked in the lot and the back ramp/door was open. Inside, a guy doing the California Car Duster thing on a beautiful and apparently spotless 34 panel. Couldn't believe my eyes. The car looked clean and he was dusting it in the late morning 90 degree heat and inside a box trailer with no ventilation and hardly anywhere to move. Maybe the car was dusty when he started, but I notice my cars don't get dirty when traveling inside the box trailer. (Which was purchased for moving the shop more than moving the cars.) Kinda boggled the mind it did.... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Geez . . . I wonder if these guys know you're supposed to dust the car off before you leave....
[ QUOTE ] They wouldn't even talk to us even though they were sitting in their lawn chairs about 5 feet from us [/ QUOTE ] If I'd have been in you shoes, I woulda made a point to talk to them. One of 2 things could happen- they'll loosen up & realize we're all into cars, or they'll be so pissed they'll leave. Either way you win.
[ QUOTE ] .....drinking a cola and spouting off as every NICE car rolls by "Aw, what an overpriced terd THAT is!" [/ QUOTE ] Haw haw haw...man! Hack, as soon as I read that I had a really funny thought. Imagine if you and I dressed up like Hillbillys and set on some lawn chairs on the back of my FLATBED! Do it all up with a grill and come colas and maybe even have an old lazy hound dog chained up there..... Then, start makin' fun of everybody's rides.... Do you think we'd get our****es kicked? Maybe we better have a few shotguns along with our moonshine jugs....huh? We gotta do this someday. VT
I think it comes down to soul, plain and simple. Some cars have it, some don't, and it seems that the more evidence of human hands actually involved in building the car, the more likely the car will have some real soul. A credit card billetmobile is more of a model,****embled with as little wandering from the "instructions" as possible. I think that's why so many of us love primered vehicles. (primed because of work in progress, not spraying over nice paint to make it rockerific) A car in progress wears its soul on it sleeve so to say. You walk around, looking at raw steel and seeing how it was formed (why do we all beg to see in progress shots of Cole's work?) just my take...
i like cars that function and are pretty....it doesn't all have to be chromed out,but if it is ,cool....i also don't like cars that are ratty just for the sake of being ratty,looks half****ed and lazy....a couple of extra minutes with a grinder,sander,welder,etc.,can make a car super nice,without busting the bank....it's just about putting in the time,and if you're addicted to cars,you shouldn't have a problem
I was at a cruise about 6 months ago and there was a guy that had a 57 Chevy. The typical STREET ROD, gold chainer with Cragers and tinted windows etc. Well, it was around the time that OldCarPilot was going through something with his, so I went in for a closer look, to see how this guy did it. I don't recall what I was even looking at, now. So the guy thinks I'm admiring his tacky cookie cutter "street machine." He says to me, "Keep saving your pennies and you might be able to afford one some day." Well, I found that pretty rude, so I replied, "Sorry buddy, I'd never want one."
Damn, Hack needs to have a daily babble diary. His laid back attitude and funny quips are a hillarious break from the more serious******** contests. O/T Speaking of (I can't find it if it does) does the HAMB have a favorite posters feature (ex. I love Hack's posts so email alert me whenever he posts a topic/reply)? Perhaps I'll post that in the request section.
Slowpoke, all you have to do is click on the user name that you want to stalk, this takes you to their profile, from there look for the tag that says "show all user's posts". Click on it.
The Jalopy Journal
