Well, I guess it is time that I finally do an intro. I have been on the HAMB for a couple months, have read countless threads, drooled over pictures of cars, art, pin stripping and such. From what I have read, doing your intro kind of makes you legit in the HAMB world so here it goes. My name is Mike (chevymike) and if you havent figured out by the username, I like Chevys. I think my love of cars came at a very early age, back in my Hot Wheels days, then progressing to plastic models, into Radio Controlled cars and finally into the 1:1 scale versions. I have just had a love of cars, actually most mechanical, moving things as I was also really big into trains and airplanes but none of those I could reasonably do in full size. My garage has never been that big. My first car was given to me by my grandparents but under the condition that I had to do the work to get it running. My grandfather, being an old Kansas farmer, believed that you need to learn how to work on your own equipment, to keep it running and he wanted me to learn this lession. At this point I had had a year of Auto Shop in high school so I was ready to do this. The car was a 1961 Pontiac Bonneville, 389 CI, 4 barrel and an auto. With a little work, tune up and a new radiator, I had my first set of wheels. Yep, the red rocket as she was called. Keep in mind, this was 1984 and old cars were not the in thing at my school. I got made fun of but hey, it was my car and I drove it everywhere. Sure beat walking. Over the years, I owned way too many cars/trucks/motorcycles to list. Everything from lowered mini trucks to Baja bugs to sports cars. My true love though has always been pre 72 cars and trucks. Just something about how they each have their own look and personality. Cars today lack soul but I regress. Over the years I have built a couple 69 Camaros, 66 and 68 Chevy trucks, got a good start on a old school pro-street 63 Nova, a 65 Austin Healey V8 powered kit car and a few other interesting projects. Each one taught me lessons both in a physical sense but more importantly in a mental sense. I used to have a very short temper and would become frustrated easily and it would show in my work. As I have matured (okay, gotten older) I have a very different outlook on my projects. I have found a very good key that when I have a problem and might be getting frustrated, I step back, take a little time away and let myself work the problem in the back of my mind. I end up finding a great solution to the problem and move forward without all the headaches I would have given myself. This is reflected on the quality of the work I do and how much deeper I get into a project. I used to just do bolt on stuff, then as time move forward, I got into minor fabrication. This became much more serious fab work moving up to the current project my best friend and I have been building for him. We built a very low budget, rat rod style, glass 23 T-bucket. I would have never thought I would be building cars from scratch, building something from a pile of parts. My how times are changing. This brings me up to this point in my love affair of the automobile. I am finding myself becoming overwhelmed with the desire to build a much more traditional hot rod. Maybe not 100% period correct but built with the idea of what would have been built in the fifties or sixties. I REALLY want to build a 27 T coupe or 2 door sedan, do my first chop and channel. Give the car the right stance and even run it on the dry lakes, if not for time but to just have the feeling of what it was like long before I was in this world. I think the biggest frustration is it is becoming very hard to find a body anywhere near the west coast that is not two, three, four thousand dollars and that is just for the body. Seems they are in the Midwest or east coast. Hopefully at some point, in the not too distant future, the planets will align correctly and I will find the body I am looking for and actually be able to afford and build that tradtional car that lurks in my mind, every moment, of every day. Right now I will need to be somewhat content with my next project. It is a 64 Chevy C10 long, wide bed truck. A very good friend traded me a bunch of work for the truck. Having gone through a divorce starting back in Oct 05, I had to sell my last 69 Camaro to pay off bills and to be able to buy out the Ex and keep the house. My garage is my life and I was not going to let that go. I had to make the sacrifices when I originally got married, when we had bought the house and then to keep the house. Now money is very tight (especially in SoCal priced area), my very good friend did not want to see me lose touch with what I truly love to do. He knew he was never going to be able to work on the truck again, even with he being the original owner, he made the decision to let me earn it, help him out and have everyone come out better then before. He, like I, are really looking forward to seeing what my vision for the truck will be. I do have a vision and I will see it through. I guess I should end this, as I do tend to write a novel once I get started. I hope you have enjoyed this little look into my world and can see I truly am a car person at the very depths of my soul. I might fall into the GenX timeframe of life but I am old school at heart. There is hope, that people like me will keep this hobby going and keep its roots alive. I am one that believes in the adage, if you want something done right, do it yourself. I truly do try to everything I can myself and will only farm out the absolute bare minimum of things and most of the time, that is only because I dont have the right equipment to do it and I have a lot of equipment bought over the years. I hope to met fellow HAMBers at shows, on the road and right here, on the forum. See ya around.
Thanks for the welcomes, guys. Guess I should have written a little less as it seems like the HAMB'ers don't like to read this much. Maybe I would re-edit it as follows: Hi, I like old cars and hot rods. At least no one can complain that my intro wasn't long enough...
The Jalopy Journal
