What got you hooked??

What got me Hooked. Well you could say my old man. When I was born he brought me and mom home in his 71 Charger. It was lemon twist yellow with black hockey stripes 440 4 speed. Then around 6th grade he bought a 39 plymouth sedan. He had done a bunch of work to it. Then sold it a few years later to start his company. Then just got out of rodding all together. Now fast forward 17-18 years. I have gotten him back in to the swing of things. With all my buddy's and the car and trucks Ive built. Afew months back he bought a 57 chevy mild custom truck. That we are gonna redo as a father son project.

 

Well let’s see. It could have been my uncle “Fats” that was into water injection on his new ’48 Plymouth. He was also into racing and 3-wheeled Harleys. As his name implied he was kind of a slob and didn’t have very good eating habits. Mom hated it when dad invited him to Sunday dinner. (He liked mom’s gravy and had to clean his plate with a piece of bread before mom washed it.) Mom was great but she didn’t like Fats. I thought Fats was cool.

Or helping the Army Colonel up the street resurrect a Crosley 2-seater Hot Shot in the driveway.

Or spending my paper route profits on Hop-up and other little pages.

But probably most of all rear-ending an old lady downtown on Main Street, Christmas Eve in my dad’s ’47 Plymouth. I was staring at a ’52 Carson chop-topped, jet black, lowered, wide white, Caddy-hub capped, skirted Chevy that I think belonged to Jack Walker. That Chevy was sittin’ right in front of the Lowes Theater and with the entire marquee lights on it just seemed to sparkle. It was mesmerizing. Now 50 years later I can still see that Chevy vividly in my mind.

Dad had already ordered a new ’55 Ford and the trade in value of the old Plymouth was $500.00. I paid my dad the $500 out of my paper route savings for my own car, taught me a valuable lesson and postponed my buying my own car for about 6 months.

 

My mom told me when I was about 2 years old, she woke up one morning and heard some noise in the garage. She came out to investigate and found me running a slot car track we had set up. Guess sometimes, you're just born with it. My sisters first car being a 66 Mustang probably didn't hurt either.

 

I think I mentioned some of this before. My Cousin J.C. (R.I.P.) 10 years my senior. Was so cool, he was the one who showed me how to cuff my jeans back in the day, Back when you needed to because your pants were to long (you were expected to grow into them) now it's a fashion statement, Later He would show me how to cuff my jeans on the inside, Kids were starting were floods and peggers, I think it was a Beach Boys influence.
Anyway, He built a '50 Olds coupe, It was the first Gasser I'd ever seen! Damn that car was BOSS.....It was bright orange with blue windows and when he started it, the whole basement shook! I also grow-up near Champion Speed Shop, just south of San Francisco. Next door to Champion was a placed called "Andy's Instant T's" That was the famous Andy Brizo "The Rodfather" Andy would build you a T-bucket Hotrod or sell you the kit. All that wild and crazy paint and all that chrome was like and shiney fishing lure and I became hooked. Andy's wife Sue ran the upstairs were they sold Big Daddy Ed Roth stuff, stickers,tee shirts,and plastic German helmets, which I thought were kool because I was in a Bicycle (schwinn sting-ray style) gang called the "Spartans". The half dozen or so of us would cause a distraction and steal stuff (we were a outlaw bike gang). A few years ago I saw Andy at The now defunked OAKLAND ROADSTER SHOW and confessed my sins.............

 

It started for me at the ripe age of 6....my brother had a 49 Chevy Styline with split manifold and dual Smithys. It had the smiling face of a Mexican Banditio painted on the dash with the words...."El Rudo" under it. We could run by the cemetary in that thing and he would gear it down and I swear 3 or 4 dead guys would sit straight up in the grave! That thing was loud. Another guy down the street had a 54 Ford primer black, lake pipes, etc......that was cool too.

 

Early memories are of a late 40s Buick that was always parked out front of the house in Havana and that it would spook me to walk in front of it as my older brother had me convinced it could and would someday eat me.

When my dad passed away a few years back my sisters cleaned out his house and found that he had kept every letter any one of children had ever sent him. Since they were obviously important to him, they packaged them up and sent them back to each of us at Christmas time as one last present from Dad. Going thru mine found that they were full of oldcar and airplane sketches.

Of course before actually starting on the real thing spent countless hours building models, always prefered the 3'n1 kits that allowed one to build to whatever level interested you wanted not to mention all the spare parts to use elsewhere.

Then about seventh grade we had a neighbor that was a true gearhead. him and his best friend were always working on something. I became their gofer and just watched and listened as they worked, and everyonce in awhile they would turn me loose on something, usually a tear down. But it was a start and don't remember if I ever thanked them for the experience.

Of course living a couple blocks away from Ford privateer Bill Irelands Shop didn't hurt any. Talk about automotive candy arriving from Ford on a regular basis. Not to mention seeing some of the hottest street cars in the NW being worked on. The 60s were good days for muscle in North Portland and lots of them were owned by Jefferson High students and alumni and cruised and raced up and down Interstate Avenue.

Then there was the neighbor who had the kustom 60 Pontiac with suicide doors. Did I mention his wife was gorgeous beyond words. Did I mention she never wore underwear. And did I mention her skirts were always on the short side. And did I mention walking up the street home just as they pulled up and she slipped out of the car door behind her and all exposed for a constantly horny 12 year old to see. Hell if that didn't hook me on Kustoms you'd have to figure I was Queer. Believe me I was hooked then and still am.

So for me it wasn't any one thing but a collection of these and many other experiences that were constantly pulling me towards cars. And have to admit once you get hooked on rust you have to keep going back for another hit.

 

It was the late '50s, spring time (probably 10th grade 1957). Schools wern't air-conditioned back then and the windows were open in the spring and summer. Every afternoon the 'older guys' would circle the school just before classes let out in their 'Rods'', mostly late '40s to mid '50s Fords with flatheads with duals; one or two nicely customiized. They'd all burn rubber turning right at the stop sign on the corner (remember that trick!??)

I can remember the first Hot Rod magazine I bought - had a small-block Chevy with a front-mounted Potvin blower on the cover.

When I fiinally escaped high school I saved my money and the first car I bought was a '47 Ford with a '57 Lincoln engine in it..........that was the beginining of my romance with cars, but later I switched to GMC and Mopar.

There has been a number of mentions of the film 'AMERICAN GRAFITTI'; even though that takes place in California it was the same in SE Penna in the early '60s.

 

They weren't by any chance painted orange?

 

I was about six years old in 1954. My brother and his friends let me ride along to a local junkyard (in a yellow '49 chev ragtop).

I roamed the yard a stole every shift knob I could find (EVERYTHING , it seemed, was pre-war)...of course I thought everything was FREE since it was "junk".

I caught the ire of the owner when he spotted my pockets full of those treasured knobs. He made me put back every knob...never stole from him again although about 10 years later I became a regular customer!

I guess all those old cars made an impression....

 

early 70's, the older guys in the neighborhood tuning their cars before heading to US30. racing gas, open headers, test launching their Z28's, 289 hipo mustangs and cudas out in the street. my neighbor had a 401 gremlin he couldn't keep rearends in. it was all muscle cars for me until american graffitti came out.

 

At about 7 years old (1951)one of our neighbors let me look at his collection of Hot Rod Magazines. In one of those there was an article about Bill Neikamp's AMBR roadster. I didn't ,at that time, understand all of the subtle characteristics of the breed, but I did understand one thing. I WANTED ONE. Now, at 61 the flame still burns bright. Some things are just meant to be.


Frank

 

The big thing was dad's 65 Malibu chevelle SS. It to this day is the only new car my parents ever owned. 283 4 speed buckets. Standing in the front seat ( this was before seatbelt and child restraints) racing whatever was in the lane next to us. I got into camaro's for awhile but did have the restraint to keep a drivers license while driving a 427 so now I'm more into the cool look rather than the fast. I also loved the drags with the likes of Big Daddy and Shirley smoking the tires the whole 1/4 mile.

 

Well I'm new here but ive been around this hot rod stuff for a little while.I remember my dad racing stock cars back in the late fifties.local dirt tracks,Ohio and n.w.Pa. his last coupe was a 37 studebaker with a straight 8 in it. I always loved "helping out" in the garage. My dad had a model A[29] coupe with a built a engine in it [overhead valve conversion] he drove it daily even in the snow of northwest pa. The bottle claimed my dad in the mid 60s,but I have been hooked onhot rods ever since. I remember helping a neighbor kid change his flathead in a one stall unheated garage in the dead of winter,we had a ladder across the 2x4 joists in the roof,with a chain hoist hanging from it. I ve been driving hot rods since I was old enough to drive.[long time].46 pontiac,41 chev coupe,58 biscayne,39 chev[still driving that one] .

 

when I was 14 it was keith's road rash coupe and Drinko de Mayo got me into everything

 

I wanted to pick up chicks. it didn't work but by then it was too late.

 

I'd have to say it I got hooked when I was about 10 or 11 and the kid next door had a 48 Ford sedan cut down into a utility vehicle, V8 flat head powered. I got a 41 Chevy for my 13th birthday and we would race the Ford and Chevy around the fields. I lived out of town so I didn't see too many cars, except in the mags, until I was driving. Then it was junk yard hunting, sitting in a 36 Ford 5W coupe that needed a motor and could have been had for $75.00, but I didn't have the cash.

After I got a job it was a steady stream of iron, 49 Chevy, 53 Pontiac, then I got particular and it was a 53 Sunliner followed by a 55 Sunliner in which I replaced the 292 with a 350 HP police 352 standard shift. Then a lot of others came along consisting of a 32 3W, 3 34 3Ws, a 33 Ply PC coupe, 2 55 T-Birds a 56 T-Bird and on and on including Olds, Chevy, Dodge, Plymouth, Mercedes. I even saw a 76 Rolls for cheap money that I pictured all done up with a BB Ford and that was recently.

It is a malady there is no cure for. I love them all, but especially Fords.

Tom

 

my father and grandfather were always into building (out of piles of nothing: see attached) traditional pre-war cars, and not modifying them. I would help out but it really never clicked.

When i went to CMA i met a buddy of mine who had a model t speedster, and that kinda got me goin, built my own.

but the single defining moment was seeing the Vallejo Swanx's cruisin at Choi's my first year at CMA (local stripper night anyone , someone on the HAMB must know what i am sayin!) i saw things that i had never seen done to a car, and right then i knew i had found nirvana, (i also met my later to be ex-wife that year too...ah well)

so i suppose other than finding the HAMB, i owe my soul to the Swanx's cc, in v-town!

 

WOW...there are some great reads on this post.....

For me......well i guess it was when i was bout 10..My Dad & GrandDad (RIP Gdad ...I still hear you)....took me to a car show called Autorama here in NZ.....2 things still stick in my head .....a rod called "The Outhouse"...sort of a Bucket styled thing...but with a toilet for the seat and a wooden...well an outhouse for the body....I'm sure that it was an American import ...bought over for the show......and a trike...I cant remember the name of it ...but it had a Cinderella thing going on ....with a huge plastic cut away pumpkin for the body .....and the longest forks I think i will ever see...(well ..i was 10 at the time) ...it was prolly an American import as well ....but the show was all colour....lights and shiny stuff....after that ....my dad started buying me "HOTRODNZ"....our local mag....i still cant work out why ...as he is not a "car guy"..he can do all his own repairs etc ...and is always real supportive of my projects...but not a Old Rodder at all..... .maybe he knew something I still dont

 

At five years old me and my freinds used to draw TBuckets at school, I would also go to a friends place where his dad was building a '37 coupe, and his older brother was building a 4cyl homemade C-Cab. At 15yrs old ZZTop's Afterburner albumn came out with all those Eliminator Coupe videos, and a couple of years later two ogf my friends got '26 and '27 roadsters which was my first rides in hotrods. After a few years away from the car scene I got back into it with a primered up ground scrapingly lowered '72 Holden(Australian GM product) repowered with a 350/350 combo, then in '96 the New Zealand Hotrod Nationals were being held in my city so I got my self a '27 roadster, picked up a '30 roadster project at the same time. Had a TBucket for a bit. Now have a '30 Tudor thats going to get the chop'n'channel job running 355 Chev 'glide and 9inch with 4inch drop beam.

 

As many have shared here, my dad got me "hooked" when he trailered in a 1940 Cadillac La Salle when I was a junior in high school (1993). The motor was in pieces (i.e. pistons sitting on the rear seat). My pops told me that I would partake in the rebuilding of this motor. When everything was said and done, I was told that the engine I just helped put together was a V8 Flathead. I didn't know what the difference was until I messed around with small block Chevy's. Anyway, it was April of '94 and I was going to prom wearing a Zuit Suit. We were trying to get the La Salle ready for the day!!!! 1 day before the prom, we got the motor to turn but no fire. What the heck I asked myself??? Well, we figured it out - timing was off!


Once this was remedied, VROOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And low and behold, Aeroman got his wish: