Understanding Context

You wouldn’t be reading The Jalopy Journal if you weren’t somehow intrigued by old shit – old cars, motorcycles, tools, gadgets, art, etc… It’s just a predisposition most of us have and having an understanding for these collateral items seems to bring a better sense of understanding to our traditional cars. The more you know about the late the 1940’s, the more successful you can be at building a car based around that period – right?

I think it’s the case for some of us anyway. Others just build to their eye without regard to where the pieces came from. There is no right methodology, there is no formula – it’s just a people thing. Do what makes ya happy and what puts the best car in your garage. In other words, this post isn’t intended to be a sermon of any kind.

That disclaimer aside, back to the point at hand… I’ve always been the scholar type. I have just always enjoyed learning as much as I can about the stuff I really love. And you fellas know that there aren’t many things in this world that I love more than early post-war hot rods and customs. I think the first driver for this was my curiosity for older stuff in general. I can remember being at my grandmother’s house as a kid and being fascinated by the old ceramic faucet handles labeled with “hot” and “cold” respectively. They were so much more tactile than the fancy modern handles we had at home.

Of course, it doesn’t stop at faucet hardware. Everything old just meant more to me. An old pocket radio had stood the test of time and could belt out Merle Haggard as well as a new one. The static was just personality. Old toasters weighed a ton, but just felt better as I pushed the popper down. A vintage Case knife could be sharpened just as easily as new one, but had so much more experience behind it. All of these things were functional stories of sorts…

And then came a long a special day – On February 7, 1992 I turned 16 and could legally drive my 1955 Chevrolet around good ole West Texas. It was the ultimate in old shit and the stories that old car told could go on forever. “Jesus” etched in the back glass, gold anodized trim, straight axle, “vintage” Centerlines, missing front bumper and brackets, etc… Driving that car around the block was like living the life of three or four generations of owners that I never knew.

It’s that memory specifically that inspired this post and that sparked another interest of mine. People. I’m not good with em by any stretch, but I love to learn about them. And just like old shit, understanding people and the times they lived in can help inspire cars built to the same period. For me, that period is the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. For years now, I’ve been reading everything I can about World War 2. How were our boys effected by it? What was their day-to-day life like over seas? How did people live?

I think it’s questions like these that could very well lead to a more creative car. A stretch? Maybe, but think about the details of a perfectly executed traditional car. It’s not about stacking up as many rare parts and doo-dads that ya can. It’s about building a car with soul, with history… with meaning, right?

An early Hilborn intake for a flathead is rare and damned expensive, but that’s not why it is so cool. It’s cool because of the path Stuart Hilborn took to create that intake. His experiences during the war, his obsessive passion for creating a more efficient method of fueling internal combustion, his personality – That’s why I cherish all of Stuart’s early efforts.

This isn’t a money game either. In fact, the same can be thought about for some of the most mundane and affordable parts. A guy named Thomas Skecter landed a design internship at Ford as soon as he got back from the war. He was living rough after losing his brother on D-day and decided to completely devote himself to his work in an effort to forget about the pains of the past. As the low man on the totem pole, he was given only rudimentary tasks but he took them very seriously. After months and months of iteration, the suits above him finally approved his design for the dashboard knobs found on the ’47 Ford. Makes you want to run them, doesn’t it?

It’s stories like these that make me want to read and learn more about the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. They aren’t all stories about the people behind cars – some are about the men that won the war, some are about the folks that survived the war, and some are just about life and times. Ultimately though, they all end up effecting the way I think about cars just as much as the old shit that started this mess to begin with.