Part 5: Hot Rods in Hawaii

Apparently, “Hao Wela” means “Hot Rod” in Hawaiian. Who knew? Jay Ward that’s who… He stole my thunder a few years back without even realizing it. See, this little article was going to be my feature today but Jay has already posted it.

Damn. What’s next in the ole rolodex? How about a couple of shots from The Big Island Service station?

Or maybe some scans from the HRM feature of the Aloha Land Coupe? This car is really special…

OR… I do have something a bit off topic. I was going through the storage closet in the garage of our rental and ran across two Wiamea High School yearbooks – one from 1947 and the other from 1950. They are both amazing to look through, but the 1947 edition is made extra fascinating by its motif. The Senior class of Wiamea High voted to use “Atomic Energy” as their theme and their general tag line is something along the lines of “Atomic technology saved Hawaii. Don’t let Atomic Technology destroy the world.”

As I read through it, I realized I don’t know much about Hawaiian history between 1941 (Pearl Harbor) and 1959 (when Hawaii became a state). For instance, I was amazed to see almost as many Japanese names in the yearbook as I saw Hawaiian. Also, there’s a really great little editorial on what it means to be an American citizen. Apparently, any Hawaiian born after 1900 was an American citizen by birthright. But it gets a bit confusing here… The US actually officially apologized to the Hawaiian people in 1993 for illegally over throwing (CIA type coup) their government in 1897 and turning the Kingdom of Hawaii into what was essentially the property of the United States.

Obviously, this is all very much off topic for The Jalopy Journal – but if you are interested, do some research on your own. It’s pretty damned disturbing.

Anyway, enjoy the out of focus images I took of the yearbook: