Hop Up: How to Install a V8 in an ‘A’

We take it for granted now- Global websites like the Jalopy Journal and YouTube, where the answer to just about every traditional hot rod build question we might have is just a click away. Well kids, back in the early 90s, before we had the Interwebs, we had books like Mike Bishop & Vern Tardels ‘How to Build a Traditional A-V8’, and a few decent hot rod magazines trying to revitalize hot rodding as it was in the postwar era. Mark Morton’s Hop Up was one of those early publications trying to spread the genuine hot rod gospel as it was first told on the dry lakes of Muroc, the salts of Bonneville, and backroads of Southern California. Going back to glory days of the early 50s, Hop Up, and a handful of other print magazines like Hot Rod were just about the only sources that kids in America had to figure out how to build their first hot rod right. I just got this very nice condition issue of ‘Hop Up and Motor Life’ from November 1953, only eight issues after the the two magazine merged and ten issues into the larger format size. I’ve scanned a four page article that covers the basics for dropping a V8 in your Model A. I love the illustrations and the straightforward approach with the writing. Enjoy!