How/Why did you get into hotrodding?

Apologies if this has been done before,But I was wondering how or why folks got into the Rodding/kustom way of life.My earliest memory was watching a Laurel&Hardy film(I was about 8 or 9),and I said to my dad,"wouldn`t it be great if we got one of those funny old cars and put the engine out of your van in it,cos then it would go faster"....The rest was natural progression....

 

Dunno, it just happened.

According to my mother my very irst words were Hot Rod.

 

i had no choice. my dad and grandfather both were hotrodders. i grew up in the garage working with my old man.

 

I wanted to pick up chicks.

 

It was all my dad, these are the first two cars I can remember with many before and many that came and went afterwards.

 

Couldn't pick up chicks, so started building cars

 

if you build it they will come.

 

Ryan's FIRST word was "Car, CAR!!! He was 9 months old. From the time he could move around, he sat on my knee when we were in a car and insisted on helping with the driving chores. Ryan started crawling beneath cars as soon as he could raise his ass off the ground. Anytime I had a wrench in my hand, he did too. People are born to hot rodding.

 

I started racing as a kid on cushmans. We figured out how to put a bigger motor in and go faster. This led on to cars and I loved to race and tear up stuff so I had to learn how to fix it then. I don't drive as fast but still like to burn rubber every so often.

 

I just can't help myself.......I can't leave anything alone...

 

Its not a choice for some, its a way of life.

 

Born to it by necessity. Dad was raisin 5 kids and was turnin cars for profit. Extra $ meant kooler stuff for him to drive to work like trucks with big Caddy motors and such. He raced ovals around metro Det also. He always took us with him when he could. I drooled over the sounds and smells of the now departed Detroit Dragway as he drove past on his way home from Flat Rock. Sat nite racing was in even then. One time mom n dad took the whole family to see a pro stock match race at Det dragway in 71. I been hooked on it all ever since.

 

hi i grew up in the projects and when i was ten a guy moved in and had a 66 pontiac 2dr he was taking body work classes and one day he started masking off the front of it and started painting flames , i thought that was so cool at 10 ,then i met a kid and his parents had a salvage yard and at 15 i got a car and worked off parts during the summer,didnt have money for speed parts so we would take the biggest engine and put it in the smallest car to go fast

 

It was the Law, wasn't it?

Jeese I hope I didn't spend my life trying to Obey a non-exestent Law.

 

For me, I think it's partially hereditary and partially environmental. I like in York, so NSRA is in town every year. My dad and uncle have had "projects" of one kind or another. I was a shop geek in high school, but we didn't have any shop classes so we took it out on each others cars.

 

(match box/ hotwheels).....................

 

Yeah, it sounds cliche, but I was born this way.

 

In my case it's genetics. My earliest memory, around age four is holding a drop light while my Dad put pistons in a flathead Ford engine to go racing that weekend. I spent every Friday night watching my Dad run Sportsman class in a 40 Ford sedan. I always had my hands in something oily and old, just seemed right to me. I like making stuff work better, but look like it did when it was new, stuck in the past I guess. I can't resist the urge to make it better, but so you can't tell it's been changed.....definition of a hot rod I guess.

 

I can't help it, I was born this way.

 

was always into motorcycles and stuff, when i heard a car with a big cam in it( didnt know wut a cam was at the time). I was hooked, bought a 74 road runner as my first car, sold it this winter, waiting to get something else. kinda tough though being in college and all, dont really have the resources and time to do it

 

High school class of 1964. My folks were dirt road poor. If I could have bought a new 409 Impala I would have, but all I could afford was old flathead crap. Pretty soon it got to be BIG fun to beat the rich kids with junkyard hot rods. The bad girls liked the bad boys with the '40 coupe with primer spots and loud pipes. Competing with the socialites at the street races was the bait but the bad girls set the hook and reeled my in for life. Plus my older brother and pop always has fast cars.

 

I blame my dad, He brought me home from the hospital in a Porsche, and it was downhill from there. Seriously dad is a big sportscar guy and one of his buddies took me for a ride when i was around 8 years old. We were in a twin turbo track 934 that he took his plates from his street car and we went from San Diego to Palm Spings over the mountains. I to this date have never been that fast again. I had speed in blood ever since. By 14 I was hangin' with the neighbor kids that were older and cleaning and helping out around their garages to learn. By 17 I was going to Great lakes Dragaway in Union Grove wisconsin whenever I could get away. Since then I have had cars ranging from the 20's to modern cars. Some were dedicated track cars. Some were cruisers, some were muscle cars, and all were fun. I still do not have one specific style of car. I like to build cars, and I still like to go fast.
-Sobastrace

 

I'm a young guy (21) and I've only been working on cars for a few years. I got into cars like a lot of you did, by realizing "hey, I can fix this myself!" After that, it was a natural progression to old cars, and a love for American history and culture.

 

I just happened when I was around 10 or so. But I have been into many differnet types of cars, started with imports in the 70's, then muscle cars and now traditional rods and customs, and this is were I will stay.

 

I dont have a choice. Im compelled. Ive never failed at anything so miserably as this in my life, Im terrible at it, and yet I persist

 

My dad isn`t a Rodder,and used to give me a strange look whenever he came round to see how the "project" was coming along.He`s kinda got used to it now and shows alot of interest.He`s never put me down for messing with cars either.Well,now my son knows how to turn a wrench,and loves to help his ol` dad in the garage.

 

I discovered Custom Cars around 1975 there were quite a few jacked up cars around our area. Fast Forward to around 1978, discovered there were magazines for this stuff. Been addicted ever since, my Dad doesn't know a wrench from a screwdriver.

 

My father named me Rod because my mom would note let him name me Race. My first toys were wrenches, the smell of gas always excited me. I never had a Christmas that didn't have wheels and I never had a toy I didn't take apart. It's like I never had a choice. If someone has to ask they could never understand. Maybe my next wife will (she better).
Rod

 

my grandpa started the model "A" club chapter of tucson and he was interested in hot rods as well as stockers. So its all his faul. Every day scence I was 3 I was out in the garage helping, well what i could with any thing . Thats how I picked up all of the stuff I know.

 

I was a teenager in the 50s. It was teen law to be a hotrodder, or else you had to be a dork. I certainly didn't want to be a dork, because dorks went out with "nice girls", and weren't allowed to park in the back row at the drive-in movies. Hot rodders went out with girls like "Rotten Box Ruthie", and for the price of a quart of beer (35 cents), were able to sample awkward fumbling sex on a regular basis. This was great, and lessened the chances of your Mom catching you whacking off after a date. It did, however, sometimes cause embarrassing moments if your parents were still up watching Jack Parr, or Saturday Night Wrestling starring Gorgeous George, when you came home with the remnants of a boner proudly producing a pup tent in your trousers. It was all about sex.....

(Guys who walked funny had customs)


I later found out that the "Nice Girls" actually were great at giving head. The Dorks just didn't tell anyone.


And that's why the phrase....Fuckin' Dorks.....came to be.


Mutt