How/Why did you get into hotrodding?

My start was similar. I had a newspaper route and delivering the newspapers on a bicycle was a bitch. Other kids had motorscooters and my Dad said O.K. to me getting one. The one I was able to afford was a $100 Cushman the P.O. had "souped" up. Well I had to un-soup it a little so it would run well enough for me be able to use delivering newspapers. I was the one who had to fix it and keep it running so I learned. That got me reading hot rod magazines for information. A guy on my paper route was building an A coupe with a hopped up flathead in the carport so naturally I stopped to look and learn. One thing lead to another and I was hooked on hot rods. I have been ever since.

 

To get away from my ex-wife. She finaly took the hint!!!

 

The chicks. Then i got one and now i find any little excuse i can to go hide in the garage.

 

My dad was always into models, which meant that I was destined to be the same way. I've been building models for most of my life and when I was old enough I added the full size thing to my addiction. It's just been a continuing thing. Thats how I got into hot rods. Why I got into them is obvious.......THEY'RE KOOL!!!!!!! Robert

 

Because I cant sing or dance.

Dawg

 

My mom has a picture of me when I was about 2 With a pliers and a wrench in my hands working on my pedal car.....she said "I have always been pulling things apart to see how they worked" ! Guess I was Just born this way. Nobody has figured out a cure yet !

 

I grew up in Anaheim, Orange County Calif in the 50's. Most everyone who i hung out with had a Hot Rod,belonged to the local car club,hung around Stan Betz's shop {he was my mentor} Santa Ana Drags was the place to race every Sunday. A lot of the old Hot Rodders were readily accessible to us kids, Dick Kraft, Stan Betz,Art Chrisman,and on and on. I guess it was destiny, since ive been doin it for about 46 years now.Its a lifestyle.

 

I have the same story as a lot of you, the old man and my uncles were into customs and I always loved going to shows and watching them take an ugly old beat-up field car and turning into bad ass cruiser. My first car was a 54 Ford F100 that my uncle had started to build, of course he took the wide whites and steel wheels off before he sold it to my dad and I ended up with some Enki aluminum wheels but the truck was cool anyway.

 

I was my grandfather's shadow when I was really young and he was mechanical wizzard. He always had me tearing things apart and putting them back together. After my dad reinlisted after WWII to fly bombers one of our next door neighbors who was building a hot rod (this is about 1950-1951) let me read his collection of early Hot Rod magazines. In one of the early issues was Bill Neikamp's '29 roadster AMBR winner. I couldn't comprehend at the time just what it took to build such a car, but I knew I wanted one. It's been a passion ever since.

Frank

 

What T said.

I can remember playing with a tin friction motor car (was born B4 Hot Wheels) in my crib, and that little car absolutely captivated me. My parents said I made 'the car noise' long before I could talk. That, my friends, is genetic predisposition. I can remember EVERY car my parents owned, and every car I've owned, altho I've lost count. Pop usedta buy a fresh one every couple of months, so it's a pretty big number. I can recall car stats better than folks' names - it's not that I don't care - it just doesn't stick the way car stuff does.

 

I'm not the guy who's going to pretend that I was old school from the get-go. I discovered hot rods on the internet about 6 or 7 years ago. The rawness of traditional rods, and the sheer style and "coolness" of traditional customs is something that really hit my right around the time I turned 30 (about 7 years ago) and I have been infatuated with them since. I'd probably have to admit that the internet in general is where I found traditional rods, and the HAMB is where I came to appreciate them fully. And for that I want to give my most humble thanks to Ryan for starting this site.

But my upbringing was mostly (gasp) muscle cars. So let the HATING begin!!!

My dad ran a 66 SS396 Chevelle, but this was before I was even born - so I was kinda raised on dad's GLORY STORIES, and I would listen on the end of my seat about how he dusted 390 GT Fairlanes, GTO's, 442's, my mom's ex boyfriend's 440/ auto. Coronet R/T, etc. My dad said that the fastest guys in town were a kid who ran a gutted 65 SS Impala with a stacked 327 4 speed, an older dude with a 55 Ford with a mystery motor. He said that they pretty much killed anything that came their way. He said that there were no hemis around that he knew of.

Were some of those stories bullshit? Probably, who knows, but I can remember them vividly, and they probably mean more to me than they do to my dad. He lost his passion for cars right around the time I popped up. But to his credit, and despite my many car accidents as a teen and my mom's constant bitching, be kept letting me buy fast cars with the insurance checks from my former wreckages, and I love him to death for it. In high school I was your basic hooligan-vandalizing-dragracing-punk-rock-dumbass. Racing on roads that were completely inappropriate, burning yards, guzzling Busch beer and Milwaulkee's beast like I'd just spent a month in the Sahara desert, and generally acting like a complete fucking idiot. But drag racing was the only thing that scared me, and therefore it was the thing I loved most. I've mellowed a bit and have come to appreciate history, tradition, and style. If you'd have asked me about those subjects when I was 18 I would have said "that shit is for FAGS!". Oh, how things change as you get older. If I met the 18 year old me right now I'd punch him in the face.

Anyway, my oldest uncle ran a 68 427 vette that was pretty damned fast. My first 100 mph plus ride happened in that car. I don't remember how fast we went, but it was somewhere near the end of the 160 mph speedo. I was like 8 or 9 years old and that ride changed my life.

So yeah, I don't have the good fortune of being brought up on hot rods and customs, but I do consider myself lucky to have had some role models who were sympathetic to my car fetish. I see traditional rods, customs, and old race cars (foreign and domestic) as the well from which all else was sprung, and I see muscle cars, tuners, etc, as their unclaimed bastard children. I love all of 'em, but traditional rods & customs are special.

 

How could I NOT get into HotRodding? My dad was a NASH fan...and could hardly wait to bestow upon my his latest castoff as he found an excuse to go shopping for the next OVERWEIGHT slugmobile. Age 14, equipped with an Idaho farm license and $150 for working my patootie off all summer, I picked up a PERFECT '47 Merc Coupe from an 'elderly' (probably MY age now) couple who attended our church. Mr NASHman...was stunned at the appearance of that car within 24hrs of acquisition. Hubcaps? gone....flexpipe for dual exhaust till next paycheck - in place. Shift lever swapped over to the left side of the column - roger that...there wasn't a speed shop within 100 mi (Spokane,WA), so we made do with what we had. And...I ain't slowed down none since that day. It was a hotrod town in a hotrod valley...nobody ever got very famous from that neck of the woods, but there was (and still is) some prime stuff came outa there. (Clarkston/Lewiston) WA/ID for those of you in Rio Linda.

"drive it like your girlfriend stole it"

dj

 

I was born that way. I was raised on a ranch and the only one of 5 kids with mechanical inclination. Hate cows and horses, loved tractors and trucks actually anything with an engine.

 

my grandpa had an old biscane wagon with an old vette tri-power sbc and glass packs..... and i dont think i've been quite right ever since