Folks Of Interest Jim "JAKE" Jacobs, The Original Traditional Hot Rodder ! "TRODA"

Kevin, the 29 pickup shows up at local shows now and then in northern il . I talked to the owner years ago and great guy and a HAMB member. That truck is just bitchen but what didn't they build that wasn't wicked cool. Pete and Jake are rulers!

 

Only time I ever saw "Jake's truck", that i can remember, was several years ago, somewhere west of Springfield, MO, heading eastbound on hwy 44

 

Here's hoping if we can ever get back to the Apple Valley area that I can meet you all, including Jake, over some coffee and a donut maybe. I traveled to CA a number of times years ago, and had always intended to stop and meet him. anyway, here's hoping he's located some pics. Thanks Rocker77.

Dave in James Dean, IN

 

Do any of you fellows ever come to Indiana to take in the car shows here. September is big with the 2 James Dean meets here in Fairmount and Gas City. Lots of street rods and vintage in this area.
A few years ago, 2 hot rodders decided to stage a show for only Fairmount cars. Over 150 cars showed up - not bad for a town of only 2800, eh?
If you ever get here, let me know you're coming. Coffee's on me...maybe a donut, too.

 

This is a original photo from R & C 88 cover shoot hope you enjoy

 

Hey Continental John,
I think that's why I have 2 of them, although they're all apart. I always enjoyed seeing that truck cruising around Temple City. Used to intentionally do my road tests past his place on Ivar so I could stop in for a visit. The truck used to be on the right side stall of the garage.

One day we're up to Pleasanton and the tub and the truck are there. Didn't realize it, but Ken Kennedy just had bought it. I dug that truck from its pix in the catalogs that I used to stop in and get.

Hey Micksmith,
It's Kool to see it pre "Jakeopouged"
That was my favorite way to see it @ The Pie & Burger" TC, in a previous post you see the 34 with the W/W's . Well we swapped the wheels from the Tub onto the Coupe for the movie "There Goes My Baby" which I also had both my 34 coupe and 55 Bird in.
What I remember the most and liked the best was the rides home after shooting for the night, we'd be side by side on Live Oak in Arcadia driving through water as the sprinklers were on and draining off of the median on the street.
It must have been a sight to see a "Screaming Yellow Zonker"'and a Black "Mr. Sinister" set of coupes coming west with as 15' high rooster tails were swung into the air.
What a bitchen time in my life, to me, That's what Hot Rodding was all about!!!!

 

I fully expect yo'all had fun.

 

All through the '70s, '80s and '90s, I collected every article and picture that had to do with Jake or Pete. After a move to BedPan Flats in '94, I lost the box that had of the pics, etc in. So, what's a guy to do...? Start buying them up again. By then, there were more to keep, too.
One article I didn't ever find again was the R/C issue that introduced Jake to the readers. I think it was in '69, maybe early '70.

Dave

 

Where is Jake's panel truck now?

 

In his garage !

 

Saw the yellow coupe on Monday. Still looks great sitting next to it's famous stable mate.

 

Thanks!

 

A pic from 1980 Memphis Tennessee we stayed at the same motel these guys were always a class act .thats my kid in front of the kid he was six years old at the time.

 

Was 1980 Memphis the year of the heat wave? Like a 100 degrees? I was there too.

I think that's the year we stayed down the hall from Pat Ganahl. Hard to miss a guy like that walking down the hall.

 

Jake brought the Panel out to breakfast a few weeks back

 

Yep I think it was like 104 do you remember Norm Grabowski running around on roller skates?

 

I don't remember Norm. I do remember watching Buttera cruising his new half-23/half-27 track nosed roadster at the host hotel.

Back to Jacobs, I'm pretty sure I remember seeing the yellow coupe at a Nationals in St. Paul some time in the 70's or 80's. Or maybe it was Columbus?

 

Here is Jake's completely original unrestored '34. He has been cruising that one around the last couple weeks

 

Just saw Jake who rode into our OUTRIDERS PICNIC with Mike Cardenas who drove his very fresh Blue Deuce with a very cool original Pete & Jakes water transfer decal on the right side of the windshield.
Saw P-Wood too as we were "parking the cars".
Nice to see those guys.

 

Great thread. These were my roots too.

 

Just reread this entire thread and enjoyed the heck out of it. I am very fortunate to have the '26 coupe of the late Stan Vanamburg for the last 20yrs. He did mechanic work for Pete&Jake when P&J owned the business in Temple City. Jake set up the suspension on the car as VanAmburg sent the construction photos to me after I bought the car. The Temple City guys have always been my hot rod heroes...………………...P-Wood built one great 32 frame for the car...……….

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Bet other HAMB members would enjoy seeing a photo of the Coupe too. Bob

 

Wasn’t aware that Stan passsed on, he lived a couple of blocks away from me. Knew he relocated, but did not hear that he passed away......A great guy who owned a pretty famous 32 3WCoupe at one time....He traded his 32 Sedan Delivery for the Dick Bergen built, Doyle Gamel R&C feature car back in 1991......

 

Cyclone Kevin Stan passed away 12-10-2015. I just found out a few weeks ago. Haven't figured out how to post picks yet but am working on it. Am planning on doing a thread on this car. If you have a copy it's featured in the july 1985 issue of ROD ACTION MAG...………...

 

I'm really glad to see this thread make it back to the light of day,.... I really enjoyed re-reading it.

 

Don't want to hijack this but 26hotrod- would love to see your car. The Rod Action feature was just a tease. What does it look like in its final form? You know how to post reply, do the upload a file. If you mess up, we will understand or hit delete and try again. If a dimwit like me can figure it out some of the time, it can't be that hard.

 

Goldmountain the final form of the coupe is pretty much as the RA article. Someone else between me and VanAmburg owned the car but I don't know who. Hope to get on the picture posting thing soon. Look for a thread on the coupe soon. Thanks for the interest in the coupe. Jake did a good job setting up the suspension as it drives and handles really well. As for P-wood building the frame, it's a work of art...………...

 

Tony Thacker wrote a nice article about Jake for :

JITNEY JAKE JACOBS – EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY

I’ve known Jitney Jake Jacobs since 1982 when I photographed him and his partner Pete Chapouris driving their iconic ’34 coupes down Highway 99 towards Merced, California to the Street Rods Nats West. It was one of those lucky shots taken hanging out the back of a rented station wagon as we all barreled down the highway at 70-plus mph. Pete and Jake were not known for keeping to the oil crisis-induced double nickel 55-mph speed limit. They were, however, known for their cool factor and their hot rods especially Jake who got his teenage start working for Ed “Big daddy” Roth.




My photo hit the cover of a magazine and led to a 35-year friendship with Pete and Jake. I became one of their overseas dealers and when I immigrated to the U.S. I lived at Jake’s house for a while. It’s hard to relate how much hot rod fun we had then as they both took me around and introduced me to everybody and his uncle from George Bush to Billy F Gibbons of ZZTop.



Two events from that era stick in my mind as they surely do others because they made such an impact on the hot rod world. The first occurred at the Goodguys West Coast Nationals at Pleasanton in 1987. Jake had driven up in his fresh built but not -quite-finished ’28 tub. “I’d run out of time.” Said Jake. “I built the car in 28 days but I didn’t have time to paint it so I told “P-Wood” (@Pete Eastwood ) to bring his can of paint and we brush painted it right there at the fairgrounds. Luckily, Dave Enmark’s wife Mary documented the episode and gave me a scrapbook full of photos. Of course, a lot of people were quite shocked. That was the beginning of the Boyd era and a brush-painted tub was not something everybody was ready for, although some people were and they got into it. Even Tom ‘Stroker McGurk’ Medley picked up a brush and even gave it his ‘Stroker McGurk Award.’ That put some noses out of joint.”






The following summer Jake and I took the tub to the annual L.A. Roadsters Father’s Day Roadster Show at Pomona. As we drove into the roadster-only preferred parking area one of the officials said, “It’s not finished.” To which Jake replied, “It is as far as I’m concerned.” The official turned us around and refused us entry. It was indicative of the mood of the times when flat-painted rods were not yet acceptable. We were the Sex Pistols on wheels.



A younger group of rodders was getting it though, guys who couldn’t or wouldn’t afford a Boydster. They preferred funkier, early-style hot rods built like Jake’s from what was on hand or scored at swap meets rather than from a catalog.




Around that time, we were all hanging in Hollywood going to bars and art openings at galleries such as Tamara Bane where Robert “The Chrome Kid” Williams would often have art shows. At the time, Robert was driving a primered Deuce roadster tagged with “Wild Bill” Hickok’s last hand “Aces & Eights.” Often, Robert’s nephew Aaron Kahan would be there in his chopped ’32 5-window, with primer spots, no less. Aaron purchased his coupe for $6,950; quickly had it chopped and drove it to Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank saying, “I drove the partially finished car to Bob’s, all sorts of people gathered around. That taught me one lesson—why not drive an ‘in progress’ car?” It was the start of a movement.



In the summer of 1988, Pat (@pgan) Ganahl shot the tub and Chapouris’ new Limefire Deuce roadster for the December cover of the re-launch of Rod & Custom magazine. His set-up emulated the iconic November ’73 cover that featured the dynamic duo’s coupes that, at that time, revolutionized the hot rod scene. Prior to that, resto rods were the popular ride. Pete and Jake changed all that.



After the paint had dried we drove the tub all over from Los Angeles to Zion, to Death Valley to Bonneville. Putting thousands of trouble-free miles on that ol’ Ford with its corrugated cardboard interior.



Jake isn’t about rat rods though or even unfinished cars for that matter. Jake is about craftsmanship and detail and in his own way making a statement. This was evidenced in the next shocking installment of the saga of the tub. Jake called me and said, “I’m thinking of sticking pages of old HOT ROD Magazines all over the tub. Wanna come help?” I’m right there.





By the time myself and Kathy Berghoff (Goodguys’ first official employee) arrived, Jake was busy cutting up late-40s and early-50s issues of HOT ROD and ‘Jake-oupaging’ them onto the car. This was no random act of street art, this was carefully thought through. For example, one piece mounted just under the screen says, ‘Don’t throw rocks!’ It all looks random but it’s all carefully arranged.



Three long days and three long nights of glue sniffing saw it done and we set off for the Goodguys West Coast Nationals. The reception was slightly warmer than when Jake brush painted the tub but only slightly. Some folks were very upset that Jake had cut up valuable old copies of HOT ROD to do this. They didn’t know that we had only used torn copies that were already falling apart. Nevertheless, the tub made a statement like a Jackson Pollack painting. Some got it but some surely didn’t.




Soon after Pleasanton, the three of us took a long, hot, four-day road trip exploring Death Valley with the tree amigos sharing the front seat for a thousand miles or more. Now that was a trip.​

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D'oh! ... I just realized that I'm in one of those photos:

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RIP Tom Medley & Gary Meadors

 

This was a great read!!!! It’s surreal just being there when all of this was taking place. It was a great time to be involved with hot rods!!!!!
1982 was a time of Kool things happening, The E&B Sedan, The Kid getting Fish Product Wheels, later a complete undercarriage revamp.
Tony visiting the states, later moving here, Then just being the next block over into the millennium.
Finally me graduating SGHS on the 16th day in June to see these guys parked at Goody’s on Las Tunas grabbing chow. Great times for sure!!!!!!