This is kind of a long story, and it starts with 'while I was eating dinner last night'..... The wife and I went out to dinner to celebrate the birthday of one of my closest friends last night. We took our 51 Custom Coupe for what was likely to be her last ride before storage this winter, and parked her out in front of the joint, on the main street of our little town. We sat at a table with a decent amount of friends, having a few cocktails and chatting away. I had stepped outside for a drag, and my wife came walking out and said "There's an older lady that just walked up to our table and asked 'who's driving the old car?', so I came out to get you...". I put out my cig and went back inside, and a nice little old lady on a walking cane smiled and said "are you the car guy?", and I politely answered in the affirmative. She said that her husband has been into hot rods since he was a kid, and he was outside in their car, but unable to come in due to being handicapped, and asked if I would mind coming out to talk to him about my car. She slipped me a business card with a picture of their car on it, with the car name 'Utopia', and their names on it. I was definitely sufficiently impressed by his car to want to go talk to him, so I excused myself from dinner and went out front. Sure enough, they were parked right out front, and he was staring intently at my car. He was an older gentleman, and you could tell by his features he'd been around a long time, and probably had some amazing tales to tell. We shook hands and chatted for around a half-hour on a surprising amount of subjects for such a short amount of time, and before it ended he invited me over to his place next week to see his car and shop. As he said "It's all buried under everything right now, I have 5 pounds of shit in a 3 pound bag, so be ready....". I assured him my shop probably looked about the same, and told him I would call and set up a time to stop by next week. He seemed surprised and happy to find younger guys still interested in a 50s style car, and we hit it off quite well, and separated with the promise of a visit soon. This morning at work I started to get curious, and decided to do a little Google search to see if anything popped up on a hot rod named Utopia. (I do not claim to be an encyclopedia on that era of hot rodding, at ALL. I'm trying to learn more now though. This is my first 50s hot rod, and previous projects have been 60s-70s automobiles). I was not disappointed, and found the following right off the bat: https://kustomrama.com/wiki/Alan_Reason's_1950_Ford So it turns out there's some history here. I'm going over there asap to check out his car and just sit and talk with Tom for a while, and I'll share a few pics and stories when I do. I asked him if he was on the HAMB, and he said the internet was a bit beyond his pale of caring, and every time he gets on the internet, he "accidentally ends up buying a shaving razor by clicking on the wrong thing...", but I'm going to try at least to share some pictures of the current state of Utopia, and do some old school hot rod guy, to young whipper-snapper hot rod guy sharing. Pretty cool how just driving around in your car can open up a door you never even saw.... Here's a picture of the card he handed me, with Utopia on it....
So cool! You could have just drove your everyday car and would have missed out on this. I always remind my buddies to take out their old car when they go out. I agree it's easier to just get into your everyday driver but you have so much fun talking to people in your old car!
Talked to them today and hoping to get by there this weekend. He has a few cars I think, his wife told me today on the phone she has one too, so I'm excited to see what he's got over there. I'll update asap.
The Jalopy Journal
