your right ant i remeber a time they worked all night on johns ford to go to the moonglows car show nittie show up around 7:00am they started playing cards never left the shop manny was holding spaces at the show all day waiting for them
man, we REALLY need pictures for this thread. My mom met him once, and she couldn't believe all the white hair and big white ZZ Top-esqe beard, with all the hair around his mouth yellow from smoking like 3 packs a day for the last 50 years
Great stories, Joe! I wish Vic Collins was on the board...though he does lurk here sometimes. Vic has know John for over 30 years, and has a TON of stories to tell. Still hears from him every couple of weeks. Rebel's almost gonna be as big a legend as the Fonz in NJ!
Rebel was the only man Ive eveer met that could drive to a car show in "Wyyyuld Chyyyuld", buy another car, and drive both of them home without any other driver while only making one trip. Was the 57 Ford Sunliner that he bought in Macungie story mentioned yet?
I dont know how the whole story goes but I heard Rebel John hooked string to his duel carbs to move it a little and used a crate to sit. SO from what I hear he gave to a little too much gas and falls of the crate and trying to use the string to pull him self back up and goes straight into another merc or something
That reminds me of the time rebel just finished putting "X" motor in "Y" car. (After a while the details dont really matter anymore) He fires the thing up, no oil pressure. Says to himself OK maybe it just needs to pump up. Next he checks the oil, seems a quart low, so off to the parts store. The man has 376837756639207 cars on his property out of that only 2 run including the one with no oil pressure. Which one to take???? Again says to himself, that oil pressure should pump right up, maybe a trip down the road will do the trick. So in the car he jumps goes about a mile down the road and pops the motor. As the story goes, he forgot the oil pump driveshaft.
I just uploaded this pic of Johns shoebox returning to Lead East the year after it was chopped there. It either had a 327 ,350 or 400 Chevy, no wait I think her had the 428 Ford in it, no...It might have been when he was running the 429 of maybe even the flat motor he ran when he bought it from Cecil Proffit. Oh and the back wasnt lowered. That look was achieved from the added wieght of empty big gulp cups. Daaaynuuh, Wheyaz mhii soaduuuh?
Fuck yeah hes for real but I forgot that he also ran a 460 the night he handed a 19 second ass whoopin to Kings 53 Olds. Now he has like 30 sleds that dont run including, "Whiyewd Chyewd" which is an old Jersey built shoebox with Studebaker tailfins,a 56 Ford cowl,59 Chevy flat-top and the same fron end as Leroy Goularts, Winfield built Ford.
Sounds like a hot rod version of bigfoot. Any photos of the legend out in the wild? Somebody has to have at least one...lets see this guy, he sounds like one hell of a character!
I talked to John this morning. He just welded a set of 57 Ford 1/4 panels on a shoebox that Nitti chopped for him!
Today is the first time I saw this thread, and it is a great read! After reading a few of the first posts, he reminded me of the Fonz right off the bat. It sounds like he mostly hung out on the east coast. Some of you right coasters have got to have some pictures of his cars as well the man himself. Dig out your shoeboxes of photos and fire up your scanners. Let's see 'em! E
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