A family thing?....Are Hot Rods in your blood?

Definitely in my Blood.

ChopPop went to high school with Kenny Parks, you might know his older brother, Wally. After the war ChopPop and Kenny did a little racing with people like Len Sutton, Roger Ward, Tex McCallister and many others in SoCal in the late 40's early 50's. After that he took up drag boat racing, car rallies, and kept building hot rods. When I came along I was taken along. Some of my earliest memories are from drag boat races and being the garage with ChopPop. We've never NOT had a hot rod of some sort in the family.

here I am at 3 years old. Already have my own crash helmet and went for rides in the drag boat on a regular basis and LOVED it.


My uncle was the same way. He had tons of old cars and ChopPop and I were always over at his place helping rebuild something or another.

my dad and I raced our whole lives. He was racing the year the passed away. At 77 years old we was still hauling ass on a vintage motorcycle at Bonneville.




its definitely a family thing around here.

 

Certainly not born into it - to my family, a car is just transportation. Youngest brother is a mechanic, but not into cars, and the rest just aren't interested!
I've always been into cars - used to stand up in the back seat & identify all the cars we saw, but think what really did it was sometime around 1960, coming home froma camping trip, the muffler busted off on Dad's 55 Merc Wagon - I thought what a great sound - everyone else was horrified! Been after it ever since!

 

My dad never owned a hotrod while we were growning up. As a mechanic he'd work on the neighbor kids cars.,I was super interested in hotrods ever since I can remember...and so are both my brothers. After us kids grew up, the interest gravitated to my dad and he began building old ford pickup hotrods...He got it from his kids!

 

Born into it, got the illness from my Father and Mom never fought it.

Tagging along with my Dad to body shops, buddies' garages and car shows was a better time than playing video games or playing sports.

Can't imagine my life without old cars, and usually can come up with the timeframe something happened by what car we owned at the time.

Now it seems that as he gets older, I'm the one keeping him interested so I guess it has come full circle.

 

There is no denying your DNA. Dad and the sheriff were on a first name basis by the time he was thirteen. According to grandma's stories he was constantly getting nailed in some old jalopy or other that he had built. He had to skip drivers ed class once to go to court for a wreck that happened while drag racing outside of town. Don't know what they got out of him because his jaw was broken and his mouth was wired shut! Mom has pictures of me at age 3 sitting in the dirt beside a 56 Ranchero with a hand full of wrenches, in the background you can see dad's boots sticking out from under the truck. I remember doing cookies in the snow in that truck after being picked up from school. Dad rebuilt an engine out of an old police car in the basement to put in it. Not sure how he got it out of the there and into the truck. It was 3 on the tree with a manual overdrive. I remember getting to pull the overdrive knob out when we were cranking it up down some back road. I spent my summers all through school working in his buddy's salvage yard. I still love an early morning stroll through the yard to explore the treasures that lie within. Nope, there's no escape from the sickness if it's deep in the DNA.

 

I'm a third generation Grease monkey. My grandpop on my dads side cut-em up back in the 50's and had a service stationn in the 60's my pop had 1950 - 1956 chevs and a 68 road runner. I have bikers and car nuts for unckle's. My grandpa on mom's side had a new car every two years and had a 57 fairlane. 11 years ago I took my grandma for a ride in my 56 and she teared up, said I took her years back! Now my seven year old son just ordered his first set of white wall tires to keep the tradition strong.

 

Yes. It's up to three generations in my family.

 

Hot rods are in my blood, but I don't know how they got there. As far as I know, there are zero hotrodders in my family tree. My parents both viewed cars as simply transportation, but as far back as I can remember, they have been much more than that to me.

 

Yep. The coupe was my dad's. I inherited it when he died.

Slonaker

 

Probably born into it. Dad had some nice cars' fixed his own usually. Born during
the depression. I really think Mom liked hot rods etc more than Dad. At least I
fix my own stuff. Gett'n a little too old for some of it now.

 

I am the odd one, I like all the rod/bike stuff. Thank's in part to the magazine rack in the late '60's, early '70's.

 

I think Grandpa helped Dad put the Olds in the '40, so make that four generations.

 

My Maternal Grandfather was a preacher, Mom said he had a Model T Touring car he used to make his rounds. He had a different carburetor put on it and something else she couldn't remember (she's almost 93 now) to make it go a little faster and be able to climb hills better. She said he got a kick out of being able to go faster than the other Model T's. Might be where I got it.

 

no i don't have a father the only thing i have is an uncle that raced i started hanging out with him 10 years ago a lot then got out of racing and started doing my own thing. he digs what i am doing with my cars and comes around and gives me pointers on what i am doing and helps me out once in a while.

 

Unfortunately not, hasn't slowed me down much though.

 

Got it hardwired into my DNA from both mom and dad. I still run my dads club he started in '58 and I still have my moms "altered T" drag car. My mom was the one who pushed me to get into motorcycles and hotrods which was a slick way to keep me out of "other" trouble.
I taught my daughter how to weld when she was six. My son can spot the exact part we need at a junkyard or swap meet. I think the wife loves all of it cause it keeps all of us in the garage and out of the house.

 

One grandpa..chopped edsel wagon,other grandpa mechanical engineer, couldn't turn a wrench to save his life.
I hope they don't cancel each other out
Some where in between I guess.

 

Definitely in the family, started way back when with my grandfather. I'm fuzzy on the details, I'll need to pay him a visit so I can get the story straight and I'll let you guys know.

 

In my blood .Ever since I was 3 or 4 years of age .......

 

In the blood.

Here's my dad's '34 in 1956 (across the street) in Salinas, CA. This '34 was in the 1952 Oakland Roadster show, as I understand it.



The car in the foreground is Rod Powell's who's made a name for himself in the industry painting and striping. (http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=315595)

My kids love the cars. The car seat fits perfectly in the '32 too...

 

Yep- Pop always had the stuff we would kill for today. I had to learn on my own as they were just nice cars back then! Sheesh! You could've saved me a couple Dad......

Pics from '57

Rudy Heredia and my Pop

The "gear Grinders" Gilroy,CA

 

In my veins.

 

My pop has had the same 36 plymouth coupe (chrysler powered by the way) longer than he has had me, and Im 39. Don't know how I turned out to be a ford nut tho...all of my uncles are mopar guys too.

 

Sort of in the blood. Both my parents were teenagers in the early 50's. The pics of cars they owned to this day make me ask why they couldn't have just held onto a few of them. It was neither my parents or friends that first showed me what a large 430-4 barrel 69 Buick Electra 225 could do...it was my Grandmother... Sometime around the early 1980s my then 79ish year old Grandmother Gladys took a friend of mine and me to the store and we sat in the backseat unrestrained of course. Anyway we were hanging over the back of the front seat and she simply said something like hold on ......and she floored it from a dead stop.....needless to say we got planted in the backseat and smoke filled the air..... she instructed us not to tell our parents....what where we do to....except to say....do it again... which she did. From that point on I was hooked on horsepower and old cars. I believe we were only 10-12 years old at the time but it is something we never forgot.

Both my parents love old cars. Years later I confessed to my parents what Grandma did and my mom just laughed. She said that is why she loves her 94 Caprice with the 350 LT1.

 

In the blood... my dad was always into Hot Rods and horsepower. Dad had a 1932 tudor sedan since he was 13, in the late 50's. Later he had a T-bucket, a 1968 Ranchero, and a wide variety of other Rods. I don't know how many times I interrupted him working in the garage, but he always tried to explain what was going on. I probably never understood, but I like to think that his info lay dormant in the darkest corners of my mind. Thanks SIR.

 

I was carried home from the hospital when i was born in a 57 corvette my dad has always had street rods mostly 32 fords ....my brother has a super gas car that he drag races and my son is 20 and he has a 29 model a a 67 chevelle a 71 corvette 68 camaro..80 z 28 94 z 28 so i guess we are all corrupted its fun though.......

 

My Dad was a biker, hot rodder and built customs. I have four brothers all into some kind of car thing. The 'ol man is 85 now and blind but he still gets quite a thrill out of cruising in my sedan and my youngest son likes to BS with him about the chopped '51 shoebox he & I built some years back. He would love to ride in the wife's roadster if he could easily squeeze into it.

Yea...I think it's definitely a family thing.

 

Actually, my Dad is a car guy, I'm one and so is my son. Main difference is that my Dad is mostly into 49-56's, I'm into '49-60's and my son is into muscle cars.
All three of us have grown up drag racing and hot rodding.
It's cool that we are all car guys and we've all been real tight through the years. (Well, except for those few years when I was a real know-it-all teenage punk)

 

My older cooler brother bought a '62 chev bone stock. His friends up the street were all gearheads and rockers in a band. They swapped out the cam in it and against my Dad's pleading my brother swapped out the auto trans for a 4 speed manual.

On more than one occasion it would stall at the end of the driveway and not turn over on his way to a hot date. He'd be out pounding on the roof in anger. He joined the navy and that was that for him.

I got as far as auto shop 101 but took the path of lead guitarist as it was so much easier and got the chicks attention.

So I'm just a fan and a wannabe / wishiwas.

 

for me it was definately a family thing. mom and dad took me to my first drag race at 6mos old, bonnivelle at age five and st. rod nats at age nine(1975 memphis).
all down hill from there.