Hot Rod terms that are no longer in common usage

drop the anchors
wind 'er up


I'm 24 and fairly regularly use quite a lot of this stuff growing up as a drag racer has its benefits

 

"Full House"

 

bug out...gook wagon....speed shift....slush box...tea pot

 

Overheard an older guy when referring to a paint job as "smooth as a moose's root".
I steeped back away, although I was curious as to how he made the comparison.

 

Burn-em upus asphaltus..............!!

 

C'd and Z'd, Lunched my mill, Kemp, relieved, STOP (spin tires on pavement), bubble gum machine (police car light), quadrabeams, cruiser skirts, cheater slicks, gumballs (retreaded slicks), skirts (meaning females), PU (parental units)

 

mag, meaning a magneto ignition, car/engine combos, e.g. studillac, fordmobile, vetropolitan, etc.

 

Our car club in Taylor MI in the fifties as called the trompers.

 

This word dizzy has got to be the most embarrasing fuckin word of the newschool crowd.A Dizzy ? I had never read or heard of that till someone wrote it on this sight.

 

Dizzy and carby are baby talk for pea brains and Australians. Also nit wits who think a flat motor and a flathead are the same thing. They never say flat Ford, they always get that one right, which proves they are just parroting something they heard and have no idea what the word means.

Also shoebox, never heard that one till the 80s at the earliest, anyone who uses it is automatically a moron who has no idea what he is talking about.

 

Remember when you had a choice of four on the floor, three on the tree, or two in the glue?

 

I like 3 on the tree . Still run it to this day.

 

I could just hear Gil Ayala telling Oldman Evans he needs his dizzy dialed in before he goes to run at EL Mirage.

Don't get started on the " chebbie" thing,I will get my bloodpressure way to high.

 

In the forties and early 50s "hot rod" and "hot rodders" were dirty words, from sensational newspaper stories, a menace on a par with Commies and dope fiends.

Real hot rodders preferred the terms "hop up" or "gow job" or even "souped up".

Hop and gow were old names for dope. The term probably came from the horse racing track where a horse that showed an unexpected turn of speed was probably "hopped up" or "gowed up" with drugs.

"Soup" was a slang term from the twenties when safe crackers made nitroglycerine out of dynamite, to blow up safes with, and called it "soup".

You will see these and other slang words in hard boiled detective magazines from the thirties and forties.

 

Tits up by the road side = rolled upside down in the ditch. Falfa's Chevy was tits up by the road side.

 

Real old timers referred to any small economy car as an "English car". Haven't heard that one in years, last time I heard it, was in a small town cafe in the late 70s. I overheard a conversation between two old farmers, one was complaining about the high cost of gasoline, the other said "you ought to get one of those little English cars".

When I was a kid in the fifties, this was a common saying, but in the early 50s, 90% of the import cars sold in the US and Canada came from England. The VW and Renault didn't get popular till the late 50s and nobody saw a Japanese car until the sixties.

 

The origin of drag racing: not what you think.

In the old days there were various forms of racing, there was dirt track, speedway, board track, hill climbs (like Pike's Peak),beach racing (Daytona Beach) and dry lakes.

Notice, all these forms of racing were named after the track or location where the race took place.

So where did drag racing take place? On the main drag, of course.

 

If you want to get real old school.... like 1920s or earlier..... scorching = burning up the roads = going a mile a minute = going like 60 = going 60 miles an hour which is REAL fast in a hopped up flivver (Model T).

The first "scorchers" rode a "wheel" (bicycle) before cars and motorcycles were invented. If you were a real wheel man you could "do a century" (ride 100 miles in a day).

 

The term "old school" IS old school. It goes back at least to the late 1800s.

In those days it was common to refer to "schools" of artists, as in the Dutch school, Italian school, and so on. Any group that had something in common could be referred to as a "school". It might not have anything to do with education.

An example. Just the other day I was reading an article about the designer of one of the earliest DOHC racing engines, from 1912. The writer interviewed his son, in the 1960s. He asked what the old man was like. His son thought for a moment. "He was very severe, very strict. An engineer. You know the Swiss. It's the Old School or nothing with them, and it's nothing to joke about".

Old school was a fairly common term 50 or more years ago. Then it fell out of use. I was surprised when the kids started using it again, 10 or 15 years ago.

Another variation was "that's out of the old reader". Meaning something old fashioned but good. A phrase of approval.

 

"Pneumonia Hole" as in "shut the Pneumonia Hole, you tryin to heat the outside?

I had forgotten it, even though I use it regularly this time of year, then I said it in front of someone that hadn't heard it before, saw this thread come back up, must be fate.

 

Kick Stand - lake pipes
West Virginia go fasters - J.C Whitney bolt on crap

 

"...MAN! that guy is goin' balls out...." cant imagine the source of that one.

 

I get the shotgun side! Passenger side window!

 

Governor on a steam engine,when the weight balls were all the way out that was it!

 

"Midnight Auto Supply"

 

Here here.

 

You're only allowed to call it a "dizzy" if you are Australian, or have shit for brains. Same with "Carby".

 

Didn't the Dago axle refer to when the first heated and dropped axles apeeared on the scene? San Diego area maybe hense Diego? Seems I read that somewheres years ago....mighta stinkin dreamt it....who knows....

 

Triple Throw down is when yer buyin somethin and ya throw down 3 bills whether they be 20s 100s er what ever...So if somethin is cool and or expensive it's Triple fuckin throw down....

 

Mill