Art & Inspiration Sighting your first Hot Rod

Mine was while riding the school bus about 1965. I learned a couple brothers owned/built a baby blue '40 Ford 2 dr sedan, not knowing anything about flatheads, didn't matter! It was cool with black wheels, baby moon hubcaps & Whitewall tired! I was hooked and currently have 2 of them. Hooked forever!!

 

The first real hot rod I ever got to see up close and touch was THE quintessential hot rod...a 1932 Ford roadster. It was 1959. We had just moved into a new neighborhood when I was 11 and as I got out of our car I noticed across the street there was this red car. I drew me to it like a force field. I had to put some stuff up but later on I was able to meander over and check it out. It was a red 32 Ford highboy and under the hood was a yblock engine with Mercury on the valve covers.Thinking back, its funny that I knew exactly what the engine was and even what the car was since I can't remember where the knowledge came from at that time. I was hoping to see more of it and maybe talk to the people who lived there because it looked like it hadn't been driven in a week or so with the grass uncut around it. Unfortunately, the house was a rental and though I never saw anyone at home, one day I came home from school and the house was empty and the beautiful red roadster was gone. I never saw it again.

 

1950 at my Grandparents house in SoCal. I was 7 at the time and a guy came to visit my Grandfather in a red fenderless roadster that sounded really loud! I had no clue and my Dad told me it was a modified racer. I was impressed. My Dad at the time had a black 41 Ford convert with a warmed up engine that was our main car for quite a few years so he knew about hopped up cars.

 

In 1959 I was 11, and lived in Hillsboro,Or. Most of the modified street cars around town, consisted of shoebox Fords with whitewalls and a "Bull Nose" on the hood, or a 6 cyl Chevy with loud pipes. On occasion I would catch a glimpse of a bright red early coupe driving down the street. One day the car drove down our street (a dirt road), and stopped to visit the neighbor who lived close by, and I got a chance to look it over. It was just beautiful, and a show car. The guy, Don McMahon had bought it from the builder, Ernie Martin, who lived in Hillsboro. R&C did a 4 page feature in the Aug 1960 issue, through the years I never forgot that car! Fast forward 24 years, I met Ernie, and one of the first things he said, was he was going to build another 32- 5w and he wanted me to build the chassis. Over the last 30 plus years, Ernie and I have been building and racing drag and circle track cars, along with building a number of hotrods along the way. Every once in a while the subject of his old 32 would come up, he had lost track of it in about 64 or so, after it had changed hands a few times. He tried to track it down, but wasn't able to find out what happened to it, and here is where the HAMB comes in. Last May, I spotted a thread about the history on an old race car, and to my surprise it was a 32 coupe, and the OP was from Oregon. The first thing I noticed was the cowl vent was filled, Ernie had mentioned filling the cowl vent on his old car, and that he would never do that again. Within a couple of minutes, the mystery was solved, and I was able to set up a reunion with Ern and his old car! BTW, the lead photo of the 554 was taken by by master photographer Jim Cooper at Puyallup, Wa in '63, and I was there to see it !

 

Ain't this place the greatest!

 

Late 70's it came rolling from around the rear of the McDonald's by Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg Va. It was a fenderless 1934 Ford 5-window in black primer. I can still hear the lope of the cam. I think it rose from a street somewhere behind Carl's ice cream and the Hardee's...but alas, I was never able to find it's lair. I was twelve and the kids driving had no interest in chasing after that old car.

 

Ernie Martin's coupe at my house, after 45 years warehouse storage. The paint reflects it's time as a bracket racer at the Woodburn Oregon Drag Strip by its then Salem Oregon owner.

 

I never knew what a hot rod was until the kid next door bought a 49 Mercury. I was hooked.

Gary

 

This is the very first hot rod I ever laid my eyes on. It was about 1955 and a fellow by the name of Gil Turgen in my neighborhood built this from a stock 34 coupe he got from a lady up the street. this and a 40 coupe a few streets over set me on my path. I am a traditional old school hot rodder. The 32 coupe is my car

 

I don't remember what would have been seeing my first hotrod, but I remember the 2 that left an impression on me.
In the mid to late 60's our neighbor down the road had a 48 or 49 Ford pickup with a Cadillac engine and cheater slicks on it.
He could fry the tires on that thing for what seemed like forever. My dad loved it because they were about the same age and buddy's.

The other neighbor's daughter was dating a guy who had either a 65 or 66 Mustang GT350. He would turn onto our road about a 1/4 mile away and start going thru the gears, you could always hear him coming....I loved to listen to that car. My dad cussed him every time he went by.

 

It was about 1953/4 we went on a trip to Niagra falls and my dad had a friend in Herkimer NY I was staying in an attic room that overlooked an alley . I heard this rumble ,look out the window and see a model a coupe no fenders or hood chromed out motor. I have been on down hill slide since that day.

 

Hello,

When we were in junior high school and playing baseball, we were so close to the Lions Dragstrip that it was hard not to climb up that railroad embankment to check out all of that noise. Once we saw what it was, two little boys could not resist the urge to walk across the farmer’s plowed fields to get a closer look at all of the commotion. We saw FEDs, altereds, gas coupes and even a motorcycle or two. Now, we knew what it was and started looking at every magazine we could get our hands on at the neighborhood store.

Back home, when my brother’s older friends came over, they had cars that looked cool, but were fairly quiet. That is until they uncorked the exhaust cut outs. One of the friends had a 34 Ford, 5 window coupe with a big Olds motor in it. It had a Howard Cam/kit and 4:11 gears. It sounded mean, especially with those cut outs opened. It was fast as I found out later, it turned mid 13’s at Lions.

Jnaki

When we went to Lions to watch and stroll around the pits, it was an eye opener. The car that impressed me the most was Doug Cook’s 1937 Chevy coupe. Besides being in a street legal class, it sounded like a dragster and watching it go down the strip, that was totally impressive. He was winning the class eliminations left and right all while looking like a high quality, Tahitian Red painted show car. This was a car I could drive on the street and still race at the drags every Saturday.

This was drag racing.
Doug cook’s 37 Chevy gas coupe 1959-60

 

In 57, I was 11years old and we had moved to Jackson Mississippi. Going home from church we were passed by a 27 hiboy roadster, I flipped out. I found that car later and the guy who owned it let me look all over it. He never said a word, but let me look under and over as he pretended to ignore a goofy little kid. In 95, I built my version of that hiboy. A lot of kids got a ride in that one. My kid and I took it on the 95 Americruz to Lincoln.
After seeing that car, I started getting and building models, especially 32 roadsters. I have a real one now. I told my wife" I have wanted a 32 since I was 11." It is a brooksville, but it is steel. I have had many hot rods over the years and still have 4 in the process. It all started with that 27.