The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions

So, first things first I recently got my old Nissan D21 pickup back from my friend Murderstang. If you remember a few posts ago I exclaimed that hell had in fact frozen over and I had sold my Nissan D21 that I had owned since 1995. Long story short, he wanted a bigger truck and i was in the market so BAM Nissan is back. now on to the story...

Bought the truck on Saturday and was so excited to get it back. Murderstang had done some keen upgrades and work to it while in his care. I knew i couldn't drive it and would have to wait to title it until the dreaded DMV was open during the week. No biggie, i can wait. So the first available time slot for a much on the go person was Wednesday at 8:15am. Read all about what i needed in hand and off we go to the DMV.

So, remember the title of this post (see above...)? Yeah, we couldn't remember if BOTH names were on the original title or if it was me or the misses or ????? I was all like "Leave it blank, the kind employee at the DMV will help us straighten it all out". Flash forward to the bureaucratic kick in the nuts i received as i handed over the papers with glee, just full of joy that i would get to drive my truck to work that day. See unbeknownst to me and the misses this tiny blank space on the title meant NO TRUCK FOR YOU! The government sponsored paperwork Nazi had seen his opening to dash the dreams of said wannabe hotrodder that sat in front of him.  And DASH DREAMS HE DID!

See, the truth is any government agency exists only to spread pain and agony on the citizens and blind them with confusing haphazard red tape and nonsense. This keeps the general masses from realizing that their wages and buying power have been on a steady decline since the 1970s whilst cost of goods and services doubles about every 15 minutes or so. With a grinch inspired smile he handed back the title along with another paper that had to be filled out from my friend Murder Stang (who by the way works 2 jobs and is insanely busy). Knowing the chances of me getting this crap filled out within the next year or so is about the same as me going and punching out Mike Tyson the rage builds and my only recourse is to leave and try to limit my cursing to 100 or less.

So, long story short never ever expect any help from any government employee. If they had come into their position with joy in their heart that has long since been crushed by angry confused patrons and overbearing unbending laws about their useless pieces of paper. Whether leaning on a government shovel or sitting behind a drab grey government cubical your encounter will be unpleasant. Just try your best to avoid at all costs.

Ed Roth's fleeting time in the sun

It is probably no big surprise that I am a huge Ed Roth fan. Growing up Ratfink defined cool and custom and car culture. There is a pretty big love/hate divide in the hotrod world toward the custom cars he created but nobody, and I mean NOBODY, hates on Ed Roth for his iconic influence on hot rod culture.

Just knowing about Ed Roth from the grotesque caricatures he created on shirts and hats of the 60s and 70s only gives a very slight insight into the man. So I set out to learn more about the almighty Roth the old fashioned way... reading. For you younger folks looking at this post "reading" is a thing that people used to do before movies, youtubes and vine clips. As I read and learned more and more about the wild ride that was Ed Roth's life one thing really struck me as insane... his hot rod shop was only in existence for 11 years. Yup, 1959 - 1970 was the run of his shop at 4616 Slauson Avenue in Maywood, California.

Imagine being a genre defining icon that changed what future generations considered possible in custom car culture closing your shop and becoming a sign painter for a berry farm. How is that even possible? To me it is mind bending how fragile success can be. I always imagined that when an artist or musician "makes it big" they are set for life and that my friends could not be farther from the truth. As I learned more and more about Ed Roth it seems that his life was really broken into disjointed segments, each completely separate from the others.

I realize that a book is one persons interpretation of a person or event so it cannot be taken as gospel but there must be some truth to the accounts as they often overlap. All I know is for one person to shake up the custom car world so completely I wish his time in the spotlight would have been longer. I also wish I could have met the man and thanked him for his contributions. But as my late great father would have said... "Shit in one hand and wish in the other and see which builds up fastest."

You Might Not Be Perfect, But You Gotta Bring SOMETHING

So everyone knows that hotrods are inherently a losing proposition. If you are getting into a hotrod to make money you are in the wrong business. As my pop always used to say "Speed costs, how fast do you want to go?" In today's classic car market there is a growing problem that stems from a few different misconceptions.

If you are in the market to buy a decent starter hotrod there are numerous avenues to spend your hard earned cash... craigslist, auctions and of course just kinda keeping your eyes peeled. I have employed all these and many others and gotta say the divide between seller and buyer could not be larger. It has and will always be the seller wants the most he can get and the buyer wants it as cheap as he can get it but I contend not to the degree that is it now.

Numerous shows that feature classic car auctions and show people buying and selling them has given the sellers an incredibly false sense of what their classic hotrods are actually worth. There is no place on this planet or any other where a Chevy Malibu is worth $170k, I don't care if GOD pimped that ride... NO WAY! But week after week we see these shriveled up old rich guys throwing up their paddle to show they are rich enough to outlast other said old rich guys. Troubling trend is that now that the upper 1% have bought all the houses and lives they can they have moved onto such rouge-ish enterprises as classic cars.... but you know, as investments not to actually enjoy the car.

So scratch the auction scene, reserve cars will pass and pass and pass with no-sale after no-sale. On to the local market, that will give up some awesome cars right? eh, right?!?  When you go through the craigslist experience you will see that most are as delirious there as at an auction. A big problem with local craigslist cars is they bring nothing to the table, and i mean NOTHING! You can go buy a much newer SS camaro or GT mustang for the same or less than most of these classics and they are WAY more car and WAY WAY faster. Now, style and cool have nothing to do with that so i get it, buying an older classic hotrod is very different than buying a new Mustang but if you want speed they don't even compare. And here inlays the problem.

Say i want to buy an old 1969 Firebird (which i sure wouldn't mind), locally they are on craigslist for 13k - 25k. These cars have no new steering or suspension components, are not matching numbers, have rust throughout and the interior is mostly shot. For about 18k i can get a low mileage 2012 SS Camaro that is near perfect. What the hell man, give me SOMETHING. Like if the Firebird had the Disc Brake conversion and decent engine, or a solid body with some attention needed okay i could see $15k. But the cars i am seeing are bringing absolutely NOTHING to the table. Bored over garbage engines, gutted interiors... basically projects at best.

If you are selling a project price it like a GOD DAMN PROJECT! Everyone is looking for numbers matching show car money for parts car quality. I get that you want to make a few bucks but please, take a realistic look at what you are selling before you add another 10k to the price. Just because you let the car "age" like fine wine in the back yard on blocks since 1978 doesn't mean it is a rare classic. Not EVERY car is a super rare collectible, in fact the reality is none of them are.

When All Else Fails.....

HOT ROD CARTOONS!

Well, That Settles That....

So, on Friday I left work and was just cruising along when I see two guys racing it out with fart can Honda Accords. Usually I don't get involved but sometimes I do so I jump on it, drop my S2000 down to 3rd gear and start snapping gears. I rip past them both with ease and kinda ease up on the gas a little to see if they wanna play. Well, they don't both just backed off. So I keep rolling when all of a sudden coming off a highway ramp a new challenger appears. I know I am in TROUBLE with a capital T.

The "Trouble" i am talking about is a very slammed very fast modern super car. I can't even tell you what kind it was other than it was low, fast and made of about 90% carbon fiber. I am not talking about a hacked up civic with the faux carbon fiber wrap... no i am talking about the actual super car made completely of carbon fiber, baby seal tears and thousand dollar bills. So I keep on the throttle, lets see if they wanna play too. Sadly for me, they do.

As I rip past the super car they star running, we are in the front of everyone so I just keep on it. As a rule if there are other cars or we are in a populated area I don't run. Even if I don't care about my well being I am not going to cause harm to an unwilling participant in stupidity. But anyway we are free and clear and it is on like Donkey Kong. I am holding my own pretty good for running a stock 2005 Honda S2000. That is until I hear the growl of the super car's super charger as it kicks in I know I whipped. The mighty exhaust fumes spit out left over horse power and defeat onto my cars windshield as I get a real clear look at the monstrous 24" tires under the beast blasting past me. As we curl over a high overpass curve I see we are both running hard and he isn't even brushing the brakes on this bank curve. I get slightly loose and realize my race is over, I let off and concede. It didn't bother me so much since I was up against a 500k+ car. Win or lose it is always fun to me, I am always wearing a smile and running my best.

In the long run I solved the ancient unsolved mystery... using my "independent study" NO, a stock 2005 Honda S2000 can't beat a 2015 Super Car. And as G.I. Joe has taught us, knowledge is power.

Wannabe Hotrods Excuses Excuses Excuses

Finally got back to laying under that beast of a Nissan Pickup. Lets just say that the "record breaking" temperatures that I heard about on my local TV station day in and day out severely stunted my front end repairs. I am thankful to get back on track... but part of me thinks I might not be able to cut the mustard in the Hot Rod world. What am I talking about? let me explain....

I am not sure if I have what it takes to build a hot rod frame up, that is thousands of hours and probably hundreds of problems. I let that truck front end replacement that should by all accounts have taken me MAYBE 2 weekends end up taking me months! Now there were many things that kept me from getting out there but those are all just bullshit excuses. Reality is I lacked the motivation to get my lazy ass up and get laying under the truck. So how am I going to build a bad ass hotrod? Good question!

In my defense mustering up the desire to work on a Nissan Pickup in the dead of summer while grieving the loss of my father is quite a bit different than wrenching on a 32 highboy or building up a kit shelby cobra. Right? Maybe, but maybe not. The country is filled with garages housing cars that were ripped apart and left laying in pieces never to see the light of day again. Hell, my first attempt when I was a kid ended just that way (see blog post like 1 or 2 or something like that). I am a much different person than I was back then... or am I?

I will say one thing I do very VERY well is fix things. Without sounding arrogant I am pretty sure I restore things very close to the level of Ricks Restorations (see reality TV show that may or may not still be on the air, great show but like all reality shows got a bit to goofy focusing on shenanigans and taking away from the awesome work being done). That is what makes me think my best course of action will be to get a running driving car and just restore it section by section. But after years of cleaning up and fixing what others have done to the machines I restore I would be lying if I didn't say I would be apprehensive. I got so tired of fixing broken pinball machines I bought one new from the factory just so I could see what it is like to have a machine that is actually CARED for, it is glorious. So maybe a Factory Five kit car is the way to go. Sadly this debate will not end here but I do have major concerns about my gumption, my drive, my sticktoitiveness! The last thing this world needs is another beautiful Hot Rod rotting away in a garage with shit piled all over it. THAT I cannot create, so what am I gonna be? Builder or a Loser?

Some cool car toons a Go-Go from Alex Toth

Can you DIG Guess Who A Go-GO?

It's All Fun And Games Until A Fence Jumps In Front Of Your Truck

 

Windmills of my mind

So, if you follow this blog you know I am saving money toward a hotrod (hence the name WANNABE Hotrodder). I am lucky in that I have a regular job and also pick up work from time to time with a local video crew. It is a very cool job that lets me film concerts and the likes. I put all that money away into a fund for my hotrod. It is what they call a "long term goal" I also put away any extra money from buying and selling things, hustling for a dollar.

Recently I took a job taking a van with a huge video screen in the back to a venue like a portable jumbotron. Well, i clipped a brand new chain link fence on the way to the job, took a corner too hard and CRUNCH! Did some damage to the truck but I was WAY lucky in that it didn't ruin the generator or LCD screens. In a massive freak out I managed to get enough help to pull the bar out of the truck side and get to the job. I was embarrassed and angry and upset at myself but as long as the job goes off things will be okay. So, my boss and the owner of the truck were super cool about it (no... they don't read this, being very sincere). Long story short I need to fix the fence and fix the truck and move on in life.

Yesterday the invoice for the fence comes in... $1,265! My heart sunk, this means my long fought hotrod fund will be taking a major hit. Plus I still have more coming for the truck fix. At this point I need to take a very long hard look at if I should even continue? If I am just spinning and spinning never getting ahead then what is the point. Do I take some shit job as a part time stock boy? Do I just keep plugging away or do I abandon my dreams of owning a hotrod all together. I don't know the answer to this question right now. The embarrassing mess is still to fresh and stingy in my brain.

It is my fault and I always own up to my messes, I hit the fence and messed up a truck. The last thing I will ever do is blame others or try to shirk my responsibilities. I am very fortunate my boss and the truck owner are as cool as they are. I definitely will count my blessings but I need to take a shot and a beer or 8 to wash down this shit sandwich and really take a long hard look at what I want. Only time will tell. In the mean time, if you happen to find yourself driving a panel truck would you do the Wannabe Hotrodder a favor and ease up on the cornering... the fence companies are rich enough.

Lets Follow Along With Our Hotrod Idol The UNDERTAKER!

The 900 Pound Rusty Gorilla In The Room

 

Rust In PEACE

Okay, as noted my last entry we need to talk about the current trend to take over the hotrod world... RAT RODS. Now, I beg you gentle reader please realize my opinions are not meant to be hurtful or flame worthy. Just my observations as seen through my little pea brain and expounded through the garbage heap that is the internet.

Greaserama car show in Kansas City last month really filled my veins with gasoline and lit the fire under my butt to get working on my hotrod plan. To be fair the "Hotrod Plan" consists of me saving money to buy a hot rod but "hotrod plan" sounds a bit more cool. The other thing I took away from the trip was although Rat Rods are very cool, much like everything else too much of a good thing kinda becomes a bad thing. What? has the wannabe hotrodder lost his mind? Please... read on...

For many many years car shows were basically fields upon fields filled to the brim with super shiny trailer queen cars that were basically kept behind glass. With sign after sign warning the attendee to not touch said trailer queen. That might float for a one of a kind Ferrari or Super Bee that truly is rare, please don't touch my "rare" 1967 Mustang not so much. Not hating on Mustangs but as I pointed out a few posts ago I am pretty sure you got a free Mustang with a large slurpee purchase in 1967. So as with most things the absurd brings a backlash. So much like punk music came along to murder disco, rat rods came along to murder the trailer queen. Just as punk then itself became the bloated joke of itself so too has "Rat Rods."

The first time one lays eyes on a true rusty ass wicked cool rolling work of art Rat Rod it turns your brain upside down. They are cooler than the other side of the pillow... from the cliche Jack Daniels radiator overflow bottle to the Pabst Blue Ribbon shift they are wacky cool fun. You walk away from that first exposure realizing you have been told a lie and hot rods can be unique and different and they don't always have to be perfect with that little time out dummy leaning against the overly shiny chrome bumper. The first exposure to a Rat Rod excited the car lover and changes your perspective. Fast forward a couple years and you start to realize that first Rat Rod you saw wasn't that innovative and was in fact bound by its own subset of rules for it to be "cool."

My hope is that the market re-adjusts itself back again but lands right in the middle. See, I dream of a world in which you can have a nice shiny hot rod AND drive it too. Imagine that world everyone, you can make a car fast and loud AND not worry about keeping it pristine. That is the happy medium, a car can be beat up and rusty and still be cool but creating fake patina or purposely wrecking something to make it look old and destroyed on purpose is kinda the same as buying a "relic'ed guitar" the hand made scars are fake corporate bullshit conceived to sell an image.

So for the sake of the hotrod world and car lovers everywhere... build your car and do the best you can. If your car gets a dent or scratch so be it, show your scars with pride but please don't ruin your car for a fad. Fads are cheap and soul-less.

Epic Road Trip Retrospective

Turbo Lover

Ok, so as mentioned earlier I recently took an epic 10 day road trip. Got to see where Elvis was born, got to hit up a lot of micro Craft Breweries. In total did 10 days, 10 states and 3600 miles (poor poor rental car). I saw a lot and thought a lot, this is what I came away with after time to reflect.

   1) When planning road trips, you need to spend more than one night in each place. At times I didn't even take the travel case off the stupid hotel cart.
   2) When dreaming about escaping the relentless Florida triple digit heat index either plan higher up in the country or plan the trip for later in the year. Lets just say that the awesome car show in Kansas City was actually HOTTER than my home in Clearwater, FL. It made me sad in pants.
   3) Finally one last thing then on to the car show coverage... Road Trips are COOL AS HELL and should be done way more often. If you haven't planned out a road trip that seems implausible and completely foolish then you haven't lived a full life yet.

   Now on to the car and motorcycle stuff, this is after all THE WANNABE HOTRODDER. Main part of this trip was Greaserama 15 ( http://www.greaserama.com  ). This was a very wild and unique event. Being the 15th one they definitely have their shit together. The cars were wicked cool, the people were fun and everything worked. I didn't get to see as many of the bands as I hoped because i was having a car-gasm and also had some heat stroke issues. I will be doing my next post all about Rat Rods. I came away with a lot of thoughts some good and some eh BUT very cool event!
 
  After that, hit up the Wheels Through Time motorcycle museum in Maggie Valley NC ( http://www.wheelsthroughtime.com/ ). What can I say... hundreds of running preserved awesome historic motorcycles. Met the owner and was really blown away by his down to earth outlook. If you can please PLEASE visit and support Wheels Through Time, one of the most awesome places I have been.

  So, both places gave me a ton of joy and helped shape my perspective. I feel like I could go into Wheels Through Time every day for a year and still see and experience something new. If you ever have the ability i would highly recommend both of these events. So, until next time when the WannaBe tackles the whole "Rat Rod" think... drive fast, live life and keep the rubber side down.

Back In The Saddle Again

I learned a valuable lesson recently, at great personal loss. Last week my father passed away. We were best friends, did a lot of stuff together and shared lots of laughs along the 45 years we shared. Now, I am not going to say we shared hotrods because honestly my father could care less about cars. He was in that 98% of the world that view cars as transportation and nothing more. Where I got my Hot Rod lust is beyond me but I digress....

Upon my fathers passing it dawned on me that I better get my ass in gear because time is fleeting. My father did a lot of awesome stuff in his 74 years on this earth... married to my mother for 51 years, together they raised 2 kids and put them through college. They retired early and traveled the country in a 5th wheel camper working at state parks. He and my mother were vegetarians, did weight lifting and yoga and tried to laugh and share joy every day. They celebrated life and touched everyone they knew. I need to learn from my father, I need to celebrate life and more than that I need to get a plan. They didn't do all this awesome stuff by "winging it" they saved and planned and did whatever they needed to get where they wanted to go. I need to learn from my parents and make sure that I get where I need to go sooner rather than later!

At this point you might be saying to yourself... what the hell does any of this have to do with being a Wannabe Hot Rodder? Everything, and nothing. It means I need to get that hotrod I am pining for and I need to get it NOW. It means I need to knock down the barriers and ensure that I do all the little stupid things in the way of getting said Hot Rod. It means I personally need to never ever put something off, as putting off means it may never come. So, in honor of my father whom I love and care for dearly I am pulling up my boot straps and kicking as much ass as I can every moment of every day. He was a great man, and I need to ensure that I honor his teachings and become a great man. Come hell or high water, the wannabe hotrodder will become THE HOTRODDER! Please raise your glass and say a prayer for a fallen hero. My dad - R.I.P. 06/10/2015

To Quote Monty Python... Now For Something COMPLETELY Different!

A partner in crime of mine named "Dr. Morbius" has one of the worlds most popular Blogs. One day we were doing our many various podcasts and I was like " Hey Mang, how do you get so much traffic to your blog?" He said, I have over a thousand posts and it is very heavy with tons of comic book art. I thought and thought until my thinker was sore... then Dr. Morbius sent me some hot rod comic book art. So here is that!

Auctions Continue To Create A World That Doesn't Exsist

So, in case you missed it cars that many of us grew up seeing every day are now made of pure gold. Either gold or unobtanium. Either way they are EXPENSIVE. Well, depending on where you look they are. See, there is a massive disconnect between reality and what television or "TV" might have us believe. Not sure what I am talking about, please let me expound.

When you think of the awesome Detroit steel of the 60s and 70s it raises the hair on the back of your neck. They are big and mean, fast and loud. They are in a word AWESOME. They had wicked names like firebird and mustang and cougar and chevelle... names that evoked passion and desire for bad mistakes and burning tires. Growing up with them they always hovered in the affordable range. I am pretty sure you got a 65 mustang free with a fill up and a large slirpee for a while in the mid-eighties. Detroit made about 78 billion of these bad ass cars so they were always plentiful. The ones that didn't wrap themselves around a telephone pole that is.

Fast forward to the twenty-teens, a time when the 1% walks with impunity and reality television shapes what we think is reality. Dark times man, dark dark times. Sure, it started simple enough. Watching dudes work on stuff and make cool restoration projects. Then we got introduced to "flippers" or low level scavengers that are buying junk and as the old saying goes... polishing a turd. Fair enough, that has been going on forever but what hasn't gone on forever is television creating unrealistic prices. I was watching a super hyped "superbowl of auto auctions" the other week where a richey rich who had been buying up all of hotrod history for a million years decided it was time to flaunt his status and sell everything so we could all bask in his "i am way better than you" cult status. SO, other richey rich types showed up in droves to prove THEY could be that cool and rich too. As a result us common jerks got to watch mustangs sell for hundreds of thousands.

By the time it was over said richey could actually build his own world and live in a different galaxy made entirely of gold. Now, I am not just writing to rail against rich folks... I mean I will but that is not why I am here TODAY. The effect of reality TV creating this superbowl of car pricing is the entire baseline for old muscle cars took a dramatic leap upward. Remember like 2 paragraphs ago when I talked of those "flippers"? Yeah, well now those polished turds cost 10 times more than they did a year ago because every slack jawed yokel watched those shows and were like "I got one of those... so it MUST be worth as much as barrett jackson got."

Bad news, it isn't worth that much. The ones that were sold on that sad day were the absolute top of the top cars created or restored by the best of the best and most were 1 off super rare touched by god editions. So for those of us out there looking, we now have a few years more to save our money. After the flippers lose their asses and get no actual bites on the cars they are trying to get gold for the market will re-adjust back to reality. So just like the housing bubble, the gold bubble and every other made up price increase the muscle car bubble will burst. And when it does I will be there to grab up the prize, until then I will watch and wait.

Hot Rodding A Non-Hotrod?

So, currently I am saving up my meager pennies toward my bad ass hot rod. While I sit and wait I figured why not work on my old 1994 Nissan Pickup. It already has a pretty bad attitude with a hotrod black paint, full moon wheels and a nice throaty exhaust. After consulting with my friend MurderStang about it my choices were sell it, fix it up and drive it or make it a monster. Obviously I am going with option C.

I do need to get some things in order on the truck before the Rodding begins. I fixed a few of the little bothersome things a few weeks back... general maintenance stuff. Then I ordered all new bushings and joints for the front end. That sucker is LOOSE! (insert prostitute joke here if you please). So luckily I waited until Florida reached the temperature of the sun before I decided to do this.

After I get done replacing wore out parts that have no intention of leaving where they called home since 1994 the suspension will be tight, the paint and body mean and nasty looking and the interior... eh, it'll do. Last bit of tidy up I will need to get the top end worked over. I would pull the motor completely but I am going to try to cheap out. See, me and MurderStang have developed a dubious plot of bolting a turbo on the old Nissan. Should make a tidy little sleeper with another 100+ HP under the hood.

I am looking forward to it, I have been with this truck since 1995 and have grown quite fond of it. Making it a bad contender will be great. I had thought about ripping it out and going the SBC route but that is a bit ambitious and probably at that point would not even be used as a truck anymore. So until the top and turbo tails get into place I best be keeping my eye on the temp and drinking lots of gatoraide until I can get these god damn control arm bushings out of this god damn front end.

until next time... Wannabe Hotrodder OUT!

R.E.S.P.E.C.T... find out what it means to me?

 

Respect

So, as I have discussed before the reason for my hotrod lust re-awakening is my current car. A few years ago I got a Honda S2000 and my "need for speed" has since multiplied a million fold. One of the things that has completely changed is my outlook about hotrods and what makes a "fast car." Growing up in the 70s and 80s meant that the only cars that truly got respect were muscle cars. Big loud heavy chunks of glorious steel. So when the tuner craze hit I pretty much laughed it off and gave it no respect. My opinion has changed dramatically as I now more a "tuner" than I am a "hotrodder."

when I bought my S2000 I did not even realize it was a fast car. I liked the convertible top and since riding a motorcycle in Florida is the same as drunkenly playing Russian roulette I grabbed the next best thing. As I learned how to drive the car and realized the power it has at the higher revving end of the tach I realized what all the Tuner hoopla was all about. Then I fell in love!

For those reading and wondering to themselves... what in the blue hell is this fool talking about? Let me explain. Tuners (for the most part) live in the high revving part of the spectrum to best get maximum power. Where a big block chevy or ford can slap gears in the 5500 range and be flying little light tuner cars like my S2k shoot like a bullet around the 6500 - 8000 range. When I drive it shifting in the normal 3500 to 4500 range it is just a nimble little honda. When i let it scream it is hard to beat.

On my average drive to and from work I am just a regular jerk driving my Honda. About 3 - 4 times per week I am messed with either by another tuner or by a hotrod trying to show off. To be sure I have gotten blasted from time to time and sometimes I am too damn tired and just let it go. More often than not I smash the other car, especially if it is a hotrod. They are just too damn heavy to keep up. Perfect example a couple days ago, a early to mid-eighties malibu with loud pipes starts getting twitchy at a light. I can hear it is a 305 chevy small block from the pipes so i know this guy has no chance if I run him. I let it go until he spins his tires then it is on... I rip thought 1st and 2nd but going light RPM to give the poor chump false hope, then I drop the hammer and rip by him in 4th gear. I still had 2 gears left as his headlights dimmed in the rear view mirror.

That is when I realized I had better build one hell of a hotrod otherwise I will get NO R.E.S.P.E.C.T!

More fads than you can detect with a fad detecting fad machine!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt_zum97kjE

This past weekend I went to a Swap Meet / Car Show held at the world famous Don Garlits Museum. I went with a friend we will call MurderStang. MurderStang is an ACTUAL hotrodder not a wannabe like me so he is always a wealth of information and often has awesome ideas and insight. But I digress, as we walked to and fro looking at all the cars and customs it really struck me how deeply the car culture is struck with fads.

There were a ton of really awesome cars at the show. This show was more about honest hard working driving hotrods. So the field filled with a few trailer queens but for the most part well used cars filled the ranks. That is when i noticed the newest soon to be tired fad... the rat rod. Funny thing about hotrods they are really slaves to what is cool. Some are tried and true timeless classics for sure. Never met a 57 Chevy i didn't like. When you see a lot of different cars in these shows it sticks out when a car was built. 

The billet crazy of the 90s, the zz top fueled color-gasms from the 80s and now the patina drenched rat rod craze. I have nothing against all of these movements in the car world, hell I am a wannabe at this point so I have no room to judge. What does weigh heavy in my tiny pea brain is when I finally do get my hotrod and when I do start building and customizing it how do I avoid creating a fad filled car? I don't have the money to build and rebuild a car. Yes, I realize that hotrods command special handling and obviously driving one on a regular basis will require lots of fixing and re-fixing.

I guess it comes down to building a car that is timeless in design and powerful enough to not get pushed around. For me anyway, others will have way different goals. When I think of the cars I drool over getting they all have my flare but don't go overboard.

Wheels seem to be the hardest hit when it comes to fads. The first dead give away to when a car was built is the wheels. Second is the paint, man does paint show fads more than anything! I often think if you paint a car solid color and possibly close to a factory color you are safe. If you start putting stripes and ribbon stripes over ghost flames over pinstriping in neon colors well you might want to just start putting money away for the repaint now. That is part of the problem, custom cars are mostly one-off vehicles built by one person for one person. Judging if it is cool or not should not really come into play but obviously it does. And just because something is cool today does not mean it will be tomorrow. Just ask the guys riding the OCC choppers how much street cred they get. For now I will only dream and scheme, dodging fads and hoping for my hotrod to arrive.

Old = Indestructible

In the world of true hotrodding old detroit steel reigns supreme. That is good, and bad... but mostly good.

At this point you might be wondering why the hell is there a picture of a phone up there with a hyper link to a disturbed song called Indestructible. No, I haven’t completely lost my mind. That image represents everything about modern times and how I see the world. At THIS point you might be thinking okay, he obviously HAS lost his mind and just doesn’t know it yet. Bare with me gentle readers and allow me to expand upon my hypothesis.

See, earlier this morning I dropped my modern smart phone. Upon dropping my phone it broke the screen into a million pieces and became unusable in that it didn’t even have a picture anymore. I had to take the battery out of it to make it stop playing the song I was listening to. The song was Dead Kennedys “Trust Your Mechanic” in case you were wondering. Very solid song by a great old school punk band. It made me think of a time before phones were expensive pieces of glass that had the computing power of god and fit into the palm of everyones hands.
For you younger readers phones used to be heavy black things that sat on a stand or sometimes hung on a wall. They were made of space hardened moon lava and could kill a bear in the event of an attack and they never ever ever stopped being a phone. I would hazard a guess if you went out into the desert just beside where Atari buried all those ET cartridges and dug up where good old Ma Bell buried all of those old black phones they would still work. They were bullet proof, they were indestructible.

Does that make them better than current smart phones? No but yes… so maybe. New smart phones are glorious in that they contain all the answers to everything. You need to quickly establish the firing order of an engine you yanked out of a junk yard it is there. You need to find out what some random idiot thinks about what color you painted your anvil it is there. If you want it to be dependable and durable not so much. New technology is built light and smart but it sacrifices a lot to get there. New phones are a fashion statement and a fad, the cool hip phone you shelled out a crap ton of money to buy will be mocked as junk within 4 months. And as stated above, they are flimsy as hell… weak as a new born fawn.

Phones are like hotrods in that if you want to build up a bad ass hunk of detroit iron it might not be as super smart, slick and light as a new fangled computer driven hellcat. BUT, purchasers of the new hellcat or camaro that is a billion horsepower beware! New cars are plastic shells controlled by computer. Computers fail at just about every turn. Just like a new shiny phone people will drool all over them then toss them aside when the NEW AND IMPROVED BEST THING EVER comes out so too will the new cool cars of today. They are junk. New cars are fast sleek beautiful pieces of disposable shit. That is the way of the world now. Cars can’t be fixed, just replaced.

If you are like me and value things that are made of glass and metal and wood then you don’t have much time for the newest gadget filled plastic boring car of today. They are not useless but they are not going to be there through the thick and thin. They are the same as a disposable razor,used up and tossed away. New things are not built to withstand the test of time, they are there to drive consumerism and stupidity. SO, much like the old black phone that you can dial day in and day out from until the end of time (or until they force you to convert) give me an old metal and steel chunk of detroit cool. It won’t be as smart as a new hellcat, it won’t attract car and drivers top rated blah blah blah of the year. Know what it will do, it will go though hell and back without missing a beat with me. That is worth more to me than words can express… it is priceless.

Does The Car Make The Man?

 

Suicidal Tendencies - Asleep At The Wheel

Okay so the WannaBe Hotrodder has a question for YOU... does the man make the car or does the car make the man? I suffer from wanting to many awesome cars. My dream cars range from a 32 hiboy to a 65 Shelby cobra (replica of course... I am not Bill Gates) to a crazy 70s Fiat Spyder to everything in between. I see so many kick ass hotrods and so much potential, all the while rarely thinking about the image aspect.

My main goal is to have a convertible light fast as hell car that sounds like death is coming with me. That could be about a million cars and that is my problem. For a while I was on an import kick, you know those bad ass Healeys with a nice 350 tucked away to surprise at the line or an MGs from the 50s and 60s? Those are cool but not much different from the import i am running now, just slower. If I drove one of those would I need to wear an ascot like Fred from Scooby Doo?

Then i think about a wicked cool corvette... but do I wanna be "that guy"? I LOVE LOVE LOVE the late 70s early 80s vettes. I think they are styled smooth as silk and run like a bat out of hell. BUT they come at a price, the price is everyone looks at you like you are a big douchebag. And other than a handful of people in this world i am generally NOT considered a douchebag. So can I own a vette and still be me?  Probably not. I don't really have many collars to pop and sadly I left my youth and the 80s long ago.

I already saw a HUGE difference in how I was treated on the road when I switched from my brutal looking hotrod black 1994 nissan D21 pickup that looked like something from Deathrace 2000 to my little roadster. People rarely crowded my back bumper when I drove the truck, they mostly covered the eyes and ears of their children and ran for cover. The S2k is always getting messed with, I often oblige.

I hate having to think about the perception a car puts off but the reality is I do. Now I have to search not only my meager bank account for errant funds but i must also search out my heart and soul for who I am. Who the hell am i anyway? Depends on the day... sometimes i am quiet and reserved, sometimes i am wild and crazy, sometimes I am drunk and rowdy... sometimes i am a strait up loon! I guess only time will tell what my hotrod will say about me, i hope we both do each other proud and "represent" (note the slang usage for "street cred"). So i guess mostly my car should be sarcastic? hmmm... well anyway gentle readers, only time will tell. Being a wannabe leaves the door open for anything. I look forward to new adventures. Come along with me!

JESUS BUILT MY HOTROD!

Hotrods they are a'changing! I have a modest little Honda S2000 daily driver that is pushing around 265 HP. It is my every day drive to work car. It is fast, not like break your back fast but damn fast. It was made in 2005... way back when 265 horsepower sounded impressive. Since then I have seen the average horse power of consumer cars climb and climb. There are freakin' boring ass family cars running 300 HP from the factory. Now, would they beat mine in an honest street race? Probably not as there are about a billion and one things that contribute to who crosses the finish line first and most family cars ain't got em. BUT, with the new technology pushing the boundaries more and more every day hotrods have to be absolute monsters to even get noticed anymore. It is not uncommon for a hotrod to hit 600 - 800 or more horsepower to seem respectable. Hell, my friend Murder Stang is shooting for above 1000 horsepower on his vintage mustang. It is no wonder, Hellcats come stock with 707 hp from the factory and every other major car company is racing (literally) to beat that number.

Hotrods with outrageous horsepower are not surprising as the true hotrod culture has always taken the lightest and fastest and made it part of their car. Some of the purists out there bitch and complain if you bolt anything new on an old car but the harsh reality is hotrodders increase power and speed any way possible. You can keep your "Pre-blah blah blah or nothing" bullshit along with numbers matching and patina. With the modern horsepower war ramping up from all sides how will the garage tree mechanic or wannabe hotrodder keep up? I guess the same way we always have, run what ya brought until you can beg borrow and steal the next performance part. 

So, if you are sitting at the light next to a goofball 4 door accord don't laugh too hard as the kid driving it tachs the engine and cranks up his Skrillex CD. It just might make a fool of you unless you put the pedal all the way to the metal and ride out every gear. In traditional Wannabe fashion I will continue to dream and scheme all the ways my car WILL be the fastest... that is until I own my hotrod and it isn't. Till next time keep the rubber side down and rev it loud.