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Kickin'
Rocks
Hot Rodding As We Know It...Is Over!
Okay...I give up ... it's been a hard and long fight, but the numbers are piling up surpassed only by oil kickbacks in Washington. A hot rodder is a guy who screws with old cars and makes them go fast, but lately some fringe players are circling who want to run with the big dogs. Most of the "outsiders" really don't know what a real hot rod is or understand the heritage. Not long ago a big time rod builder (no names but he was/is in the wheel business too), during a television interview said that the look of the hot rod has changed, and that the traditionalists should be open to the new ideas. Before the dust settled at Muroc car guys were jealously defending the belief that the hot rods on the streets and the lakes in the 40s are the cars by which all others should be judged . Whether you believe it or not, I'll bet you a new case of old 8 ounce Coca-Colas against your four bits that we ALL pretty much think alike on what a real hot rod is, here's a test. If you were standing on the curb rocking back and forth and this super low late 30s or 40s coupe rumbles by, barking go fast sounds, shaking the fenders and squatting on four foot wide rubber, then parks next to a pretty basic primered ‘29 hi-boy roadster with a warmed over flathead and a blanket on the seat, and someone asks you to pick out the hot rod, chances are pretty damn good that you'd pick the hi-boy. Even the carbon-fiber-don't-paint-it-to-match car guys would pick the roadster. You may have heard this rumor, but here is the official notice, ANYTHING NEWER THAN 1934 IS NOT A HOT ROD! Yeh, yeh, yeh...I hear ya...save it for later. Being a hot rodder pretty cool once again, even John Force thinks he has a hot rod, but calling it so, or shaking the neighbor's teeth loose don't make it so. That big time rod builder also said that imports are today's hot rods and their owners are the new hot rodders. NO BLINKIN' WAY! He also inferred that the stigma, street racing, start up businesses, chasing people out of crosswalks, annoying neighbors, all prove his point. All of a sudden the car de jour seems to be an import type, bouncing around with the tach needle twisted up around twenty grand and buzzing like a bunch of Louisville Slugger hive whacked hornets. They are even running those things at Bonneville. BONNEVILLE!!! That's just wrong. Bonneville is sacred, there's no crying in baseball, there's no rice rockets in Bonneville. History may be repeating itself and no matter how much juice you have to stem the tide of change, you can't stop it. Given the growing evidence I am now absolutely convinced that even go fast lawn mowers should be let into the hot rod society, let all that stuff in. Old time hot rod dinosaurs only have a very small place in the car world anymore. I was at a buddies house the other day expounding my new beliefs like L. Ron whats-his-face. I followed him around pitching the new revelation, but he would not listen, finally he got real pissy and with the sweat beads starting to roll off on his shinny mature noggin, he said we should blockade the harbor or something like that. So now he's really upset and starts jerking cars out of the garage, building this symbolic barricade, all the time mumbling things like remember Pearl Harbor and that he can't read the signs in his neighborhood any more, having nothing to do with his eyesight. He got the third ‘32 in line completely closing off the driveway and sat down on the hi-boy tire grabing a little air, smug in having made his point when his wife pulled up in their new Lexus, he of course had to immediately move one of the hot rods to let her in. See how this happens? Did you ever see that movie "I.Q."? This New England car guy (Tim Robbins) meets Albert Einstein (Walter Mathau) in an effort to woo Albert's niece Meg Ryan. During a conversation between Einstein and Tim, Al says "are you zinking whut I am zinking?" Robbins replies "what would be the chances of that?". Well that is kind of where we are concerning the import hoards, we all have to start zinking alike. It is time that hot rodders must magnanimously welcome all comers, after all they are car people too, they love cars and are dedicated to making them go faster and look better. Open up history, share you secrets, give out Courtesy Cards, join each others clubs, gather for picnics, intermarry. It is time for us to become one. BALONEY! Buh---low---nee! I won't give in, and you better not either! You can be humanities humanitarian if you want, but hot rodding is the real deal. If it ain't made in the good ol' USA it ain't a hot rod! You can call it whatever you want, but don't call it a "hot rod". If you currently own a hot rod and one of those other cars, you are getting perilously close to being excommunicated, you are already getting those buddy smerks. You have one chance to redeem yourself, take that gallon of imported gas in the imported gas can, walk over to your USA assembled foreign profit taking car, dump the gas on it pull out your Zippo and light it off. Immediately go call your multi-national insurance company on your assembled-somewhere-else cell phone and make the claim. When your check arrives from somewhere in the Bahamas or Switzerland, nail a picture of Eddie Meyer to the wall and start building that hot rod. Hot rods are a unique American original and there is no substitute, get up on that wall and keep the infidels at bay. Kick a Ginsu Rock. DP |