What Constitutes "Cool"?

As I type this, I'm sitting at a small round table in my very small breakfast nook, that sort of doubles as a mini-office at times. The goal is to be close to the kitchen. Not so I can grab a snack later on, but so I can either grab the editorial can opener or blogging crowbar. In the past, and especially in the hot rod / nostalgic racing genre, the concept of "what is cool" can open a can of worms or the proverbial Pandora's box.

 In my humble opinion, there are two main factors that, fortunately or unfortunately depending on your own personal experience and/or opinion, that drive this concept: perspective and age - both of which change. For example, 30 years ago, (or even 15 years ago for that matter), I was all about muscle cars and quarter mile machines from the 60's, mostly because that was what I grew up with. It was literally in my blood because I had relatives that worked at some of the assembly plants. I really didn't care about street rods from the 30's and 40's - that's what my co-worker who was 20 years my senior was for. But even back during that period of tunnel vision, change was already occurring. For example 30 years ago, I was solely Mopars... nothing else. However, 15 years later by the end of the 90's, I was eagerly embracing all makes and models of muscle cars. Fast forward another 15 years, and I have an open door policy of all American hot rods from the late 20's on up. In fact, a 50's era Gasser as well as an early 30's Model A have been added to my "cars to own" bucket list. I kind of consider this current mindset an epiphany of sorts.

Is it because I'm getting older? Maybe. Am I re-welcoming some forgotten memories from my past? Most definitely. But the bottom line is when I see a 1940 Willy's with Hilborn injection, or a 1956 shoe box Chevy with a snarling big block, or a 1970 Plymouth GTX with American Racing torque thrust wheels and a west-coast rake, my first thought is - "Man... this rig is cool!" The same goes for vintage drag and NASCAR racing machines, whether completely restored or in barn-find condition. I'm even gaining a soft spot for Bonneville and salt flat racers.

One thing I have also noticed, whether at car shows or racing meets, is there seems to be way less brand and model bashing than there was in the 80's and 90's. I can remember when nobody wanted a 4-door or a wagon - it wasn't cool enough. Today, the opposite is true. I have a certain take on this as I believe all this original coveted iron is still disappearing, despite the preservation efforts of enthusiasts or the fact that the after-market has really stepped things up in the past 10-15 years with parts galore. Face it - the days when one could stroll into almost any junkyard and find some early to mid 70's automobiles at minimum, are gone forever. If you're old enough, you'll remember the big push that salvage yards faced to crush all this "obsolete junk" - which many of them did - in some cases because they had to, not because they wanted to. Prices have also played a factor in appreciating more Americana. I can remember a time not so long ago, when you could purchase a decent restorable early to mid 70's Plymouth Duster, or a late 60's 4-door Chevy Nova for under a grand. Today? Forget about it. You have to pony up three to four times that amount in most cases.

On the flip side of this coin however, I still have some character defects. I will always gravitate towards a cool ride that's been worked on by its owner, is driven as often as possible - even if it's a work in progress and has primer for paint - over a 110% restored vehicle that was purchased that way, the owner trailers it in a climate-controlled rig to every show and it's never driven. I don't care what make and model it is or what it rates on the rarity scale. I know it's easy for me to say that because I don't own the car. I know it also takes nerves of steel to stroke a check for twenty or thirty-five grand

or more - I've done it.
This mindset has raised some eyebrows by people regarding cars and trucks that I have owned. I remember restoring / modifying an old Chevy C-10 truck. Nine months time and labor as well as over four grand on materials was spent for the custom paint job. Once it was all said and finished, what did I do? I drove the truck home - hard! It went into heated storage about two days later for the winter, but come next May, I drove the truck all summer - rain or shine. If a rock chipped the paint - no problem. That's what touch-up paint was for.

In the end though, it is your ride. You own it - so you have the final say as to how much you drive it, how to build it if you're restoring and/or modifying it, and ultimately what you do with it. I can remember a huge buzz-phrase back in the late 80's; "...it's only original once." While that's true, a vehicle was meant to be driven. There are more hot rods, street rods, and muscle cars, that have enough money invested in them where you could take those funds and purchase a house. But they are still driven regularly. Why? Because the coolness factor never goes away. And that "cool" is meant to be inspired upon, shared, and enjoyed. The road is calling... heed the call.

Until next time, peace out.
Dave

Unacceptable!!

"Unacceptable" - adjective; Not suitable or satisfactory. Synonyms include disagreeable, obnoxious, and/or half-baked. I find it ironic that as diverse as the hot rod / muscle car / old-school racing hobby is, with God knows how many different genres and sub-cultures that are under that massive umbrella, I still hear that term - unacceptable - when it comes to vehicles.

I know there are still some people out there who simply cannot accept the fact that a new Challenger R/T, Mustang GT, or Camaro SS, (never mind a 4-door Charger R/T), can be a muscle car. No matter how much power is at the rear wheels. No matter to the fact that any one of these four vehicles can now blow the doors off any 60's / early 70's muscle car. In my humble opinion, that's a shame. We're finally at the point, technology wise, where the manufacturers can literally flip the feds and the EPA the bird, with uber-fast and technologically advanced vehicles that will pass any safety, emissions, and gas mileage requirement that gets tossed at them. (Photo above courtesy of Hot Rod Magazine)

But, on the other side of the coin, I can sympathize with those out there who are still anti-modern muscle car. How? I can remember back in 1987 when Cars magazine drag strip tested a newly restyled 1987 Fox body Mustang with the 225 horse 5.0 V-8 against a 1969 Mach 1 with a 428 Cobra Jet. As I read the article and the results, I was pissed that the Cobra Jet lost. I mean, it wasn't even close. As a result, I will admit that it took me a number of years to fully embrace modern things like EFI, overdrive transmissions, and turbos in classic Detroit iron. Adding insult to injury, the magazine summarized the lop-sided results; "... the future is here. The refreshed 5.0 screams like a Boss."

I guess it all depends what's been beaten into you (brainwashed?) at a certain age or by society. In my freelance automotive photography, I love shooting vintage vehicles that are kind of rough and loaded with patina - sometimes more so than beautifully restored hot rods. At times, I feel there's more angles and characteristics to photograph. But in classic human fashion, there are still some aspects of the car and nostalgia racing hobby that I am trying to adjust to.

First, is the use of patina in cars and trucks. Oddly enough, for me the years differ between the two types of vehicles. For cars, nothing built after 1963. But for trucks, I'm cool with patina and the mother-nature look up to around 1970. I think this stems from the fact that trucks were always considered work vehicles while I was growing up. They were supposed to look more beat up than the family sedan. I can really throw a monkey wrench into this debate, by saying I'm cool with patina and faded paint on drag-only cars up to say 1974. I'm not just talking funny cars here - I'm talking mild pro-stock / super-stock cars, or those barn-find local race cars. Even though they look a hell of lot like what the factory offered, in my mind they were never driven on the street - only on the strip. That's different.

I was on a high performance Chevy forum and one thread in particular was on fire because of some pictures of a late 70's Nova SS (picture on right used for example purposes only) that had the factory applied medium blue paint, but was weathered with patina. It had cool mag wheels, the factory bucket seat interior with the atypical array of after-market gauges, and the usual big tires out back / smaller tires up front raked look. It was if someone took a car that was era-modified, shoved it into a barn for 40 years, then took it out when it was done. Members galore were saying the patina was unacceptable because the car was not old enough. Things got so heated, the thread was removed by one of the sites moderators.

Even street and rat rods have run into these scenarios, but people are usually a little more tolerable about things because the vehicles in question are way older - for some reason that makes a difference. I found that even with rat rods, people have their line in the sand. But in retrospect, that was one of the main reasons behind the rat rod movement - some people just don't give a shit what others think.  

There are different types of supposed unacceptability in other aspects of automotive, especially racing. Most enthusiasts have seen and/or heard of the famous Smokey Yunick "7/8ths" 1966 Chevelle he built for NASCAR. Even back then, NASCAR had stringent rules regarding a vehicles body. It had to be the same dimensions as the factory model or it was no-can-do. One of the controversies that surrounded this car was when NASCAR measured it, they claimed it was too short - the body was not a stock length. It was deemed unacceptable for racing. Smokey did two things to overcome this. First, he compared his measuring jig to the one used by NASCAR - it was the same. Then he had one of his crew go to the local Hertz office and rent a new 1966 Chevelle. When the rental came back, Smokey measured his race car, then the stock unit. It measured identical. To this day, no one knows how this happened, but Yunick was allowed to race his "mystery" Chevelle.

Another story that comes to mind was an article that appeared in the early 90's in Mopar Action, where the magazine's tech editor Richard Ehrenberg and a good friend of his raced a homely looking 1987 Dodge Omni GLH (with the factory 2.2 liter turbo engine) in the famous One Lap of America race (similar to the pic but without the hood scoop). The team replaced the factory boost gauge with a more accurate after-market one. Once the team started cleaning the clocks of much more expensive iron, that gauge sparked rumors of a nitrous-fed motor amongst other things. Once those rumors were quelled, about halfway through the race, the man who organizes this entire event approached the team. He basically told them that he just couldn't have an Omni win this race - it would be unacceptable to too many fans. Excuse me? Ehrenberg was so pissed off, he almost dropped out in protest, but he ignored the warnings of the organizer. They did run into one or two technical problems that kept them from winning, but they did finish 8th overall - out of 50 total entries.

Even muscle car advertising, as wild as things got by the late 60's, had it's "unacceptable" moments. The ad I'm featuring this week only ran once - in the December 1967 issue of Motor Trend. It shows a new 1968 GTO in a turn-around area off the famous Woodward Avenue in Detroit - known nationwide for it's illegal street racing activities. What little wording the ad contains says it all. It also conjured up concepts of a GTO owner waiting for his next street race. Unfortunately, GM brass knew it too and pulled the ad.

Embrace new things people! United we stand... divided we fall.
Until next time, peace out.
Dave

"Man, This Sucks! Wait A Minute - What If We Do This..."

We've all been in those situations - especially with our hot rods, racing machines, or even a daily driver. And it usually occurs at the worst possible time, or when we're under a time crunch to get things finished. Sometimes the "...this really sucks" scenarios can take one of two turns - either the

"give up now, because there's no hope" road, or the "what if we try this? We have nothing to lose" path. In my humble opinion, I believe most hot rodders go down the second avenue.

This concept popped into my head this week as I sold my 38 year old retro-motorhome. I remember driving it home from Connecticut and getting about 10 miles from the owners house when the right-front brake caliper froze. I realized that reality when I first got a whiff of that burning brakes smell, and then saw the smoke coming out from the wheel. I paid for the rig a week earlier and it was an as-is private sale. My son-in-law who made the trek with me and I were unsure of the exact parts to purchase as there were multiple options of calipers still available and we wouldn't know exactly what we were dealing with until we had everything apart. Our solution was to compress the caliper back into place, then use a pair of vise-grips to clamp the brake hose as tight as possible without damaging it or having it leak, and drive the 25 foot behemoth 250+ miles back to Maine. Simple but effective!

The same can be said throughout the history of high-performance and racing. There are countless simple-but-effective stories out there, but here's just a few.

At the start of the 1968 racing season, Richard Petty had come off a truly incredible and record-setting season, with some of those records still standing today. However, he didn't plan on some of the challenges he would face with the totally redesigned Plymouth B-body design. For some odd-ball reason, his new race cars came with vinyl roofs. I do believe the theory was that it would improve aerodynamics and air-flow over the car. Unfortunately, it didn't - in fact, the vinyl started peeling off at high speeds slowing the car down. Petty realized that his pit crew would never have the time to remove all the vinyl during the race, never mind a pit stop, Petty himself resulted to a simple remedy with a hammer and duct tape. He ended up hammering the crap out of the roof so it was bent downwards from the windshield, then taped the daylights out of it. It worked. That, my friends, was when racing was truly racing...

Speaking of windshields, back in the early days of automobiles, before seat belts and airbags were part of the package, one of the biggest dangers was injury from shards of shattered windshield glass. We can thank French artist and chemist Édouard Bénédictus for accidentally stumbling upon the invention of laminated glass, also known as safety glass. While in his lab, a glass flask dropped and broke but didn’t shatter, Bénédictus realized that the interior was coated with plastic cellulose nitrate that held the now-harmless broken pieces together. He applied for a patent in 1909 with a vision of increasing the safety of cars, but manufacturers rejected the idea to keep costs down. However, the glass became standard for gas mask lenses in World War I. With its success on the battle field, the automobile industry finally ceded and by the 1930s most cars were equipped with glass that didn’t splinter into jagged pieces upon impact.

I was reading an article this morning about a body shop, who's company name no one can remember, but many people remember the truck they did back in the 60's. It was (and still is) a 1941 Willys pickup known today as "Strip Tripper". The problem was the paint job was so intricate - and damn expensive - that the owner couldn't afford to pay for it once the job was completed. Rather than write it off as a huge loss, the body shop recouped their money by simply renting (yes, renting) the small-block Chevy as a race car to compete in the popular Gasser class. By some miracle, the truck has survived all these years with the paint, motor, and all its other components intact. It was beautifully restored a few years ago, and is still on the show circuit. (Photo courtesy of Street Rodder).

 I've got a two good ones when it comes to drag racing, which has always been at the fore-front of numerous new concepts - including photography. Just about everyone knows that selfies are nothing new. Guess what - neither are selfie sticks. I glanced at the front page of the local paper while at work the other day, and it showed a high school graduate taking a selfie of herself while using her selfie-stick right after she received her diploma. She was quoted in the paper, "she wanted to be innovative." Sorry - get in line. Photographers old enough to be her grandparents were already on this concept, minus the cell phone. Photo buffs are always on the lookout for that unique angle, lighting, or concept. Check the two photos - one of the 35mm camera setup on the front of a top fuel dragster (right) and the finished product (left). While the shot was taken by the driver and not during an actual competition run, it's way cool just the same.

The second example is of a photograph snapped by Bob McClurg. In this case, there was really
nothing innovative here - he just zigged, while everyone else zagged. The picture features the late "Wild Willie" Borsch and his Winged Express AA/FA Altered. The story goes is that Bob was standing on top of a ladder to try and capture a killer shot of the race. As the lights went down the starting line Christmas Tree, all hell broke loose for a few seconds. Willie's Altered hooked way hard to the right at the line almost taking out the tree. The problem now was, he was heading straight for the guardrail... and all the photographers. While everyone else dropped their equipment and ran like hell, Bob figured he would stay put. He says if he jumped off the ladder, he would probably break his leg anyways, so he figured he'd let Borsch do it.
Bob snapped his picture at the crucial time, but Borsch managed to get his rig under control barely tapping the guardrail. As a result, Bob and Wild Willie would go down in racing history. The picture of the Winged Express also reveals a great deal of simplicity, if one knows where to look. Note the cool chrome barrel-shaped Moon fuel tank dangerously unprotected right up front. Then notice the front axle ballast that is literally duct taped to the axle. Lastly, groove on the canopy wing on top of the roll cage - not only did it help top-end speed stability, but it also acted as an awning for the narcoleptic Borsch, who took cat naps during rounds! When he was due at the staging lanes, his crew would nudge the Altered (with Willie still in it) with their push truck. That would wake Borsch up fresh and raring to go!

Lastly, automotive manufacturers are always looking to come up with fresh ideas that won't break the bank. Back in the glory years of muscle cars, enthusiasts  as well as the general public expected models to be refreshed every year or two, and new options to be released along that same time line. In "Hey - what if we try this?" Chrysler simply looked at what hardcore enthusiasts did with their muscle cars after they purchased them. They noticed things like:

late 1969, Chrysler dropped an A-bomb on the high-performance buying public with their one year only specialty six-pack cars, an option on the Plymouth Roadrunner and the Dodge Super Bee. Again, the concept was,
 - Enthusiasts chucked the hubcaps and/or wheel covers,
 - Many street racers ditched the heavy stock steel hood and installed an aluminum hood, usually painted flat black with a large hood scoop,
 - They also modified the engine with a hotter cam and more carburetion.  
So that's exactly what Chrysler did. While the 440 magnum six pack engine, as well as the Roadrunner and Super Bee would stick around for a few more years, the unruly option package didn't. Still, in less than nine months, Dodge & Plymouth pumped out over 5,000 of these animals. No other performance car offered from the factory, in any point in history, offered this much performance hardware standard, at a truly bargain price, and looked this wild.

Until next time, keep it simple!
Dave

Changes - Things Don't Have To Be This Complicated

I don't know who said the iconic phrase, "Humans... we don't like change and we hate the ways things are", but they nailed it dead on. When you get down to brass tax however, it's not difficult to understand the basic workings of that concept. The way things are (or were) already has a history - you already know the outcome. Change, on the other hand, involves the unknown and risk. There are times when change is good - especially when one realizes that the current answers or outcomes could be better in some way or in fact just plain suck. And even though change can be a little complicated at first, it can transform into something that's sophisticated, more efficient, and way better once the trial and error has been worked through.

I was skimming an article this morning where the CEO of Fiat / Chrysler has called for a possible merger of the big three American auto manufacturers. GM and Ford have already turned that idea down flat. The reason behind this call to action is apparently according to Fiat, it has become cost prohibitive for each manufacturer to develop its own unique cars and trucks (read: it's all about money). As history has shown, Chrysler has gone through bankruptcy three times in the last 40 years. Is this another beginning of the end for them? As much as I would hate to see Dodge go away, I cannot see Chevy, Ford, and Chrysler putting out the exact same models, engines, etc., even though they currently share some of the same outsourced parts. To me, that would spell Armageddon for any and all innovation, regardless of the competition from European and Asian markets.

 Believe it or not, innovation was huge after WW II, especially in the 60's through the mid 70's. Quite a bit of this innovation also had some wow factor, but it was mostly to keep things simple... and more sophisticated. When it comes to muscle cars, enthusiasts in general are in awe of the 1969 Charger Daytona and the 1970 Superbird - especially with that H-U-G-E rear wing. Was it there for racing or engineering purposes, like for air down-force? Nope - the primarily reason was so that the trunk lids would open.
Carroll Shelby wanted his Mustangs from the late 60's to look unique. Those taillights certainly were cool looking. But were they complicated changes? Nope - case in point, the 1968 Shelby models used taillights from 1966 Thunderbirds.

Remember a few posts back where we looked at "Dyno" Don Nicholson's Eliminator 1 funny car? Also remember that there are only a few pictures of this car because the body flew off the separate chassis at speed and was destroyed? That was because air got underneath the car and things became unstable. The next result was the production of an identical body, but with changes made to keep the front lower to the ground. Enter front air spoilers as well as the historical "rake" of those cars.

But what about dragsters? If you're old enough, you may remember back to 1971 when Don Garlits debuted his rear engined Swamp Rat 14 and won that national event. It's the stuff of legends, considering his brutal clutch explosion and crash in March of 1970 that left him recovering in a California hospital for months. While Garlits captures most of the glory for the rear-engine dragster, because he perfected the concept and was the first to win with the combination, he was not the first to apply it. That goes as far back as 1960 with independent racers at small local tracks.

In early 1970, Dwayne Ong had the first, most notable, rear-engine dragster. He campaigned with it, but never won an event. The primary obstacle at that time was too short a wheel-base of the dragster and it's habit for flipping over backwards. As far as the basic design of the dragster however, was it really all that difficult to conceive? Not really - aside from a different steering and rear chassis setup (to support the weight of the drivetrain, as well as its horsepower, and torque), the engine / clutch / differential layout was pretty much borrowed from Indy and Formula 1 racing.

I'm going to take a different spin on things when it comes to NASCAR - the pit stop. While it's hard to keep up with all the technology used today, but one can't deny its impact. Do you realize in a modern day race, a pit crew can change a set of four tires, clean the windshield, and dump 18 gallons of gas into the car in 12 seconds or less? Compare that to the early 50's, and those early pit crews looked like cavemen before the invention of fire. Remember, there were no air tools and crews had to use 4-way tire wrenches. A set of four tires took as long as five minutes! By the way - they also used old crank-up bumper jacks. It wasn't until the late 50's when Smokey Yunick, who also owned a truck repair shop in Daytona, decided to use a hydraulic floor jack - the same ones he used in his shop. It worked on a big truck, why not on a lighter car? Uncomplicated beginnings, but thus began the science of shaving off precious seconds in the pit stop which could mean the difference between winning or coming in second.

I have another question for you - do know what a "gow job" is? Very few people still use this term (mostly historians), but it was the first slang applied to a modified vehicle that would become more commonly referred to as the "hot rod". Some people have emailed me wondering if I knew what the first hot rod was. While that's way unclear, the accepted history seems to be early Fords (1928 to 1934 model years) in Southern California where enthusiasts raced their vehicles on dry lake beds north of Los Angeles in the late 1930's. Speed parts were unheard of until after the war, so how did owners make their cars faster? Changes that were not complicated - mainly the removal of hoods, fenders, bumpers, and in some cases, convertible tops. Less weight automatically equals more speed. Simple...

Until next time, peace out.
Dave