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And you thought you had seen the last of me. Good Riddance you probably thought, got that old fart out of our hair. You should be so lucky. I look around me and all my old pals are falling by the wayside. Without getting my permission, I should add. And I see so many simple errors in contemporary telling of hot rod history, a history that I have been a part of. With the guys who have lived hot rod history leaving life, it is easy for history revisionists to hold sway.
Yep, I’m back and no doubt I’m gonna rub some fur the wrong way. Happens all the time, even at my age. But, you know what, if I offend someone it is probably because they need to be offended! Me included, of course.
In years recent, I have begun to consider bits and pieces of things that might be interesting to contemporary hot rodders. Some of this is offensive, some is downright intrusive, so I evoke my privilege, as an always editor, to leave out names and identifying circumstances that might be a bit uncomfortable. In an effort to protect the guilty. A lot of this remembering is being fostered by a someday book, and some of the stories, and opinions, I pass along here are digested from that greater manuscript.
From this distance of time, I am appalled at what is coming to pass as legitimate hot rodding history. Much of this purported past seems to be a convolution of reality, second hand innuendo, and downright prevarication. In short, a bunch of bull shit! Much of this disinformation is being registered with legitimacy by the insidious machinations of the internet. The electronic gossip monger is not to be dismissed as a passing fad. But this gossip and disinformation is nothing new…
You remember that movie American Graffiti? In a malt shop (drive in) scene there was an exchange that did not register with many viewers, but it did with me. Because it was hitting home. The kids are gathered at a booth, talking and one of them is idling through an issue of Hot Rod Magazine. Something is said about a car, and another quips, “Well, if it ain’t in Hot Rod, it ain’t so! ” Having filled many of those pages, I can point out unequivocally that there was definitely some information that was spurious and questionable, at best. Just because something is in print doesn’t make it gospel! That goes triple for history on the internet.
“Local” historians of hot rodding abound across the world. These same focal points often become the “go to” people for technical information, when in fact they only pass along what they think they may have read somewhere obscure in a fast being forgotten fast. Locally these guys generate an unsuspecting following and it must go to their heads. At least one of their heads, the other one seems firmly planted in the Y!
No where is the remembered past more suspect than in street rodding. As buddy Ron Ceridono puts it, there is nothing to objectively judge street rodding by. No measurements as in racing, or in judging show cars, or a salt flats timing tag. Just speculation.
Therefore, if it is open territory for assault by so-called experts from east Podunk, then by damn it is open for a lambasting by neer-do-wells such as me. I hope to get you, dear reader, to step back from polishing that prized possession and do some honest thinking.
Let’s see now, where to start…………..
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