How a Real Hot Rod Should Look....

Just had to add this one!

A ton of guys may not agree with me, however, here are some personal choices of how a hot rod should look. Personal choice of course always takes precedence, however, many guys can never get it right. They mix up too many eras in one project. You can't call your hot rod a resto-rod and shave the door handles....or you can't call your rod a rat rod and put shiny paint on it(Rat rods are another subject all together). You also hear that hot rods don't have fenders, but what about cycle fenders or bobbed fenders? The other one is that real hot rods don't have valve covers either(Flatheads only).....another misconception.....maybe!....anyway.....again, here are a few older and newer photos of how I think hot rods should look.....notice one big thing.....most have wide whitewalls.

Oh Yeah...THE LAST ONE is a real Rat Rod(my sister took this in rural Thunder Bay.....What a goodie!!...and love the artillery wheels...LOL.

Agree or disagree, it doesn't really matter....do your own thing(but get it right!)

Mixed up? So am I...LOL, thanks for looking and click on pics to enlarge. Dave

Model Eh(that's Canadian for "A")... and Deuce Coupes from Texas...Uh...Correction, Merc says the Rootbeer brown A bone is from Looserana(Louisiana).

I just had to post these photos from King Voodoo's blog site.

You can click here to enjoy the whole scene http://kingvoodoo.blogspot.com/

These are a couple of the most beautiful rods you will see around anywhere, even though they aren't local. Of course The Deuce makes me really miss my own, and the A-Bone makes me kind of wish I had a coupe like my buddy Dennis(the blue one you see waaaayyyy down). This is really tongue-in-cheek, 'cause I really do like my A-Bone seedan. The Radir's look great on the deuce with the wide whites and the steelies look best on the "A"....gotta have wide whites!!

Hey "Merc"...really dig your blog too...even though I'm probably much older than you LOL...our musical and rod interests parallel. By the plates, you and these rods are Texans! Thanks for letting me use your photos...Dave

Click on photos to enlarge...

"Pappy" Fowler and the daredevil!!!

They were all daredevils, but this guy, the one in the white helmet(unknown person) is about to sit on the big front bumper of Pappy Fowler's #10 and be driven at speed through a large ring of fire. Also, this photo shows just how many people came to see the weekly races at the Canadian Lakehead Exhibition race track. There was always some type of theatrics to entertain the fans during the intermission. In a lot of cases there would be staged fist fights between some of the drivers which would take place on the dusty track right in front for all the fans to see.

Stunts like this rarely take place today due to the incredible insurance costs, and this was one of the reasons why many tracks just like the ones we had here had to close.
Ross "Pappy" Fowler as mentioned before was a favorite among many fans and usually was in the top 10. This little '32 Ford 3-window coupe is an incredibly rare item in the hot rod world today. A steel body(they make fiberglass ones now) today would fetch an incredible amount of cash. Do you have one in your garage....please email me to let me know, I'll give you a few hundred for it.....LOL. Click on photos.

Hold'er Clyde she's headin' for the Rhubarb....

Another of the stock car jockeys doing wondrous things with a '33 or '34 Ford Coupe. Clyde Ditmars drove at the CLE track for many years and later became a Texaco service station owner in Kakabeka Falls near Fort William(now Thunder Bay) Ontario. The first photo shows him right up on 2 wheels and apparently didn't go over. The second photo looks like it was taken a second or two before the first, and the last photo shows Clyde mixing it up with #60 Don Marsh, and #47 Barry Kettering in the #4 turn. Sorry, these are a bit fuzzy. Click on to enlarge

Hot Rodding is Dead....NOT!

With grateful thanks and permission from Eric Darby for allowing me to post his incredible Youtube film on my website. This will explain what it's all about! Thanks again Eric....
click here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXU3N9wT3u0

YELLOW!!

I just had to add one more photo of the Vicky for a laugh. Everything had to be yellow. This is Rosemary and I taken in 1987 at Sioux Falls, South Dakota. This was the first long distance trip we had taken and had traveled along with our friends Shelley and Joe Salerno, in their '34 Ford 2-door sedan. During a safety inspection there, they noticed a beautiful lime green paint blob that was embedded on my front axle. On closer inspection is was a frog that I hit somewhere along but it sure looked cool against the School Bus Yellow of the car. Rosie looks great but I look like a dork with those crazy shorts, yellow sunglasses and knobby knees.

Inspiration!

This is one of my favourite photos of my dad and I in 1986 while working on my '33 Ford Victoria. Anytime I was in a bind for some inspiration or assistance, I could always count on my dad to show up at my garage. We would sit and contemplate what to do, and toss around ideas, especially when it came to body work or welding. He had taught me to weld years ago and how to do lead body work on my '32 Ford coupe. Leading was quite an art in itself. To this day at almost 90 years old, he is always interested in what's going on inside the garage. The picture on the right is how the Vicky turned out. It was sold to Ray Stevenson from Winnipeg in the fall of 1988 and I started my Little Deuce Coupe that winter. At this time I believe that the car belongs to a doctor in Calgary, as it had been spotted at a rod run there a couple of years ago.

The Garage

Here are some photos of 4 wheel stuff I shared with my sons when they were younger. The first one is my son Jay and I doing some work on my deuce around 1990. The next is Jay wishing he could race the kart(#67) and be like his big brother Darren back in 1981. Next is Darren with his push buggy #67 of course taken about 1976 and the last is of Darren, kart racing at the K-Mart parking lot in 1981. Many cars were built in our garage and many memories with my sons were shared there. Seven cars were restored, built or rebuilt not including the many that were started, partially finished and sold. Click on pictures.

A Day at the Races Circa 1958 CLE

Here's a birds eye view of exactly what it looked like sitting in the huge grandstand at the Canadian Lakehead Exhibition racetrack in 1958(Photos donated by Dave Corbett). A typical rainy day and the jalopies are tearing around drying up the track. Today exactly where the track was, is a huge golf dome and the Silver City movie theatre, but the property still belongs to the CLE. The smell of the exhaust, popping of the engines, hot dogs and popcorn are still on my mind, not to mention the marching band songs they played while waiting for the races to start. These were great memories! In the bottom right photo you can see the livestock barns for the fair. The Coliseum building in the top center of the same picture still exists today. Click on the pictures for a larger view.

The Lakehead Stock Car Club 1953 & 1957

Here's a group of photos from the 1953 and 1957 Lakehead Stock Car Club official programs that were sold at the CLE back in those days. (Click on each one to get a larger image) The skull and crossbones car on the cover of the 1953 program is the actual body that I used for my vintage modified car seen in photos below. These give you a good idea of who was racing back then. My family was not too well off then, and a quarter allowance didn't go too far, so I would sell cokes for Percy Dacy, who operated most of the concessions. This would get me into the races for free and I would then sit at the highest spot in the grandstand, watch all the good stuff, and sell only a few cokes to the folks sitting around me . After the races I would return with my unsold cokes and Percy would say, "Hey Kid, you're sure a crappy salesman." Right, but I got into all the races for free!!

Hot Rod from Down Under

They build great hot rods in New Zealand too. Friends(mates as they would say down there), Glen and Issy Keen are building this very cool model "A" coupe hot rod, done in the old style sitting high on a '32 Ford Chassis, with a chopped top, split wishbone suspension and a Flathead Ford engine. A beautiful job. That's their vintage original model "A" coupe right behind the hot rod. Our January is their summer and our July is their winter. How's is coming now Glen??

I said goodbye in May 1999

Here is a couple of photos of Frank Manzullo and myself(gearheads as Frank would say), on the sale day of my '32 Ford Coupe back in May of 1999. Frank and I have become good friends through the years, and we visited Frank and Mary Ann in 2003, the same year we went to Galena to see the Hudson. We also enjoyed going to "Back to the 50's" with them a few years ago. Frank still takes good care of my old deuce and also has a '32 Ford(deuce) Roadster. Mary Ann says Frank can't sell the coupe, 'cause she likes the steel around her head while cruisin' around Rockford, Ill. Frank has been mistaken many times for Phil Donahue, talk show host...don't you think??