Me ole roadster

A sure surprise at the Beach Hop was seeing my old model A roadster! Now owned by Neil Surtees he has a full on rebuild planned in gloss black!

With alot of help from alot of people I built this car forties style when I was about 15 or 16 I guess.

Found an A chassis and running gear at Whangamata and the body came from Argentina - a B engine and outside header and away we went.

I fitted a five speed to it and got the A axle dropped too.

Over time it was featured in the first issue of the Petrolhead newspaper, various magazines including Car Kulture Deluxe

Visual differences are the red wheels and wide whites, the HEMI and the Pontiac tail lights.

What a blast from the past.......

Cars of The Beach Hop

There were heaps of high quality cars at this years Beach Hop but these are some of the ones that did it for me

Lindsay Win's Model A coupe on Deuce rails, The Goldrush gasser, Ted Williams '56 Chrysler, Rob Webster's '60 Pontiac hard top

I missed not having my own car there - but then there is next year right?

Weez in town

Keith Weesner and his partner Melissa Pringle were in town as hosted by the Scroungers for the 9th Annual Hot Rod Blow Out. Well what a time they had huh? They went to the Beach Hop in Whangamata, a special BBQ at Rocket Speed Equipment at Hamilton and of course the Hot Rod Blow Out.

The two roadsters are shot outside the BBQ at Rocket and the other shot is Keith and Melissa at the Blow Out selling Weesner Art and Merchandise.

There is certainly something about Keith's art that has you looking into the the neither regions of the garage to make his art come to life - maybe one day huh?!!!

Those little pages

Collecting - hoarding - buying old JUNK! Its all part of the hot rodding make up right? Well that includes magazines and I love those little pocket mags of the fifties and sixties.
What is surprising is how many of them pops up in New Zealand. I have a number of Rod & Custom, Car Craft, Rod & Restyling etc and recently came across these from the HOT ROD Technical Library.
Anyone wanting to build a traditional rod - this is the stuff to research. What is also interesting is how early fibreglass bodies, torsion bars and disc brakes were available....
Makes you think doesnt it......

Vandalising the Blow Out

This year at the Hot Rod Blow Out, Buck Rodgers offered for me to drive Vandal into the show. What a privilege that would be but why me?

I have been fascinated with hot rod history and really enjoyed documenting the Vandal & Black Sabbath history for the NZ Hot Rod Magazine.

This year, Vandal was one of the drawcards of the show and adding to that was the Graham Berry and John Reid donated model of Vandal that Berry built - it went up for auction and was won by Grease Martin who has distinctive memories of the car as it was part of the cars in his formative years of Hamilton hot rodding.

I drove into the show in the morning and back out of the show at the end of the day. It must have been freakin insane to drive this car in the early seventies. There was just nothing else like it when John Reid started to build this incredible car in his late teens.

It was also cool to see some of the previous owners of the car at the Hot Rod Blow Out - John & Janet Reid, Willy Pelzers, Martin Bennett, Aaron Hemmingson, and now custodian for Starry - Buck Rodgers

Thanks to Buck Rodgers and Chris Malcolm - Vandal is back for all to enjoy again

32 Progress - QC Champ Rear

I love quick change rear ends and I have always wanted to fit one in my roadster. But I like the early style with a transverse spring and to fit a quick change it all comes at a price.
The opportunity to get a Champ style rear end came up but I didnt like the large webbed alloy side housings. So it was back to the earlier style V8 quick change using an early Ford diff as the basis.
I weighed up the options:

The period but smaller V8 QC I felt looked too small for the back of the car.
I would need to get all the internals new and then get it machined to accept modern axles.

Back to the champ - I didnt like the adaptor rings to run side axle housings so I wondered how we could get something done that looks like an early ford style. The champ is a 31 spline Detroit Locker unit and would need side housings and axles.

Phil Game at PG Hydraulics - world famous in NZ sprint car and modified racer had the Champ and was intrigued to come up with something that fitted my narrow parameters of style. We did a deal - I now owe him a bunch of labour on his trick Model A Tudor!

The result is better than I imagined and PG was brilliant to deal with, and set out to do the very best work possible.

We established that we could make new side bells and then weld the tapered housing on to this and currently its ready to mount in the car and then the axle ends can be welded on.

The attention to detail is awesome and it looks old but is slightly newer if you know what I mean. Proportionately it all works well where as the webbed side bells give too much of a bulky look to the centre section.

At the end of the day it depends on what you are looking for but if you want something like this contact Phil Game at PG Hydraulics.

Rat what? - They are Traditional Hot Rods

The good ole rat rod vs shiney debate pops up again.

The rat rod term was coined by the late Gray Baskerville when he wrote an article for HOT ROD on the Shifters and then again for the Choppers. At the time there was hot rodding going along from the red paint and billet era into the phase where Chip was still at Boyd's and every car was a swoopy coupe or roadster. These gigabuck cars were extensions of the rodding menu and have to be commended for their creativity and sometimes engineering and detail.

But this form of rodding was way to expensive for guys to get out and have fun. Back in the mid to late eigties Jake got his Model A tub going in 28 days with stuff lying around the garage, drove it to P-Town and brush painted it. It won the Stroker McGurk award as it reminded everyone of the heritage of hot rodding and was built cheaply (but well) to have fun. Robert & Suzanne Williams had similar cars, so the younger generation from the Shifters and Choppers started to build these more affordable cars using original and authentic parts bolted together they looked ratty - hence the term rat rod.

Like all good things - the rat rod term was embraced and raped!!!!!

It was then common practice to see guys building these "rat rods" with no floor, no brakes, more rust the better, no suspension - you name it - a culture began that rebelled against all other cars that were shiney, and cars started to be built that didnt represent the traditional rod movement. The Shifters, Choppers and even our own Scroungers are embarrassed to be classified as rat rodders as to them they are trying to recreate an era in time using old parts and build techniques to create their own vehicles.

Talking to older generation guys both in the USA and here, they too are embarassed that people think a rat rod is what they had back in the day - its all BULL SH&T! Looking at black and white photos in Don Montgomery or Dean Batcheleor books doesnt mean that every car had matte black paint and inches of rust, no floor or firewall and was built to be unsafe!

Those guys wanted to build the best they could with the money, time and talent they had. I really admire the Scroungers club and similar people with similar cars that understand the culture and the place in time that they are trying to build a car to - thats smart and there are some really cool rides being built that dont have fake patina, welded in rust panels, missing floorboards or firewalls and the owners dont have a terrible attitude that goes with it all.

Yes its about having fun with cars, its about building or doing your own thing but its also about understanding history, the culture and what that means to build this cars today safely.

The pic is from this years Hot Rod Blow Out hosted by the Scroungers - guys that understand the heritage of hot rodding and the pioneers of it all. The lead car in this shot is Chris Hornblow's trad and bad A coupe with a 409 & 4 speed - thats a HOT ROD!