NERVOUS SURGEONS
UK HOT RODDERS & DRAG RACERS
Hot Rod
Wandering around the Billing show field in the summer, taking in all the cars a small group of us swapped stories, it was during this that Nick Barnett recounted his trip to last years Hot Rod Reunion in California, intrigued with his memories, which perhaps showed on our faces, Nick went on to suggest we all head out there this year, I began to think of the excuses I could come up with, the main one being I have a fear of flying (crashing), however, the seed had been sewn and so it came to be that on the 4th October Paul, Jimmy and myself are thundering down the runway aboard one of Richard Branson’s finest bound for the West Coast of America. Ahead of us lay an 11 hour flight and somewhere out in the distance was the rest of the
Following the flights progress was easy using the satellite map, and after approximately 3 hours of flying I felt really pleased with myself as one of the in-flight channels had just explained various aspects of flying and highlighted how it was advisable to where proper clothing when you fly and to avoid wearing shorts and flip flops. The reasoning behind this was that if you crash landed and it was cold you would stand a better chance of surviving the elements if you had sensible footwear and warm clothing. I smirked to myself as several of those sat around us had shorts and sandals on, I for a few moments forgot about that to enjoy my choice of clothing; I first had to survive a plane crash!
11 hours after leaving Gatwick we were on American soil and once we had cleared immigration we headed outside to catch a cab to our Hotel, this is where I entered, the competition called, “spot the tourist”, as the cab driver loaded our cases, I let the side down by trying to get in the passenger side door, only it wasn’t, it was the drivers door! A quick explanation, that I wasn’t performing a car jacking, and we were soon bound for the Hotel.
We soon headed out to see the sites and get a meal, the cab driver had told us the best steak in town was available at Circus-Circus, so we headed there and ordered New York Strip. As we sat waiting for the food to arrive, I began a slow decent into sleep and started to slip under the table, at this point we had been up 25 hours and I was losing the battle with my eye lids.
The steak arrived and so did a wide awake state for me, the meal was delicious and as it turned out this would be the very best meal we had during our trip, it was the best $150 we spent.
In the cab on the way back to the Hotel I gave up my search for Rods on the road and resigned myself to the fact that I may not see a real rod until we hit Bakersfield.
The next morning arrived all too quickly and so did a text from Nick saying they had arrived some 8 hours after us and that they were in the foyer ready to hit the road.
The original plan had outlined 2 hire cars for all of us, but a switch to a Ford Mini bus meant that we could all travel together, which in the end was a far easier way of coordinating our movement.
10 minutes after starting our journey to Bakersfield, we had sight of our first Rod, a bit of a cheat here, because it was one of the fleet of So-Cal 32 roadsters, and this will not surprise you to know was parked outside the So-Cal shop in Vegas.
Talk about; died and gone to Hot Rod heaven, well that is just how it felt to me when I walked into their store, aisles of bank account draining goodies stretched out in front of us, and to the side of the shop, bodies, panels and suspension setups to long for.
An old time roadster sat in the main shop, and it was whilst we were looking this over I spotted what appeared to be the rear of a Model A in a workshop across the road behind So-Cal.
We headed out of the rear of the shop and walked over to the unit, I was greeted by Al who invited us in to look around. In his workshop was a selection of Rods all being worked on, his own personal ride was a 34 Coup which he had been trying to put back together, as it was part way through a nose job, with Al now fitting a 32 grille.
Al admitted he was trying to get it ready for the reunion, but this was now unlikely as his current priority lay now with customer’s cars which included a steel 3 window and Model B sedan.
Leaving Al’s we thought we were done with Rods for a while but as we headed back to the mini bus, we turned the corner to be confronted by a steel 5 Window which had just pulled up at the front of So-Cal. The owner had decided to drop by on his way home as he had just handed over a suitcase full of the folding stuff to the 5 window’s previous owner, as he had been the highest bidder, as the car had been acquired via e-bay!
We all looked over the car, which clearly pleased the new owner, as our interest appeared to reaffirm that he had done a good deal, however, he didn’t disclose the financial details to us, but there again many of us are like that, its as if we fear what effect revealing that information will have on the resale value!
We were soon motoring our way along the highway bound for our next port of call which turned out to be on the Nevada Border, where we stopped off at a casino, “Buffalo Bills” for our lunch, an all you can eat Buffet for $8.95. Throughout our stay we were being encouraged by the waitress to not “give up” and “go up again” which we all did and she kept us supplied with drinks and a friendly inquisitive banter, she was exceedingly friendly right up until we left, then her attitude changed, we were on the receiving end of some ice cold stares and deep resentment and teeth sucking and grumbling as we exited. It was only as we gathered outside the Casino that we realised what had caused the swift change in emotions, we hadn’t left a Tip! Something we soon realised was almost mandatory, we consoled ourselves with the fact that most Americans during our visit thought we were either Australian or New Zealander’s.
We were soon back on the highway and crossed into California our next port of call was scheduled to be deep into the Mohave Desert at Don Waldron’s establishment “Rods West”, but that is another instalment.
Hot Rod
As each minute passed we headed deeper into
He had also built up quite a reputation amongst gasser fans, for as well as the vintage wheels he also dealt in real steel gasser material. He had a propensity for having Austin A40’s, Henry J,
Over the years Don had been responsible for supplying several steel Willys bodies and panels to Rodders and racers on these shores, Ian Dawes possibly being his most prolific customer, including the raw material that went on to be Fat Rat, and his yellow 39 sedan. Incidentally Ian could also lay claim to the title of the most prolific Willys owner in the
Rumours had been circulating that Don no longer had any Willys items left in his yard, but I chose to ignore these and hoped the rumours were wrong and reflected that I had heard and read so much about his yard, that this trip had now taken on the mantle of a pilgrimage.
Don had told me a few days before we flew over that he would not be at his yard when we passed through, as he would already be at
At approximately 15.30 we entered Ridgecrest, luckily Merv had been to the yard before and had a faint recognition of where it was, after a few false starts, we finally headed along a dusty tree lined track heading towards the outskirts of the desert town, and pulled into an ordinary, but 4 vehicle wide opening between a mobile home and a small house. We instantly realised this was the right location as looming up large directly in front of us was a stripped Henry ‘J’ body, with heavily radiused rear arches, standing up proud on top of 4 Pennzoil drums. It was good to see that the Health & Safety executive had not permeated into the American culture!
We all quickly disembarked from the mini bus and for a moment I was unsure which way to go as to the left of the Henry J stretched the open yard slightly obscured by a few trees and to the right stood several single storey buildings, between two of them was a part constructed chassis and a Ford Prefect minus its front sheet metal. I elected to head for the open yard; it was quite a surreal emotion as I felt like I was on the beach, as the yard stood on what used to be part of the desert, and mainly constituted sand under your feet.
As I walked out beyond the trees, I was greeted by a complete Henry J, (which looked to be in excellent condition) a 50’s Ford pickup, a chopped 5window wearing an awesome patina for a rat rod, a T body, the remnants of a 56 210 Chevy, a whole sea of desirable wheels, and at last 2 Willys bodies.
I zoomed over to the first body which turned out to be a fibreglass front end on a
slightly disappointed I could see some of the others gathering around the other Willys, so not wanting to miss out I quickly joined them, but as I got closer to it, I began to have my doubts about its parentage. Several of us stood there looking at this rusty body which by now we knew wasn’t a Willys but what was it?
Can you identify it before reading on, for those of you not particularly fussed, hard as it was to believe, it turned out to be a Morris Minor, admittedly a seriously butchered one, as we gathered around the rusty body, some of us took some convincing that it was British tin, but seeing the central speedo pod, swage line and the trafficator, soon confirmed it. Almost immediately this revelation was followed by the realisation that we had flown 5,000 miles and found a Morry!
Man they get everywhere don’t they, opening sequence of ‘Graffiti’, ‘Open All Hours’ and ‘Some Mother’s Do Ave Em’, to name a few!
Everywhere you turned there were wheels, not rubbish rims but quality aluminium and magnesium rims, in fact Don had so many in one corner I came across an image that possibly summed the whole scene, and that was in excess of 30 Daisy mag rims that had grass growing up between them!
When I was to later mention this to Don, he went onto tell me that he had so many rims that earlier in the year he had weighed in several hundred wheels, as the value of aluminium had risen and made it more economically viable to deal scrap them. Ouch!
Looking up the yard I could see a wooden perimeter fence which appeared to form another enclosure, so off I went to investigate.
As I walked up to the opening I could make out an Austin front and a couple of pops, I moved into the opening to find not only several of the guys looking round but also 6 Austin Devon’s, 2 Austin Dorset’s, a topolino, 6 more Henry J’s and a multitude of parts, panels, doors and bonnets. I was in gasser heaven, to see 2 Dorset’s was incredible, I later found out from Don that the yellow one was an x gasser which had been rolled when it last ran the quarter mile many years before. Despite this if it was in a yard in this country I would still have it, but I’m sure there would be a queue.
As I moved about the yard, I kept coming across the others in ones and twos, they all had the same look on their faces, “Kids in a toy shop”, I couldn’t stop smiling and although we didn’t realise it, it was about to get a whole lot better!
Rods West can be contacted on 001 760 3754573