Unique35 wrote:Hi Guys, I started in the Dragslicks Hot Rod Club in Windsor NSW, some time in the 60's later changed the name to Crusaders and it folded just after for some reason, got into drag racing at Castlreagh but never seriously I bought a Mk111 Zephyr from Ash Marshall's yard with a real Bill Warner 283 Corvette Motor & T10 4 Speed, man that car could run I learnt a lot from that car, from the outside Pola white 6' rims a real sleeper, We moved to Castle Hill in 1970 and heard about a club in Westmead called the Bent 8's and was promptly told by Bob Bowman that they did'nt want "Sleepers" in the club it was for Street Rods only it was then that Roy Jones just happened to have a T Bucket Chassis for sale, so I bought it and I was a "Hot Rodder" eventually pulled the motor & trans out of the Zephyr and with the purchase of the Aust Hot Rodding Review Project "Build a Hot Rod" Body we were away I spent many years in the Bent8's formed great friends, however they did'nt go to rod runs and I found that I had more friends outside the club and I joined the Drag-ens Street Rod Club we did many great miles as a group with the 3rd Nationals in Narranderra a group of us had planned a road trip to Adelaide
the friendships that were created then are still very much alive today, however with marriage comes houses, committments, handbrakes came on and had to dropout for a while but still kept the T pickup, Eventually joined the Macquarie Towns Hot Rod Club which is the greatest bunch of people that you could meet and have been with them for over 22years a very positive club as we have our own club house on the Hawkesbury Showgrounds we meet 2nd & 4th Wednesdays and we cater for 2 major events a year Hawkesbury Show & All Holden Day we have been told that our prices are reasonable and the food is great. I have 3 Hot Rods the Original T still with the same 283 but now its +60 over, 1936 Ford Utility with 350 Chev & T10 box my everyday Sign-workshop truck and the Orange 35 Tudor with 350/350/8" yes the one at Valla in the current mags, and building a 1936 Fordor Flat back with 305/700/jag that seems to be turning back to rust everytime I walk by. Well thats my story I have been in rodding for 45 years been to places that I would'nt have been to otherwise made heaps of friends & acquaintances and learned to live by my own motto "Put your hand up and see were it takes you". I am also starting out on a new path as a Cub Scout Leader, also the Deputy President of the Hawkesbury District Agricultural Society & Hawkesbury Show (was President 2001-2004) regards Garry
Hiya Garry , it's a good story mate.....but how 'bout you flesh it out with some pics for us......There'd be a few folks here who probably never heard of the AHRR project pickup and I'm sure they'd be interested to hear more about it maybe a bit more about your part in rodding as another "oldtimer" too.... , regards, Col.
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Col....
"Works" comes before "looks good", cos "looks good" changes, and "works" works!
Unique35 wrote:Hi Guys, I started in the Dragslicks Hot Rod Club in Windsor NSW, some time in the 60's later changed the name to Crusaders and it folded just after for some reason, got into drag racing at Castlreagh but never seriously I bought a Mk111 Zephyr from Ash Marshall's yard with a real Bill Warner 283 Corvette Motor & T10 4 Speed, man that car could run I learnt a lot from that car, from the outside Pola white 6' rims a real sleeper, We moved to Castle Hill in 1970 and heard about a club in Westmead called the Bent 8's and was promptly told by Bob Bowman that they did'nt want "Sleepers" in the club it was for Street Rods only it was then that Roy Jones just happened to have a T Bucket Chassis for sale, so I bought it and I was a "Hot Rodder" eventually pulled the motor & trans out of the Zephyr and with the purchase of the Aust Hot Rodding Review Project "Build a Hot Rod" Body we were away I spent many years in the Bent8's formed great friends, however they did'nt go to rod runs and I found that I had more friends outside the club and I joined the Drag-ens Street Rod Club we did many great miles as a group with the 3rd Nationals in Narranderra a group of us had planned a road trip to Adelaide
the friendships that were created then are still very much alive today, however with marriage comes houses, committments, handbrakes came on and had to dropout for a while but still kept the T pickup, Eventually joined the Macquarie Towns Hot Rod Club which is the greatest bunch of people that you could meet and have been with them for over 22years a very positive club as we have our own club house on the Hawkesbury Showgrounds we meet 2nd & 4th Wednesdays and we cater for 2 major events a year Hawkesbury Show & All Holden Day we have been told that our prices are reasonable and the food is great. I have 3 Hot Rods the Original T still with the same 283 but now its +60 over, 1936 Ford Utility with 350 Chev & T10 box my everyday Sign-workshop truck and the Orange 35 Tudor with 350/350/8" yes the one at Valla in the current mags, and building a 1936 Fordor Flat back with 305/700/jag that seems to be turning back to rust everytime I walk by. Well thats my story I have been in rodding for 45 years been to places that I would'nt have been to otherwise made heaps of friends & acquaintances and learned to live by my own motto "Put your hand up and see were it takes you". I am also starting out on a new path as a Cub Scout Leader, also the Deputy President of the Hawkesbury District Agricultural Society & Hawkesbury Show (was President 2001-2004) regards Garry
Hiya Garry , it's a good story mate.....but how 'bout you flesh it out with some pics for us......There'd be a few folks here who probably never heard of the AHRR project pickup and I'm sure they'd be interested to hear more about it maybe a bit more about your part in rodding as another "oldtimer" too.... , regards, Col.
Col you and Garry should meet if you havent already (you probably walked past each other at Rat Day last september) I think you'd bot hhave some great rodding tales to exchange
Thanks for the prompt Col, I've got lot of Photos however have never been able to get them up here, I'll tell you a funny though I recently purchased a copy of AHRR on eBay and the seller asked me what was the reason and I told him that I owned the car, he was blown away as he followed the progress in the mag and had given up on the rod as dead in the water. I will have to wait till Mike gets back from his holiday I guess.
Hi Brian, GBS, I have some film of the Saints show, I think it is on dvd. Was the Colin Mainprize roadster pink ? I think it was built by Graham Moore of Gladesville in Sydney. Graham went on to be a good road racing driver and ran a number of cars at Bathurst including the Norman G Booth sponsored Holden Torana XU1.
George Clark also had his '39 Plymouth coupe at that show.
I joined the South Australian Rod and Custom Club while I was on my first leave from the Navy in 1970. However, I could not attend the three meetings in a row, as I moved from SA to WA to Sydney to pick up my first ship. I would come along every 6 months or so when I had leave, but never became a "real" member.
Because I was in the Navy, this scenario would repeat itself many times. I was an ASRF member from 1974 when I bought my first rod, a 27 T bucket rego ABQ300. I used to go to Bent 8s meetings, Dragens meetings, TAC meetings etc, in between sea voyages, and I bought Gary's 9" diff for my T Bucket in 1975 when he went to a jag rear.
The boat I was on at that time was a minesweeper, and the Chief Stoker was a bloke called Graeme "Lofty" Holden. He was the President of the Spades at one time, and had also been a member of the Meteors in Canberra. When I posted to Canberra in 1976, I looked up the Meteors and became a member.
I was never in one spot for more than 12 months, and I became a regular visitor to meetings of clubs like the Spades, SARC, Dragens, anywhere there was hot rodding activity in the vicinity of my ship. In 1978, I was in Adelaide visiting family, and met up with some SA rodders at the Camnpoelltown Swap meet. I had recently sold my T Bucket, and was looking fopr a cheap project, and I bought a rather diapidated, channeled 36 Ford Coupe for $90. It went to my Sister's house in Christies Beach for a few years until I was posted ashore for a while and could make a start on it.
I moved to the US in 1983 for 3 years, and attended many meetings and events in California and in the Pacific Northwest (around Seattle).
Just before we left for the US, I was based in Canberra and was a member of the Meteors. I left the Meteors because they were no longer active, but I joined the (then) Canberra Street Rod Association, renamed to the Canberra Hot Rod Association in 1986.
When I got out of the Navy in 1990, we moved back to Adelaide where I re-connected my ties to the SARC and the SATAC, but could not get work and could not get my 36 Coupe registered there without a fight. We moved to Canberra later in 1990 and were active in the CHRA and have been ever since. My coupe was registered in the ACT in 1990.
In 1995, we moved to Sydney and became members of MacQuarie Towns. We also volunteered to be members of the first Hawkesbury Nats committee, but halfway through 1996, we moved to Adelaide when I was made an offer to work at AWA Defence Industries.
We became members of Valley Rodders in 1996, as we were living in the Barrossa Valley, and the locals were terrific people - typical country hospitality, these guys were the greatest. We were active committee members for the Cruise On 96, and I finally got my 36 Coupe registered in SA.
In 1997, we had to move back to "town" when AWA merged with British Aerospace, and I helped form Adelaide HotRodders. We were about to head to the Hawkesbury Nats in 1997 when I was made redundant. So we moved back to Canberra where I got a job in the CSIRO as a Tech Writer in their IT section.
I am now a life member of the CHRA and a founding member (and inaugural President) of Oz-E-Rodders. I am trying to slow down my involvement in rodding as I have lost a lot of my earlier "drive" and enthusiasm, but I believe I have paid my dues and left my mark in a lot of places. I have made many life-long friends over the years, but the ones that stand out are the pioneers of Australian rodding like Bill Jansen, Gary and Lyn Hudson, Rob Riggs, Larry and Mary O'Toole, Alan Cooper and Rod Hadfield, to name a few
Choco Munday, Technical Author, Hot Rod Handbooks
Ph:0412 883 235
In the late '70s I joined Waratah State Street Machines out of Liverpool. They became quite a big club in the street machining world.
In the '80s I was invited to join a club closer to home. I think they disbanded around '85.
This jacket still fits me and I still wear it occasionally.
For the past 25 years I've been a member of the Mustang Owners Club with a '66 Ford Australia coupe.
Unique35 wrote:Thanks for the prompt Col, I've got lot of Photos however have never been able to get them up here, I'll tell you a funny though I recently purchased a copy of AHRR on eBay and the seller asked me what was the reason and I told him that I owned the car, he was blown away as he followed the progress in the mag and had given up on the rod as dead in the water. I will have to wait till Mike gets back from his holiday I guess.
Thanks Mike for putting the Photos up for me. Please note that the comments in the story's are the words of the story writer and were sometimes used without correction, it was a lottery if they got the story and the facts right. Enjoy most of these were from the 70's. the white Zephyr in the background was the donor car.
There's a big difference between the 2, ( noted so thisnt ment to be the start of Forum War XXV)
I own a guitar but that doesn’t make me a musician,
Garry's one who definatly put's in alot more than he can ever hope to tangably get back out, but then, with rodding how can you measure your return on your investment,
I'm slowly building a car, but that doesn’t make me a rodder by default (I have a ways to go) but I have to say, by how I measure it I'm getting at least 22.7% return on my investment and I suspect the more I invest the better my returns will be, and those returns weren’t affected by the GFC
it's ok yeti, wasnt aimed at Gary, was just funny to see that the differences were as prevalent then as now, and probably date back to the first and second hotrods ever built and sold..
Hey whats all this gaff about INVESTMENT? when I built my cars they were totally for PLEASURE, and the knowledge that you gleaned from the experiance.
Garry
my sentiments too Garry, build it because you want too, sell it if you have too.. not as an investment. if you do make money on it it's a bonus, that can be put into another car..
Unique35 wrote:Hey whats all this gaff about INVESTMENT? when I built my cars they were totally for PLEASURE, and the knowledge that you gleaned from the experiance.
Garry
As i said non tangable return, meaning you cant touch it or measure it, the pleasure knowlege, enjoyment /mates you make etc is the return on your investment. your investment being the time & effort, you put in to the sport, all that work you do with the club, participating in runs, helping mates out Gazz this is part of what youve invested in rodding the car is really just the fun part and the reason we start doing it
keep in mind guys your talking to a bloke whos studying counting so its all about return and risk
rog wrote:my sentiments too Garry, build it because you want too, sell it if you have too.. not as an investment. if you do make money on it it's a bonus, that can be put into another car..
