The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Salinas Boyz '54 in Rodder's Journal

FYI: The Rodder's Journal issue #28 10th anniversary number features Cole Foster's (Salinas Boyz)fabbo custom '54 3100 shop truck on pp 41 and 42. Also, on pp 106 and 108, pics and supplier details of neato repro '40 F**d steering wheels that look supercool on a classic-style custom/hot rod AD if ya got the bucks to chuck at it.

Truck's interior is a harmonious combo of '50 Pontiac gauge cluster, '50 Pontiac steering wheel, Gennie shifter and smoothed dash face with custom-made glove box lid that extends all across passenger side of dash. Seat is from a Chevy Luv truck. (Any Bolters using one?) Exterior is satin Cherry pearl--lacquer with flattening agent. (Looks like satin primer.) Personally I'm not crazy for the chopped top and mega-slammed stance but all the same I wouldn't kick it out of my garage (if I had one).

There's also a gazillion-dollar coupe pretending to be a '34 F**d. But guess what drivetrain. Yup, '67 Chevy 327 and GM tranny.

Not suggesting you fork out the $13 to buy the darn magazine, which anyway even at half the price would still be way too far up its own [censored] for my taste--after all, it's aimed at the Pebble Beach cashmere-Polo-shirt-and-tasseled-ostrich-skin-loafer brigade (you know, the guys with the blow-dried comb-overs and the chicken-boned gals with surgically induced permasmirks and kitted out head to toe in Pewki Gucci). But it's worth checking out this issue at yer local Borders or wherever and putting it back once you've ogled the pics and sucked out the info.

BTW I find the magazine is vastly improved by an oily fingerprint or two on the cover. And don't forget to turn down the relevant page corners to help the next reader find the nuggets.

Happy reading. Christian

95% of the people featured in TRJ wouldn't be caught dead in the attire you describe. The publisher, who spends all of his money making the magazine you love so much, probably couldn't even afford tassled loafers. Maybe you should buy your periodicals second-hand?

Personally, TRJ is an inspiration for me in many ways. I glady pay the cover price (not the Barnes & Noble price) as I know I'll keep them a lot longer than the regular magazines the accumulate monthly.

Well RF, as the French so very nearly say, chacun a son goober. (And if you'd clocked the types who fawn over these fancypantsmobiles at the annual Pebble Beach Concours de Nitwit you'd know I'm right about the, er, "attire".)

However much money your loaferless publisher sinks into TRJ, it doesn't alter the fact that IMHO it's a poncey magazine that's totally up its own [censored]. The pansified feature cars are mostly apologies for a real rod. Cover car of the issue in question--typically overdone, hardly a single truly original idea in evidence, no stamp of individuality, money mno object, all in all a total cliche--proves my point. Truly the vehicular equivalent of the dreaded tassled loafer.

TRJ is just a showcase for elitist show-offs whose vehicles show off the sad fact that money is no substitute for imagination. So what do they care? The object of showing their horribly tarted-up old cars on glossy paper is to give them a sort of instant provenance and bump up their market value among like-minded nitwits--and it works.

I wouldn't mind if they qualified the title, e.g. The Ersatz Rodder's Journal. Or Rods, Schmods. Or The Tarty Old Car Journal. Because it's largely just glossy tosh that doesn't begin to represent the real rodder.

Real rodders know, for instance that real rods don't shine.

Now of course a bunch of real rodders who know way more than I ever could will post that I'm talking out of my fundament and that TRJ is the bible of all real rodders everywhere.

Ain't the Bolt just the best! :p

Christian

OHPANTS, come on and tell us how you really feel about the magazine, let it all out. ron

OHPANTS I love it. TRJ is really high on my never to buy list but i will take a peak at the store. Fancy paper does not make for good reading. That bunch is more cult like. LOL Loved the rant!

Here's a simple solution, and I bet you never considered it 'cuz then you'd have one less thing to complain about: Don't Read It!

Gee thanks for the advice Rob, obviously I never thought of that. And thanks also for the previous advice to "buy [my] periodicals second-hand". Well ain't I the lucky one--all this advice about how to run my life and I never even had to ask for it! Seems you're so full of it that you could spread it around a little with a Rob's Snooty Advice column in Classic Trucks!

Come to think of it, snooty also describes TRJ pretty well. My advice is, amend the title to "Snootum's Phoney Rodder's Claptrap"--tells it like it is. But hey, as usual that's just my humble opinion.
Anyway I'm with DJ on how to get the best out of TRJ: (1) pick it up in the store (2) flip through for any authentic jewels (e.g. Cole Foster's '54 and Jeff Allison's artwork in #28) that got slipped in among the gilded crap (e.g. #28's sad, miminy-piminy 34 Ford coupe cover car) (3) put it back.

$13 a pop in the stores? $40 for a four-issue subscription? They can stick it. I'd rather put my hard-earned dosh into gas and put the gas in my truck and drive it than buy into TRJ's paltry pages of pretentious pseudo-rodders' onanism.

Hm. On balance, I think maybe I'm not really all that into TRJ. I'll let ya know when I've decided.

Fellow Bolters?

Christian

You'll take your bitterness and jealousy to the grave. Enjoy it while it lasts!

Your probably right not to spend $13 on the rodders journal. Sounds like you would be better off spending it on Prozac.

What, even more advice? And again without putting me to the trouble of requesting it? What a wonderfully considerate fellow you are, Rob! You must be heaven-sent because I feel totally blessed! Again, a thousand thanks.

Bitterness: actually, no. But scornful ridicule for monied show-offs who, with gross financial profligacy, debase nice old cars into gaudy baubles to serve as tasteless ornaments to their egos: yes.

Jealousy: nope. I'd feel a total prat going to the store in such as the toadacious Ford coupe already cited. But an aversion to the derivative and the pretentious, a sensitivity to the counterfeit and an ability to distinguish it from the authentic item created in good faith; also a willingness to call a toad a toad--in short, the wisdom not to be dazzled by mere megabucks thrown at old vehicles, and the chutzpah to form an iconoclastic opinion: yes.

Interesting to know what other Bolters think. Anyone want to chip in? Otherwise let's close this thread if it's just going to be mainly me and Rob, with me repeating a, well, controversial point of view about a subject (i.e. roughly, TRJ and megabuck rods suck) that I believe could do with further debate, and him responding with profound thoughts about my shortcomings and free advice about what I should or shouldn't do. (But let's wait long enough to give Rob the last word. I started, so it's only fair he finishes--with more advice I hope. I can hardly wait!)

Oh well, the stuff about TRJ in my original post was really just an aside that carried me away a little and gave me a fun ride in an idle moment. The main thing was to alert my fellow Fourneauboulonniers* (and Fourneauboulonnieres) to a cool Chevy truck and some steering wheels in TRJ #28.

Primer, bodging and oily fingers rule!

Christian

*BTW, any of you guys and gals know "Stovebolter" in Italian, Spanish, Greek, Norwegian etc?

Thank you too, Rich. Does it work for you?

I Know for a fact that the cars in RJ are for the most part great cars built by guys out of ther garages. Guys that have an eye for Quality witch is something I am sure ohpant lacks. as for hot rods needing to be un shine i disagree. Aloit of the old timers i have talked to say they wouldnt even leave the garage before painting ther cars and being able to call them finished.

The best thing about the 54 in RJ is the metal headliner.

Not only TRJ but most of the "Hot Rod" type magazines have an overabundance of the megabuck cars that aren't realistic. We, the masses of rodders that have to work for a living and squeeze a few bucks out of our paychecks to put into our mostly homebuilt cars can hardly relate to these showpieces. Not all bad but far from what most of us can afford, or would have if we could afford them. I'm not badmouthing anyone but only pointing out that a small minority of car guys get much of the ink in the mags. My cars are built to drive and enjoy, not as showcars, and I'd guess most of us are in the same boat (or car as the case may be).

Thanks for the compliment, gmckustom. (I do in fact have an eye for a "Quality witch". What red-blooded male doesn't?) Remind me to return the compliment some day.

I'll excuse you on the grounds that your behaviour is rather like that of an immature twenty-something whippersnapper who is still wet behind the ears, and whose daddy hasn't taught him how to behave in public yet.

Please could other responders please refrain from trying to insult me--just for expressing an opinion--while we're trying to discuss this stuff? It's soooo lame.

Gmckustom, You have a point about cars in TRJ built out of the owners' garages. But your point is only valid up to a point. Sure, a few are created/restored that way. But there's a huge emphasis in TRJ on the megabuck pansymobiles that have nothing to do with the real spirit of hot rodding. Like where the "owner" is really no more than a rich egotist with unlimited resources who commissions some specialist outfit(s) to buy in all the most expensive pre-manufactured stuff, fabricate a bunch of other stuff, put a million hours into the bodywork, nail all this crap together, cover it in a gazillions coats of red and clear, chuck in some strategically placed leather, billet and/or chrome, and call the concoction a hot rod. This, my friend, is nothing to do with hot rodding. This is a pansy show car--just as chevman32 points out, only more politely.

As for the old timers. Some like shine, some don't. (Speaking as an old timer myself, I say real hot rods don't shine.) And I doubt many of us old timers are daft enough to be impressed by something that looks the way it does just because it's got scores of thousands of dollars in it.

Funny, I didn't greatly care for the look of the steel headliner in the 54 although it's a work of brilliant and ingenious craftsmanship. Isn't it great to disagree about all this stuff? Isn't that part of what makes it interesting?

Christian

Ohpants,

I agree that some of the cars featured in TRJ fall into the "elitist show off" (ESO) category you mentioned. A perfect example for me is TRJ #15, which features Eric Clapton's ‘40 Ford Coupe. Clapton got bit by the hotrod bug while hanging with guitar-slinger pals Jeff Beck and Jimmy Vaughan. Then he basically commissioned Roy Brizio to build him one. To me, the write-up is more about Brizio and the megabuck-build than Clapton, but since he wrote the check (or cheque in this case), he gets his name on the cover with the ’40 Ford.

But as I leaf through the same issue, I also see an interview with Art Chrisman, Gene Adams, and Don Garlits ( I believe all three gentlemen qualify as “real hotrodders”), discussing their experience with the 6-71 Hemi in the ‘60’s; a story about Bill Kelly’s ’32 coupe, which he built in 1948 and then brought back 52 years later (you might be happy to know that the paint is not shiny on this one); a piece on Jimmy Shine and his 1934 Ford pickup (another non-shiny owner-built hotrod for ya); a write-up on a car club in Sweden that has built some amazing, period-correct rods; and a spread on Rick Dore’s custom ’63 T-bird (yes, another big $$ car, but at least he was integral to the design and final assembly of the car,). There’s also an article on a ‘41 Willy’s Gasser (striped by Von Dutch at one point), and coverage of the 2000 NHRA Reunion Cackle Fest in Bakersfield, CA.

Granted this is a limited sample of TRJ content (a single issue), but based on the issues I have read, ALL feature some amount of big name/big money cars; people, cars, and events of historical hotrod/custom significance; access to vintage photo archives; and build details for pro and owner-built cars alike. TRJ articles are crafted with genuine writing, journalistic, and photographic talents, to provide relevant content, without having to wade through page after page of advertising.

And if the $10-13 price-tag is the simplest way to maintain the high content-to-crap ratio – so be it. For me, the $40 per-year is money well spent and I don’t believe there is a better automotive publication on the market. Many of the other mags I have subscribed to (or picked up onesy-twosy over the years), end up in boxes or shoved in out of the way places. Not so with TRJ. I’m not saying they are treated like National Treasures in my house, but they do share a shelf with my other car books, where they are accessible. There are plenty of greasy fingerprints on the covers, and the spines are worn to the point that they tend to fall open to my (or the kid’s) favorite articles/pictures.

I’m sure there is some amount of ego-stroking that goes along with those ESO cars. I’m okay with that. As long as the staff at TRJ continues to do their homework, and produces quality issues like the last 28, I’ll “endure” the small percentage of cars/articles that don’t interest me. And for those Stovebolt members and readers not familiar with TRJ, I suggest you draw your own conclusion as to whether it is the type of publication you might like to add to your library.

-murph