The recent passing of my friend has ushered in a short period of time where I have experienced much joy. That may sound wrong, so let me explain.
Grumpy is a ‘Car Guy’. Car guys have their own language. We can talk to each other in a form of communication that baffles the ordinary run of the mill person.
For the last few weeks, I have had many conversations that use the code words that are known only to a car guy. For example; Do you know the difference between a clutch fork and a shift fork? How about a pickle fork? Two of these forks are actual parts and one is a tool. I get calls and emails from car guys everyday. They are looking for stuff to complete a project or just want to see what is being offered. Each coversation has a lot of code talk involved. One question was whether the cylinder heads offered were rectangular or oval port.
I call this the ending of an era. The golden age of hot rodders and people who lived and breathed the facination with all things to do with cars. The era began in the years following World War II. Drag racing and the soon to be stock car racing were in the infant stages. People took what they could and made it go faster just because it was fun. There were no catalogs then. Ok, maybe J.C.Whitney. The people from this era, the ‘Greatest Generation’ of Americans, along with us aging Baby Boomers are the vanishing breed.
Generation X and Y are into different things. Video games, skate boards and such. It is not all their fault. We parked them in front of a TV while we were out in the garage with a six pack and a couple of buddies. The cars today do not lend themselves well to the ‘car guy’ type. We have all seen those little rice burners zooming around. They adopted the COT wing on the trunk and put a coffee can muffler on it, they sound like a mad pack of bumble bees. Where is the magic in that?
This is my little salute to my friends and fellow car guys. Some are known but all are brothers and sisters in this wonderful hobby. Preserving the automotive history from a time when the American auto industry produced some of the finest cars in the world. So whether your passion is a classic Cadillac, or a ‘57 Ford, or a ‘70 Dodge Challenger, you belong to the fraternity of ‘car guys’. Ladies, I mean no disrespect here, you are among the elite who can be proud to be a ‘car guy’ too.
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