Some of you are really getting into the spirit of YYG. Randy Keenan of Colfax, California, sent us a whole envelope full of photos from the late '50s and early '60s, when he was driving hot rods around his hometown of San Francisco. Randy says he started reading Rod & Custom back in 1957. Two years later, he paid $50 for his first car, a '40 Olds coupe (the owner gave him back $20 to paint a couple rooms in her house). It stayed stock except for the "Blue Beard" painted on the fenders. Later, with some help from his friend, Garry Kingma, he built this chopped and channeled '30-31 Model A five-window coupe, running an Oldsmobile mill. From there he picked up several other cars, including a few '50s Oldsmobiles, a '59 Plymouth Sport Fury, a '23 T-bucket, and a 409-powered '56 Corvette. The lower photo is Randy in 1969. The '23 T-bucket, with severly sprung posture, American mag five-spokes, raised white-letter slicks, and Nailhead with a T10 trans screams late-'60s, doesn't it?
The rods and customs came and went over the years. Randy has been retired from law enforcement for approximately five years, but still looks for new automotive projects to work on, still reads R&C, and wishes he had kept some of the cool cars he drove as a young gun, especially the Corvette, which he traded in on a brand-new '70 Dodge Challenger.
Mail your vintage photos of you and your hot rod, along with a brief story, to Tim Bernsau, Rod & Custom, 774 S. Placentia Ave., Placentia, CA 92870, or e-mail them (3x5 inches at 300 dpi) to timothy.bernsau@primedia.com. We are unable to return any submitted material.
Cant' Catch This BogReader Art Ogg, from Marietta, Georgia, sent us this item that's too cool not to show you. We especially love the air scoop poking through the windshield.
"This long-forgotten race car (except by those who built it) was campaigned by four diehard drag racers (brothers Joe and Hank Kodrick, Jim Coonan, and Gordon 'TV' Pittsenbarger) from Joliet, Illinois, from 1963 until 1968 and was primarily driven by my brother-in-law, Joe Kodrick. The Black Pup (as it was nicknamed), was billed as 'The World's Fastest Volkswagen', and originally ran a Hilborn-injected 327 Chevy backed up with a four-speed Muncie in the B/A class. After a couple of years, they installed a GMC 6-71 blower with a two-port Hilborn fuel-injection unit and raced in BB/A class against the likes of the famous Lil Screamer.