Hot Rod Heaven.
There’s a hot rod show every Australia Day weekend at the Royal Exhibition Buildings in Carlton. Inside the buildings there is a display of classic old rides driven in by enthusiasts from all over the state. (Though I shouldn’t presume that – a lot of these car-freaks are terrified of a single raindrop getting near their deeply triple-coated duco. Never mind the beautifully blackened tyres and polished rims! A friend of mine bought a pristine Holden EK from deep in Hot Rod Country – Castlemaine – and the vendor was anxious to enquire, even after selling the buggy, how it was to be transported back to Melbourne. The idea of driving it brought a look of shock and horror to his face!)
Maybe they drove it from the back of a trailer truck parked outside the doors to the big room, listening anxiously for any stray metallic ticking as the rarely-used engine struggled to idle. I jest, there’s all kinds of people and attitudes here in this immediate area. All dedicated to classic cars. Dream rides too. Fantasy objects. Nostalgic shapes and attitudes frozen in sculpted metal, glass and rubber. They are also, all actual realities. People live for these cars. They pour their lives into them. Their working lives and their play lives. Stock standard Holdens, Valiants and Fords from the Family-rated 1960s and the R-rated muscled up 70s. Also American muscle cars of the same periods. Outrageous fins and dimensions. Some more like boats than land cruising automobiles. There are also hot rods with 1934 Ford chassis carrying V8 engines from other periods and dressed with mad fibreglass bodies. Kit projects, you know, the sort of lascivious, tongue dragging, chopped and lowered, bare engined cartoonish coaches from ZZ Top videos and Ed “Big Daddy” Roth illustrations.
The show is so popular it spills out of the buildings and into the surrounding gardens and walking paths. A not-so-subtle storming of the gates must have happened at some stage. These are people you can’t really argue with. The crowd is so into it – so melded to the cause and the dream – that they need to show the rides they came in on as well. The whole garden area around the building is a gallery, a rolling display of hot rod heaven.
People amble about, taking photos and greeting old friends. Comparing paint jobs and daring tricks around any roadworthy laws that might have to be taken into consideration. Some of the cars are so lowered at the front it’s hard to believe they can actually move. Must be some hydraulics in action. Perhaps powered by a boot full of extra batteries. Some people are there to network, handing out business cards for their trade or particular service. Some cornered the market in tiny period decorations and glove box mountings years ago and have the manner of smug dealers who know how addictive their product is to this crowd. After all, they’re one of them too! They all need that one extra thing to complete the dream. Upholstery circa 1948 or 1962. Vinyl or leather of a certain hue. Paint likewise. Memorabilia, photography. Lots of soldiers and lots of camp followers. A community radio station has set up a van and is blaring out some rock ‘n’ roll hits. There’s a big crossover with the Rockabilly scene. Lots of tattoos, 50s dresses in the crowd. Young women with outrageously coloured hair and milk white (tattooed) skin. T-shirts emblazoned with car products or strong alcohol abounds too. It’s still a bit of an underworld. Even though the attitudes and looks come from the far outer suburbs. (Where a man can indulge himself in an immaculate and spacious garage). These people are lifers really.
For the last four years I’ve made the shows and caught up with an old friend from Mt Gambier who drives the 400kms with a mate that morning and drives back after a few hours of socialising. He has a Holden EK Panel van (quite rare), painted white with a V8 Chev engine off of the chrome of which you could eat your proverbial dinner. This is just his workday vehicle though. For actual work he has his van. Then there is the 34 Ford Rod (a Bob Dylan nut – ‘Desolation Row’ is painted in sweet cursive writing on the side of the bonnet) and another, ongoing kit project.
Once, he came to town with a friend to drop off a car in Ferntree Gully to get the car’s body put on. The fellow was a council gardener. He was paying for his car’s frame to be transported on the back of a truck to Melbourne for the job. And then there was the paint job. I took them to a business which specialised in auto add-ons and design frills. All this was actually quite close to where I lived. I lived among them! We stepped inside to a world of sports steering wheels, mats, window winders, chromed gear sticks or knobs. My friends all started whistling and moving about the shelves. Exclaiming in delight. After a while I just said goodbye to the room. Nobody poked their head around a shelf. They were all lost in auto part delirium. I left them to it.
Which cars did I fancy? Well I used to think it was something you grew out of but with Holden and Ford closures, how valuable are these cars going to get now? I mean they are total period pieces. Glimpses of a lost world. It would be cool if some catastrophe happened and we had to become like Cuba and preserve our fleet of muscle cars and vans. I don’t think we’re that sort of country any more though.
I do love the shape and persona of a Holden EH. A sedan or a panel van. Immaculately simple cars. Earlier models like the FC or FB are great, solid steel fat-bodied machines too but hard to wrestle around corners. Bench seats on all of them. I’m puddling up! I have ridden in a Ford Falcon GTHO when they were current. The driver was 17 and we wore air craft seatbelts – harnessed over each shoulder. Crazy! Torana V8s of that period were all engine and no brakes. I would love one of those too! But I think my dream ride would be a 1974 Valiant Regal. Brown with a vinyl, cream roof. Automatic. Just for long drives on country roads.
@davegraney
Photos by Dave Graney
