16
July 24, 2012 Posted by Site Admin in Blog

Fat Tire Manifesto

We’ve been lied to. For years we’ve been told that pro street was dead. Pro street was impractical. Pro street was SO eighties. And we bought the lie.

We were all taught that pro touring had captured the throne. People were sick and tired of the fairgrounds cruisers that could barely move under their own power or haul around their multiple power adders under the weight of all that chrome and unnecessary nylon window netting. Some say Scott Sullivan, widely regarded as the father of pro street with his iconic blown and tubbed ’67 Nova, ironically also spelled the end of pro street as we knew it with his Cheez Whiz Shoebox that drove across country with Car Craft’s Jeff Smith in tow chronicling the whole awesome tale.

Even though the ’55 was undoubtedly pro street, it seemed to have kicked off a revolt in the street machining world. People wanted more creature comforts in their rides. As Hot Rod Magazine so deftly noted in their description of Scott’s car in their Top 100 Rods of all time list, people were sick of polishing their cars all day and wanted, like Scott, to actually drive them. In just a decade, we went from all three of the major custom car magazines Hot Rod, Car Craft, and Popular Hot Rodding seeming to compete with one another over which pro street builds would be featured in their pages in the mid 80’s to nary a single tubbed car featured in any by the mid 90’s. Pro street had gone the way of bell bottom jeans and butterfly collars.

Or at least that’s what we were told. Secretly, clandestinely, street machiners and hot rodders the world over still liked the style. But to own up to that fact and admit it, let alone build one, would be like jamming out to a Milli Vanilli cassette on your Jensen 6 X 9’s while rocking your acid washed jean jacket. It just wasn’t cool anymore.

Or was it?

As pro street’s proud papa Sullivan still contends, “While Pro Touring is all the current rage, Pro Street cars will always be popular. Here’s why…correctly done, NOTHING looks more evil or badass.”

I dare you to take a look at some of the iconic cars of the era and not admit they still remain, 20+ years later, the epitome of street coolness. And while some forgettable trends have certainly dated a handful of those cars, such is the risk you run and the price you pay to be considered “today’s big thing.”

So why would a guy who hasn’t turned a wrench on a pro street car in nearly two decades (yours truly) suddenly make it his personal goal to establish a magazine celebrating the pro street heroes and cars of yesterday, today and tomorrow? That’s a great question whose answer started some two years ago during some random downtime web surfing.

I happened upon a now EPIC thread on Yellowbullet.com. The title was simple: “I miss the good ol’ STREET MACHINE NATIONALS!” A user by the name of Superprojoe just happened to lament the loss of the once king of all car shows, the DuQuoin Street Machine Nationals, held annually in June from 1986-1998 in tiny but picturesque DuQuoin, Illinois. Joe’s five-line post was initially placed in early December, 2009.

Like the show itself, the thread started simply enough, but what followed was nothing short of remarkable.  Within three days the thread was up to 183 posts. Within a week it was up to 475 posts. By the time I stumbled upon it, it was about ten months old and had over 1800 posts. At last check it is still going strong with over 3300 posts over the course of nearly three years, making it one of the most popular threads in the history of Yellowbullet.

Perhaps what is so addictive about the thread is that folks regularly contribute stories and pictures of their experience at the show, making it a constantly changing source of information that, even if you don’t know the author, oftentimes sparks a similar memory in the dusty recesses of your own mind. It was a simpler time. And it was fun.

Not content to simply read about the old show, I had to learn more. My dad had taken me to the first DuQuoin show in 1986, where an impressionable 11 year-old got his first glimpse of the custom car scene and the hook was set. I loved the show. I loved the fun times. But most of all, I loved the cars. The Yellowbullet thread brought all those old memories to the surface. It was awesome.

Soon after, the book that continues in progress, Sensory Overload: Hot Cars and Wild Times at the DuQuoin Street Machine Nationals, was birthed in my brain. Work on the book included interviewing all my childhood heroes- folks like Scott Sullivan, Rocky Robertson, Matt and Debbie Hay, Rick Dobbertin, Mark Grimes to name a few- and both assembling and pouring over nearly two decades worth of Car Craft, Hot Rod, and Popular Hot Rodding archives pieced together from hours of eBay searches. I had plastered the walls of my room with those same pages as a kid. It was reliving my childhood for the sake of the project and I was loving it.

Also about that time, southern Illinois car crafter James Smith started a Facebook fan page entitled  “Bring the Street Machine Nationals back to DuQuoin, IL.” Like the Yellowbullet thread, interest in the page was remarkable. Within a few months, Smith’s page, started on a whim, had over 3000 “likes.” Local media took notice and talk of approaching Family Events Corp., the show’s longtime promoter, began to grow.

I had been fortunate enough to secure an interview with Family Events founder Bruce Hubley as a part of my work on the book. I had also already spoken with DuQuoin officials who seemed genuinely interested in bringing the show back. Perhaps sticking my nose where it didn’t belong, I asked Bruce what it would take to get the show back to where I felt was its rightful place. To attempt to make a long story short, he suggested we meet at the last stop of the Hot Rod Power Tour in June in relatively nearby Arlington, Texas. Unfortunately, no Car Craft staffers were present, so Bruce suggested we meet up again in July at the modern day version of the show, the Car Craft Summer Nationals in Minneapolis, Minnesota to talk it over and perhaps ask Car Craft staffers regarding their interest. So I bought my plane ticket and headed for the Twin Cities.

While my meeting with Bruce was great and I think ultimately the show will return to DuQuoin, what was literally life-changing for me was the show itself. I had enjoyed the Power Tour stop in Arlington in 2012 and there were certainly some gorgeous cars on-site. However, I secretly lamented that I saw exactly ONE tubbed car on the grounds. Even worse, it was sporting some ultra wide low profile tires on 20’s in the spaces where a pair of MT Sportsmans had most certainly once resided. It just wasn’t the same.

It was an incredible car, but I was pretty bummed that I had grown so out of touch with the pulse of street machining. Pro touring builds are great. I love the whole idea of building a custom car you can actually  drive. However, the whole pro touring scene seems, to me at least, to have forgotten its roots. What was once a revolt against impractical pro street cars you couldn’t drive or that couldn’t perform has turned into ultra high dollar cars that no one in their right mind would try to drive simply because they are so trick and expensive. Interested in a state-of-the art pro touring ride worthy of magazine notice? Bring your check book. A builder at a prominent shop told me one of their recent high end turn-key builds came with a price tag of…wait for it…nearly a HALF MILLION DOLLARS. Think the owner of that car plans to autocross it anytime soon? Me either.

So I decided to see what was up at a spin off of the old DuQuoin show, the Car Craft Summer Nationals, held annually in Minneapolis/St. Paul. In all honesty, I headed to Minnesota not expecting much. In fact, I brought my camera and as I prepared to enter the fairgrounds I silently thought to myself, “I’m going to take a picture of every tubbed car on the grounds today.” In my heart I knew it wouldn’t take long, but I wanted to document the few dinosaurs that remained, lurching around the fairgrounds with that unmistakable blower whine and WHOOMP….WHOOMP…WHOOMP. They’re endangered species, after all. They deserve to be captured in their natural environment before they vanish for good.

I could not have been prepared for what I saw next. My camera’s memory card couldn’t hold all the pics I wanted to take. Sure, there were some clapped out racecars with license plates there, slicks and all. However, some other really cool cars- some new builds, some old- were there, too. Billy Wooten’s red Monza, still sporting a ginormous scoop way above the roofline, won an Editor’s Choice award on Saturday. A slime green Chevelle wagon with a blown and injected big block was there. And although every magazine still published had led me to believe you needed a turbo’d LS engine and huge brakes to be relevant and cool today, it hit me.

PRO STREET IS STILL COOL.

We’ve been lied to, friends. It is high time we dust off the trick rides or trick rides-to-be sitting idle in our garages and start tubbing them again! Be proud of our heritage and encouraged by the possibilities that didn’t exist for others back in the day. The thing is, that iconic styling, coupled with modern technology like air suspensions, modern powerplants and accessories, and high tech materials is the perfect storm. The time has never been better to build a custom car, and no custom car is really complete without a big set of steamrollers in the back.

It’s time to get tubbed.

The Countdown to DuQuoin 2013 is ON!!!Working outline...check it out!
Click to share thisClick to share this