A writer of considerable skills once penned, "Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows." Life's experiences teach us that misery is only truly miserable when suffered alone. And, with eyes wide open and not nearly enough warm clothing, a handful of rodders began on a road trip with all the aspects of a great deal of misery. (By the way, the quoted saying is adapted from a line in the play "The Tempest," by William Shakespeare.)
Driving from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Las Vegas, Nevada, isn't much of a challenge for a modern hot rod. The journey exceeded 2,000 miles, late October presented some weather issues, and attempting this with a combination of roadsters and coupes makes for an interesting road trip. But, the bigger question is "Why?!" Good question, but let's back up and understand how, when, and where the idea was born.
Posies (of POSIES Rods & Customs in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania) should be a name known to all rodders as a builder and a manufacturer. There are many a street rod wearing POSIES leaf springs, but then there are his cars. Over the years, POSIES has come a long way from the Model A flower wagon that '70s rodders remember. Following was the black highboy roadster with fabric fenders, the Extremeliner, the extended closed-cab pickup, and most recently, the art deco-inspired roadster. (And you will also see a '47 Chevy Fleetliner in the upcoming June '07 issue of SRM-once again, POSIES is out there making a statement.)
So, here we are, POSIES and myself, standing on the main floor at the 2005 SEMA show when he poses the question, "How about we get a handful of manufacturers to build cars and drive them to next year's SEMA show?" The operative word in the question was "drive" and the name for the impending drive turned into the POSIES Driven Dirty Tour. Driving a street rod across the country isn't nearly the challenge it once was. Originally, driving from coast to coast required an adventuresome spirit, a mountain man's survival skills, and plenty of good ol' blind faith-and several other guys to lean on during the trek. This was before the days of cell phones and the NSRA Fellow Pages! Moving forward from the '70s, the plethora of today's improved products, coupled with our own enhanced skills, has made this challenge, well, less of a challenge.
Posies' intent was to encourage a handful of manufacturers to build cars using their products and products from others throughout the industry and reinforce the fact that you can trust what our industry produces. The idea was to drive the cars across the country and then display each with all of the road rash, mud, dirt, grime, and tumbleweeds in each manufacturer's booth in the Hot Rod Alley of the 2006 SEMA show. All too often, we see street rods freshly painted, polished, waxed, and detailed to the nines, but this really isn't always a realistic look for many rodders.
So, what happened? Members of the rodding community accepted the challenge, and to that, a handful of hangers-on joined the expedition. Of course, the automotive conga line was lead by POSIES himself. Life has a way of treating us cruelly, however, and he was treated poorly as the only one not driving. A last-minute mechanical woe, combined with a lack of time, prevented the '47 Chevy Fleetliner from making its appointed round. Dutch (POSIES' nickname) was with his tour in more than spirit as he towed (for which he will never live down) his ride and traveled with the remainder of his flock through every mile, every turnoff, every interchange, and every interstate on the trip. Truth be told, Dutch put together a trip that all agreed wouldn't be forgotten, nor would anyone want to forget!
Joining in the DDT were Scott Whitaker of Dynamat (Hamilton, Ohio) with his Brookville Deuce highboy coupe (see SRM April '07), and Mike Goodman of Honest Charley Speed Shop (Chattanooga, Tennessee) with his Brookville highboy roadster resting on a Pete & Jake's chassis. Mike's ride was aptly named Double Exposure Deuce, as half the car displays Honest Charley while the other side of the car represents Coker Tire (Chattanooga, Tennessee); and that brings us to Corky Coker, who shared driving chores. Others partaking in the expedition were Ray and Kenny Gollahon of Brookville Roadster (Brookville, Ohio) driving their latest effort, the Brookville 1932 three-window coupe. The coupe was left as is with no bodywork and painted in clear. Inside, there was a seat, Dynamat insulation, gauges, steering column, shifter, and little else, as the idea was to leave the car "exposed," allowing everyone to see what one gets for their money. (See SRM April '07 for the debut of the Brookville coupe. SRM will present more on this car in an upcoming issue.) One last Brookville car was the Deuce highboy roadster, which served as my ride for the event, from renowned builder Steve Moal of Moal Coachbuilders (Oakland, California), who was also my chauffeur. Ah, life was going to be good. Others in the rolling frat house were SRM freelancer and frequent contributor on all matters historical Ken Gross, who logged seat time with Scott in the Dynaliner Deuce coupe. Powermaster's Eric Edelmann found plenty of drive time by "shoeing" the TomCat sports roadster supplied by P.J. Burchett of B Rod or Custom (Knoxville, Tennessee). P.J. also joined in by driving his Model A coupe powered by a very healthy small-block.
The Driven Dirty Tour had a simple itinerary, as we would start at the Dynamat headquarters in Hamilton, Ohio, and head in a westerly direction over the next six days, with stops at Brookville Roadster, then onto St. Louis, then Afton, Oklahoma, and a great stop at Darryl Starbird's National Rod & Custom Car Hall of Fame. We then headed toward Amarillo, Texas, and visited Mark Warrick of Soncy Road Rod n Custom Shop. Mark's shop was loaded with lots of interesting car and motorcycle projects. Another high point came as Mark's dad, Bill Warrick, took the entire group to his private collection chock-full of cars, vintage engines, and all types of hot rod collectibles. About that time, the famed Amarillo winds kicked up to whopping a 40-plus mph-and it was really cold! It was then on to Albuquerque, New Mexico, the next morning to spend time with local rodder supreme Dave Malcolm; then we paid a visit to the Stone brothers (Dan and Eddie) of Two Brothers Steel, and got an introduction to their outdoor steel and fabricating business. That night, Eddie and Mela Barela and family (good friends of Dutch) provided us with the best meal of the trip and a spectacular view from their home overlooking Albuquerque. The rest of us now count ourselves blessed to have these people as friends. Oh yes, the authentic South- western dinner was enough coaxing for all of us to want to get back. From the Barelas' hospitality, the next morning saw us on the road to Winslow, Arizona, but we first stopped at the historic Wigwam Motel (circa 1940; also featured in the animated movie "Cars") in Holbrook, Arizona, followed by lunch at the historic La Posada Hotel. Next up, it was a drive to downtown Winslow to stand on the famous corner where first Jackson Brown and later The Eagles sang, "Take it easy ... There's a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford, slowin' down to take a look at me" (well, maybe not anyone in our group, but someone). It's a great corner with lots of photo ops.
It was then on to the Grand Canyon with the last overnight stop at the El Tovar Lodge, literally on the rim of the Grand Canyon. It was here Jim "Jake" Jacobs jumped in line with his '29 Ford panel truck, spending the night with us and then driving on to Vegas the next day. All the cars (save one) were driven and dirty-road worn and weathered after nearly 2,000 miles of real driving.