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| One vain attempt at | HOT RODS |
(in Norway of course ) |
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| This is the way it sort of ended: |
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| Here I was just trying to impress my future father-in-law as we took the real
Hot Rod made by a friend of mine in Oslo for a spin. This one really could spin!
If you want to know more, read on |
| Riding my 150 cc Vespa the 100km back to my
college after a weekend at home in 1968, I found a 1933 Ford Tudor abandonded by the
roadside. It appeared the owner and his girlfriend had tried to drive it to the local
opening of the movie "Bonnie and Clyde" and during this drive the car had expired
dramatically with a con rod out the side of its 4 cylinder engine.
I managed to search him up, bought the wreck and was told about a gang gathering
around US car projects in Oslo from time to time talking about Hot Rods and looking
at garage projects.
So being promised to borrow some space at fiance's grandfathers farm, this broken
Ford should become a proper Custom Street Rod Two Door Sedan. Planning begins.....
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 | It was a cold last winter at teacher's college. I
was allowed by my landlord at college to park the project car just below my window
where I also kept my daily transport. The Vespa started willingly and brought me the
5 kilometres to school all through winter even in minus 33C. .
Summer was used to make a ramp, get a good look at the project and start separating
parts, planning work . The body was lifted and brought to my
fathers garage in town where I could work indoors. Frame had some rust and
I managed to get the frame delivered at an adult education course held locally, a job
training program where they under leadership of a retired car mechanic of the
old school, took it completely apart, repaired it, got the parts hot
galvanized and then rivetted the frame together again in a straightening jig. I
also had the springs reworked at a truck spring company which rehammered the springs
lowering the car some 2inches, proper Hot Rod fashion.
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| Friends borrowing their fathers equipment, made disassembly and separating body from frame
and transport an easy job. |
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| This takes a couple of years while me and fiancee find ourself a flat, rent a garage, and buy a car, .My
newly won friend,who earlier had sold me the Ford, had a self made Abarth replika Fiat 600,
- so ME TOO! It was easy to tune; lots of fun, and I could do club meets at NOR-WAY Customs,
learn more from those who really knew |
| The president of the club Per Arne Knutsen took very good care of us, bringing
together different characters like "Lightning", "T-Bird", "Double" etc, I was
the teacher or was it he with the Fiat?. We met sometimes in workshops or Per Arnes flat
in Alnafet gate and sometimes in kindergardens near Ekeberg, because two of the guys had
girlfriends who worked in those kindergardens and they were for loan in the evenings. Funny
looks us Motorheads sitting on tiny toddler chairs talking about V8s and horsepower.
Lots of stories could be told .....
Per Arne had finished his own 1934 Roadster build with its welded doors on a 1936 chassis.
It had a hopped-up Chevrolet 283" motor hooked to a three speed gear box Front and rear
end were '48 Ford because this meant "juice brakes". Per Arne had tried in vain to get
the car approved for legal road use by the MOT in Oslo. The man on the job, Neslein, so awkward he
even had changed his name to spell it backwards
It was decided that I who live in the countryside should "buy" the car and have it approved
in our little town, -Inspections men so far into the forest might be easier...
I had the roadster for three legendary days, even broke it and had it repaired before I
handed it ower to two sinister men in uniform who disappeared with it for three quarters of an hour.
They returned and showed me the test sheet, a negative mark in every field: "So that I shouldn't
bother to try again...."
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| Per Arne fetched the roadser again and we all knew it was over. My last meeting was in a yard at Ekeberg
where we inspected a Mercedes taxi which had transplanted in a Buick V8 , and we all agreed it sounded much
better. In their lower garden there I spotted some junk.. -What it was? -An old Harley....
-I could have if I wanted.They were going to bury it the next day so I would have to take it now. |
| I took the Harley Davison home inside and on the roof of my Fiat 600 and knew my interest in
Hot Rods in Norway had died. Some ofthe others in NOR-WAY Customs also set off in other
directions, Lighnting later founded the NFSOK
which later by sheer mathematics were able
to prove that Hot Rods could be built safe enough, Kalle started what became "One-percenters
Norway" which later became "Bandidos MC", Ola Hegseth started Early Ford V8 club of Norway
-Those stories are for others to tell, I found that original veteran motorcycles might be fun,
they were technical, and there were room for many more in the same space.
Government couldn't stop their legal road use if they were original? So one year later in 1973 I
founded what was to become the Norwegian veteran Motorcycle Club |
| The car ? - One became married,
a tiny flat in town and a large rented garage was inappropriate, so we bought a house in the country, but without garage, to
to take on family life and old motorcycles. The Ford was sold to one who wanted to create a vintage car
of it, then rather to make money on it. so it was sold on as a parts car, then on again and by what
I understand it is now a '34 5 window coupe in Sweden. |
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