When the National Street Rod Association came on the "street scene" years ago, they focused on "pre-'48"; everything else was a "street machine." "Pre-'48" turned out to be fibreglass replicas with crate engines, automatic transmissions, air conditioning, and not a part on the car made before 1980, while my '52 Chevrolet powered by a GMC was dumped in with "pro street" Camaros and the like.

i have found among the Inliners an appreciation of older machinery that i had not seen anywhere else. Working with an older chassis and drivetrain involves some compromises with the modern world, but one can still maintain the "look and feel" of the time when that vehicle was commonplace. i am a historian and archivist who was alive and sentient "in the day," and so i seek to revive and relive the experience of driving a "hot rod" -- not a "street rod" and surely not a "rat rod" -- that one might have had in another time and place.

When i take my parts to the Indianapolis Swa(m)p Meet in my 1949 Studebaker pickup, people look at my truck instead of the parts. Many of them want to buy it, but they don't really want what it is. They would yank out the "big six" and install a 350/350 and an air conditioner -- and then they would have something that looks like an old Studebaker truck, but it really isn't. Then there are those who would mount the cab, bed, and fenders on a late-model, salvage-yard chassis and sell the rest for scrap, so they can drive a Frankenstein of their own peculiar "creation."

i am an archivist who preserves printed materials, and so i value The Twelve-Port News, knowing that electronic files are extraordinarily fragile. A few feet away, in the room where i am writing this message, six volumes published in 1522 sit on a shelf. i know where they will be tomorrrow, the next day, and for many years to come. i do not know where any "digital" electronic file will be tomorrow, much less in 2050. HAMB's website will be, before long, a "404 error." This forum and all the knowledge contained in it will vanish, but issues of The Twelve-Port News will survive. Yet this forum will reach many people now who may never see an issue of our printed publication. We need both forms of communication! We need to maintain and enhance them both, as best we can, just as we maintain and "improve" all kinds of Inline machinery.

God's Peace to you.

d
Inliner #1450