Confessions of a Drugstore Car Guy

Jan/Feb, 2012

Last month HMCCC voted to authorize the Raffle Rod Project. This makes our efforts to build and raffle-off a Deuce Hi-boy Roadster to benefit the Alzheimer’s Association a little less of a pipe dream. In addition, a number of our friends have invested some pretty big bucks in the project and others have been extremely generous with parts and offers of parts and services. I have to say, we’re off to a pretty good start.
Among the stuff we’ve recently scored: “Burnt orange pearl” paint donated by McHenry Paint in Frederick; machine work, parts and assembly of a SBC engine by Rockville Rod and Bearing; and SBC cylinder heads and dress-up parts from Chewey’s Performance Automotive. We’ve garnered a set of King Bee headlights, a chrome Edelbrock intake manifold and block-hugger headers, a SBC Chevy engine and a TH350 automatic transmission with a new torque convertor. We’ve also had friends offer a radiator, a new Edelbrock carburetor and other parts.
We have yet to park the biggest part of the project in our garage, so to speak. That part, we’ve come to realize, is the frame or chassis, and it’s literally the foundation on which everything else is built. The Committee discussed frame issues at length and agreed we need to acquire a “rolling chassis” as soon and as cheaply as possible. A rolling chassis would give us a big head-start in getting the Raffle Rod up-and-running.
A rolling chassis typically consists of a frame with front and rear suspension, rear axle housing and axles, brakes, and steering installed. It also includes the necessary cross-members and bracketry, with motor and transmission mounts, ready to set the body and running gear in place. It’s a huge piece of the project and having one professionally built is major.
We’ve done a lot of research and found rolling chassis to be expensive but with a huge range in price; from what seems fair and reasonable at one end of the spectrum to something you’d think came from Nieman-Marcus and bring you breakfast in bed on the other. We found a builder on the “fair and reasonable” end of the chart and decided to give them a shot.
A couple of weeks ago Paul and I drove to Georgia to check-out Supreme Hot Rods and talk to owner Jeremy Van Dusen about building our rolling chassis. SHR advertises a chassis for a very attractive price and their ads show a very professional looking product. But, seeing is believing, so we decided a road trip was in order.
SHR is a very well-equipped shop in Hoschton, GA, not too far from Atlanta (which made a side trip to my brother’s a no-brainer). They are set up to build just about any kind of a frame you’d want with specific jigs dedicated to the most common. The frames they had in progress attested to the high quality and attention to detail we wanted to see. We also saw the metal magic that can be achieved with computer-aided design (CAD) and laser cutting. Some of the frame components Jeremy had produced by these techniques looked like the parts inside a clock.
Paul and I spent a couple of hours with Jeremy, discussing our project and generally sizing one another up. I’ve got kids older than Jeremy and I have to say his approach to business and his imagination impressed both of us. Not only was he ready to build us a frame and save us a bunch of money doing it, he was ready to teach us how to market our project in the 21st Century. He convinced us “Social Media” can provide just the tools we need make the Raffle Rod Project a huge success!
For the rest of you Troglodytes, Social Media means Facebook, Twitter, and all those other gimmicks the younger generations are using to keep us dazed and con-fused. How does that help us, you ask? Good question, but I think it does. Social Me-dia tools apparently can spread the word, whatever it is, very quickly.
Think of Facebook as working like a huge pyramid scheme; you tell your friends, they tell their friends, etc., etc. and pretty soon everybody knows. Apparently the word spreads like wildfire. I thought Facebook was just for finding the folks you didn’t like in High School and for teenagers to keep track of stuff they didn’t want their parents to know about. And I was just now getting my head around e-mail and blogs! We will do Facebook; once I figure out how.
Right now Jeremy is contacting his suppliers to see what kind of discounts they’d be willing to give him on the various components that go into a rolling chassis. The more they give him, the more he can pass along to us. Upgrading the components, both in terms of bling and technology, will make the Raffle rod a lot more attractive to ticket buyers and, naturally, we want as much as we can get for has little as we have to spend.
With the Raffle Rod Project, as big an issue as securing a rolling chassis is selling raffle tickets. Duh! We’ve given a lot of thought as just how to do this and the best so-lution seems to be to take the show on the road; take the Project to the many events we all attend each year and set-up our ticket booth. The plan is to start selling tickets at the Frederick Flea Market in March and hit as many events as we can after that. Eventually we’d like to take the Raffle Rod with us so ticket-buyers can see what a great hot rod they’re taking a chance on winning.
In addition to selling tickets at our event-going ticket booth, we can help sell our sponsors’ products and thank everyone for their contributions. We can also market HMCCC and the Alzheimer’s Association and publicize up-coming events. I’m thinking there are lots of you out there just waiting for an invite to take a turn in the booth! Well, consider yourselves invited.
If you’d like to learn more about Supreme Hot Rods, check our their website at: supremehotrods.com. We will also be adding Raffle Rod info to the HMCCC website and setting up a project Facebook site.