My home hot rod club, Wanganui Road Rodders, had its 50th anniversary a few weeks back, and I contributed to a book that Peter Berge and other members were writing (fantastic job they did of it, too) to mark the event. I was asked to write about what it was like to be a hot rod club member in the 1980s. That doesn’t seem like long ago when you’re part of my generation and you say “the ’80s” quickly, but, bugger me, the early 1980s was 40 years ago. That’s before a significant proportion of NZV8 readers were even born.
We didn’t know it then, but it was a great period of our lives. Having a good time was easy, nobody took things too seriously, and there wasn’t much in the way of consequences if we overstepped the mark. In some ways, I’m sorry for the generations that have grown up since because they missed out on a much simpler life, and a life where, as young car guys, we were able to have some fun
