Joe’s street rod story starts with his childhood neighbors who were drag racers. He spent a lot of time ogling their cars until finally the neighbor made him a deal that he could help out and go to the races with them if he mowed the neighbor’s lawn. They had a ’56 Corvette body on a ’34 Ford chassis with a blown Pontiac, a ’32 Ford roadster, and a ’34 Ford roadster they ran in A and B Street Roadster classes. Joe mowed the crap out of that lawn and that’s how he got hooked. Eventually they got Joe a ’53 Studebaker coupe with a Pontiac and a ’37 Packard three-speed, but that car never actually made it to the street. The story of Joe’s first car actu- ally starts with his dad getting home from his job at GM and Joe hearing something that was too good to be his dad’s car pulling into the driveway. His dad
told him that since his bedroom was covered with pictures of hot rods and he either spends all night checking out the action at the neighbor’s house or coming in late smelling of grease and oil, he figured Joe might like this ’31 Ford. Joe surprised everyone by jumping in and grinding the horrific shifting car into gear and taking off in the rod powered by a drag racing ready 301 (4-inch bore, 3-inch stroke) with a long-throw, poor-shifting three-speed. Joe met his wife Pauline when she saw he had a car for sale and pretended to go look at it. Her inten- tion was to meet Joe and have some one-on-one time. Joe took the bait and they began dating. Right out of high school, Joe had the chance to go to col- lege and play baseball, so he took it, getting through college and finding a spot playing minor league ball MAY 2026 35
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