Second Amendment

If patience truly is a virtue, Richard Parkes must be the most virtuous hot rodder we’ve ever come across…

- DB

Now a septuagenarian, Richard first visited Santa Pod around half a century ago, eventually returning for a second adrenalin rush a decade or so later – that time with his young son, Gary, in tow. Richard’s excuse for not rushing back to the Pod is he lived in Basingstoke so it was a fair trek. That’s as maybe, but it’s also a tell-tale sign that Richard isn’t a man who rushes into things.

Having bought his first copy of CC in the mid-’70s, Richard’s passion for hot rodding and drag racing blossomed, yet never fully bloomed. Visits to NDRC race meetings at Blackbushe and the Custom Car Shows at Olympia fed his passion, but were overshadowed by business commitments so, whilst the seed was sown, germination was to be a very lengthy business. Even in those days, though, Richard was certain of one thing: “I’ve always been a van man. You get more paint that way.”

As things turned out it was Gary, Richard’s son, who was the first in the family to own a hot rod of his own and, ultimately, that led to Richard fulfilling his dream. Circa 2007, when running the Pop he still owns today, Gary and a friend went along to view a car they were interested in buying when he came across something he thought might be of interest to his dad. Sat in the same barn was a ’58 Ford Thames 300E van, which had previously seen service with the City of Exeter Fire Brigade. A quick check round revealed the van was in pretty sound condition, and the odometer showed it had covered just 10,000 miles. There was a problem with it though – it wasn’t for sale. Quite the opposite in fact, as the owner at that time was intent on rodding it himself, and said he was about to fit a Pinto engine.