A recent transplant to Richmond from Alabama via upstate New York, Laura Confer is primed and ready to experience the city everyone is so happy to show off. As she navigates this new terrain, she’ll be writing about her adventures. Tell her where she should go! Tell her what she should do! Tell her to stop talking about food so much!
When I walked into the well-worn shop, tall metal shelves teeming with car parts and dusty boxes teetering on grease-stained concrete floors, I felt a little out of place in my purple, ruffly dress. After all, the other people there – all of whom were dudes – were sporting jeans and sweatshirts, Harley Davidson jackets and chain wallets. No one else was wearing tights and kitten heels. And it didn't fucking matter.
Through a friend I had heard about the open house Doug Walker hosts every first Wednesday at his shop, Joe Smith Early V8 & Hot Rod in Henrico, and I just had to visit. Being so new to town is one thing, but I’m also a complete stranger to the hot rod world in general, so it didn't take much arm-twisting to get me to go along to a night of tacos, beer, and car talk. Despite some superficial worries about not being able to keep up with shop talk, I went along without expectation, and once again this town and its awesome people showed me an amazing night.
Doug Walker, who has been the owner of the garage since 2009, started having a monthly open house after he found his customers and friends hanging out later and later at the shop, eager to show off their restored cars and talk about the hot rod culture. Walker has revitalized the decades-old business; founded originally as a parts dealer, the business morphed over the years into a motorcycle, then hot rod shop before falling dormant some years ago. Walker bought the then-defunct business and has spent the past few years building it into a successful car restoration operation. Above all else, the business values a strong sense of community, which Walker likens to the punk rock ethic Richmond knows so well.
“People that make things” are the ones who flock to these get-togethers, according to Walker, and I found that to be exactly the case. I’m a writer (who’s arguing here that stringing together words is making something, so just bear with me on that loose definition). I was brought to this night by Sam Shaban, a local artist who creates these intense paintings, and I met a whole slew of people who restore cars. I don’t know how I viewed that passion beforehand – as a person who isn’t really into cars herself, but certainly appreciates a good-looking set of wheels cruising down the street, I don’t know that I understood exactly what goes into hot rods or car restoration. Once there, Sam introduced me to people who take these rusty shells and outdated parts and turn them back into the gorgeous cars they once were. Listening to Doug and another enthusiast talk about chopping up the roof of a car and fitting it back together to accommodate newer technology and the lessened availability of original parts, I saw the artistry in what these people are doing. That shit sounds difficult, dude.
Beyond that, though, the sense of community and camaraderie these people clearly shared and extended toward me was awesome. After a few beers the details get fuzzy, but the conversation spanned Harleys, getting drunk in the woods as a teenager, how Virginia isn’t super Southern (sorry y’all, but it just ain’t), and ragging really hard on one dude who’s from North Carolina because he just couldn’t tell I was kidding (and that’s when I’m going to give you the most shit). Jamming all that hilarity into a couple of hours with people who were probably a teeny bit skeptical when I walked in the door is no mean feat, but it’s exactly that type of atmosphere that spurred Walker to create these nights in the first place.
As with any other passion, online communities have sprung up in the car world, but Walker feels there’s something missing from those interactions. Believing the most meaningful relationships grow in basements, garages, or junkyards, sifting through beat-up old parts, Walker hoped to create a place for the beginners of the field to bump elbows with the more experienced, leading to an atmosphere of building cars and community "in a very real, very tangible way." These nights have done just that. As someone completely new to this world, I wasn't even sure what questions to ask at first; once the crew realized I was genuinely interested, though, they started telling me about their cars, what work they've done so far, and what they hope to accomplish. One gets a sense of history in that garage, not just from the cars themselves, but from the individual perspectives and contributions these people are making to the Richmond car scene--which is, Walker admits, somewhat privatized. Because so many hot rod owners work on their cars in their homes, they can often be isolated, and Walker feels that many of these car owners end up with a gorgeous machine that they are almost scared, in some ways, to drive once it’s finished. As with the punk scene, Walker views the hot rod culture as “starkly individualistic,” with people “striving viciously to build their dreams.” With his open house nights, he’s hoping to provide a face-to-face forum for those individuals to collide. That kind of grassroots enthusiasm permeates these nights. Mixed with the honest pleasure of one another’s company, it makes them the perfect place for a kid interested in cars, as well as a tagalong writer interested in everything.
When describing what he’s building here in Richmond, Walker turns to one of his favorite quotes, from the documentary American Hardcore. When Paul Mahern from the band Zero Boys is asked about the underground punk scene in the 1980s Midwest, he likens the influx of bands in big cities like Washington DC to a stream; if the bands are there, new kids just have to jump in and get wet. But, “in the middle of the Midwest, you have dig the fucking well. There’s no stream.” By giving people space to come together and share in this passion, Walker is digging his own fucking well for the Richmond car culture.