“Hot Rod Lincoln” is a song by American singer-songwriter Charlie Ryan, first released in 1955. It was written as an answer song to Arkie Shibley’s 1951 hit “Hot Rod Race” which describes a race in San Pedro, Los Angeles between two hot rod cars, a Ford and a Mercury, which stay neck-and-neck until both are overtaken by “a kid in a hopped-up Model A”. “Hot Rod Lincoln” is sung from the perspective of this third driver, whose own hot rod is a Ford Model A body with a Lincoln-Zephyr V12 engine, overdrive, a four-barrel carburetor, 4:11 gear ratio, and safety tubes. A cover version of “Hot Rod Lincoln” was recorded by country musician Johnny Bond and released in 1960 through Republic Records, with Bond’s lyrics changing the hot rod’s engine from a V12 to a V8. (More from Wikipedia)
I think that I ordered Shut Downs and Hill Climbs on the strength of “Hot Rod Lincoln” that a school chum had told me about. In a sort of giddy deadpan manner, the song relates a race between two souped-up hot rods interspersed with hot guitar licks. This version, by Johnny Bond was a hit in 1960, but the song (and car songs in general) dates back a lot further than that.
The lyrics in the song are among the densest in popular music; the Charlie Ryan original version of “Hot Rod Lincoln” runs for 13 verses. There are fun quotes throughout the song: “Well the fellas ribbed me for being behind / So thought I’d make the Lincoln unwind / Took my foot off the gas and man alive / I shoved it on down into overdrive”; “The fenders clickin’ the guard rail posts / The guy beside me was white as a ghost”; “They said, ‘Slow down, I see spots’ / The lines on the road just looked like dots”; “I knew I could catch him, and hoped that I could pass / But when I did I’d be short on gas”; “I said, ‘hold on I’ve got a license to fly’ / And the Cadillac pulled over and let me go by”; and “Well they arrested me and put me in jail / And called my pop to go my bail / He said, ‘Son, you’re gonna to drive me to drinkin’ / If you don’t stop drivin’ that Hot Rod Lincoln.’”
To this day, whenever it happens to be 4:11 on the clock, another lyric from that song goes through my head: “With four eleven gears you can really get lost”.
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The opening verse in “Hot Rod Lincoln” makes it sound as though there was even more to the story: “Have you heard this story of the Hot Rod Race / When Fords and Lincolns was settin’ the pace / That story is true, I’m here to say / I was drivin’ that Model A.” And actually there was – “Hot Rod Lincoln” is an answer to a song dating from the year of my birth: “Hot Rod Race”, a Western swing hit song from 1951 by Arkie Shibley and his Mountain Dew Boys.
The original song “Hot Rod Race” is largely forgotten today, but “Hot Rod Lincoln” has shown up in all kinds of places over the years. The song was written and first recorded in 1955 by Charlie Ryan (who had also recorded a version of “Hot Rod Race”); he actually owned a “hot rod Lincoln” as described in the song: a shortened 1948 Lincoln chassis with a 12-cylinder engine that had the body of a 1930 Model A Ford. The Johnny Bond hit that I have talks about 8 cylinders rather than the 12 in the original song.
Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen took “Hot Rod Lincoln” to #9 in 1972 (it was the #69 song for the entire year of 1972 in fact according to Billboard). Other covers include those by the Western swing revival band Asleep at the Wheel, Pat Travers, the punk rock band ALL, Roger Miller, Les Claypool (for the 2003 album NASCAR: Crank it Up), and Jim Varney (recorded for the soundtrack of the 1993 film The Beverly Hillbillies in which he starred as Jed Clampett). Varney is best known for his character Ernest P. Worrell and his unseen friend Vern; he made innumerable commercials in the early years of his career for the Raleigh dairy Pine State Creamery.
According to Wikipedia: “‘Hot Rod Lincoln’ and ‘Hot Rod Race’ are defining anthems of the hot rod community.”
(December 2014)
