Boyz Under the Hood

When cars were cars

    They can’t call themselves Boyz Under the Hood anymore because the classic car club, based in Vallejo, now has two women members. But the girls are really just “one of the guys,” according to Chip Carter, outgoing president of Boyz Under the Hood and one of the club’s four founding members.
    As a teen growing up in Vallejo, and later as owner of North Bay Cabinets and Countertops, Carter always wanted to tinker with classic cars. But until recently, work at his shop kept him too busy. Not long ago, however, he bought a ’56 pickup truck and “got bit by the bug,” as he calls it. Consequently, Carter and his brother-in-law Chuck Matheson spent Saturdays working on the truck, along with best friend Greg Conrad and Carter’s brother Mike Wertz. Afterward they would head over to the Good Day Café to eat and brag about how they were a club. “All our friends would give us a bad time,” Carter says. But then those friends started saying, “I want to be a member.”
    Two years ago last January, the four men finally decided to make it official and formed Boyz Under the Hood to see if anybody would join. Now, with 55 official club members plus their families, the Boyz (and two women) have limited membership to ten new members every six months. Carter says the restrictions were enacted because members want to pace growth so the club doesn’t split into factions as other car clubs have done. “We want to remain close-knit,” he explains. “When we don’t know a guy’s name, we need to stop growing and get to know that guy and his family before we move on.”
    The group does more than work on their cars. Among other activities, club members travel together to attend car shows where they often win awards for having the most cars from any one club entered in a show.
    In the meantime, every fourth Thursday of the month the club heads over to the parking lot at Rubio’s and Cold Stone Creamery for cruise night. Here, they line up 30 or so cars, pop open the hoods and show off their vehicles to the hundreds of shoppers attracted by the impromptu shows. Occasionally someone asks Carter about buying one of his cars. “My intention was to fix them up and sell them,” Carter says. “But I like ’em so much I never sell them.”

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