before there were hot rods…
Before the term “hot rod” was a thing, souped up pre-war cars were called “gow jobs.” There are several theories on the origins of that term – here are two. Some folks say it was how recently arrived “Okies” in Depression-era California pronounced “go jobs.” Others claim it was derived from “yao-kao” – Cantonese for opium. Being "gowwed-up" (originally describing someone under the influence of opium) shifted to mean hopped-up.
This term may have inspired early California modifiers to call their high-performance Model-Ts "gow jobs.” We may never know the true origin story, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is these were some really cool cars that gave birth to the hot rod movement, and this here page is dedicated to one of them, the ‘22 Gilmore car, a “Multy” tribute.
These old black & white images are believed to be the legendary “Multy” gow job, which inspired the Gilmore car seen in the color photos.
The Gilmore car was built as a tribute to the roadster campaigned by Roy “Multy” Aldrich, a fixture of the early Southern California Timing Association (SCTA) scene. Aldrich became legendary less for winning trophies than for the stringent technical safety inspections he performed at the dry lakes and, later, at Bonneville — a role he held for decades, effectively serving as an unofficial hospitality and safety official for the racing community from the late 1940s on. His own car ran a Ford four-banger fitted with a Multy-designed overhead-valve conversion, a period speed part that set it apart from the flathead crowd.
Apparently the Multy tribute T was constructed by a builder known as Doc, working on the West Coast. Doc’s build captured the look and spirit of Aldrich’s original car – though it was never fitted with the Multy OHV head itself. (Anyone know Doc and how I can get hold of him? I’d love to hear directly from him, to help fill in the blanks). The car passed into the hands of Mel Stultz (Meldon Van Riper Stultz III, @yeoleghost on Instagram), founder of The Race of Gentlemen (T.R.O.G.), the beach and dirt drag racing event that has become a cornerstone of the modern traditional hot rod revival. Stultz owned and enjoyed it for several years, during the birth of TROG. By Mel’s own account, he always intended to install a period Multy OHV head, but with a growing family and too many other irons in the fire, Stultz traded the car for a 1930s Indian — a swap that, by circumstantial account, appears to have been made with another legend, Earl N. “Gov” Yearick.
Via that trade with Mel, the Model T entered the collection of Earl Nathan "Gov" Yearick, owner of #1 Cycle Center Harley-Davidson dealership in Centre Hall, Pennsylvania. Gov wasn’t just a shop owner and collector — he was a highly regarded racer in his own right, competing on circle tracks, flat tracks, and dirt tracks on both motorcycles and cars. He was a skilled driver and was honored as Rookie of the Year at age 56 at Port Royal Speedway. That background made him a natural fit to take in a car with this kind of pedigree, and the Gilmore T remained in his personal collection until his passing December 29th, 2025.
Following Gov’s death, his son Jody began settling the estate, which included liquidating the vehicle collection. The 1922 Model T “Gilmore” car was acquired by the current owner directly from Jody as part of that estate sale. What makes this car more than just a random gow job is the unbroken chain of hands it passed through: a tribute built by an anonymous West Coast craftsman to honor one of the dry lakes’ most respected safety men, owned by the founder of the event most responsible for reviving the pre-war racing culture, then kept for years by an accomplished circle track, flat track, and dirt track racer before finding its way to its current owner. Every owner in the chain had real racing in their blood. Few gow jobs carry documentation this specific — most of that history exists only in memory, which makes Mel Stultz’s own personal accounts of the car especially valuable as a record.
