Upon discharging from the Air Force in 1957 Tom went to work for Peterson Publishing, where he held numerous positions, including editor of Hot Rod. He's also one of the founding members of the L.A. Roadsters Club, which Tom joined after acquiring the Deuce roadster that later became the black-and-flamed mascot for a later rag: Street Rodder. Tex even built a car (the XR-6) that won the America's Most Beautiful Roadster title, the top prize at the 1963 Grand National Roadster Show.
"He was watching what I was doing all the time and he said he wanted to get into that business," Tex said. "He started doing some freelance articles.
"But the stuff he was turning in to me at Hot Rod was just horrid," he lamented, chuckling. So I re-wrote it and created a persona. I treated him just like I did (Peterson photographer Eric) Rickman: give me the notes and I'll take it from there. Of course Jim (Clark) was fiddling around with helping him.
According to Jim, Tom contributed as many as 25 pages a month to Popular Hot Rodding. "It was big-time; a full-time thing," he said. "Then we started doing features for Cycle Guide, one of the really big-named cycle magazines. They wanted to feature a few choppers, so we photographed some.
"That was like another market for us. The muscle cars were sort of killing the early hot rods anyway." According to Jim, Tom bought a '47 Knuck. "He paid $200 to Ed Roth. We built it into a chopper in the garage.
"Anyway, we did a little book called Outlaw Choppers," he continued. It was a little TV Guide-size thing showing me and Tom building the bike and some photos of a run that the Hangmen and a couple other clubs made up to Idyllwild." In fact, they joined the club-at least Tom did. "I was a prospective," Jim said. "Being in the Hangmen gave us access to a lot of bikes to shoot and sell to Cycle Guide."
Whether in Tom's ever-faster Deuce roadster or amid chops belonging to one of Southern California's more notable clubs, things were going well. In fact, you could say things were really moving the day Tom hit a figurative brick wall. To be specific, it was a '65 Chevy wagon that turned in front of him while he was on the way to a Hangmen club meet.
"He got injured pretty badly," Jim recalled. "His shoulder, hands, and an ankle were all screwed up. We tried doing some of those freelance pieces but that wasn't working." They already had an ad in Cycle Guide listing the poster-sized collages made from the photos they took during the Hangmen runs, "So we put in the bottom of that ad, 'Send fifty cents for your catalog of chopper parts. "Well the letters came pouring in with quarters taped to them," Jim said. Only he admitted it was a little bit of a problem, "We didn't have a catalog.'
Now before we go on, you have to meet another person, Tom's second wife, Rose. She's still around but we have to go by second-hand information because Tom was, well...an asshole. He could be a real prick to the people who cared for him. While most people spoke fondly of Rose, they said her New York/Italian temperament meant she didn't suffer fools or take shit. An ugly and painful divorce (one where she rightfully sued and won for defamation of character) means her friends assume she wouldn't want to be a part of this story-a pity because, according to Dave Brackett, one of Tom and Rose's future employees, "The company wouldn't have been successful without either one of them."
"So Tom and Rose and my wife Frieda and I sat in Tom's kitchen and pulled quarters," Jim said. "(We) made up a four-page Xerox copy with proof-sheet photos and a manual typewriter and shipped 'em back."