Art & Inspiration What car(s) inspired you to have what you own today?

I always liked building things since I was a kid - tinker toys, erector set, model airplanes, model cars, etc. Around 10 or so, I saw this 55 Chevy lowered with lake pipes and thought that was the coolest thing around. I got into flying model airplanes then fixing up bicycles (but never forgot that 55 image) until I got my first car - a 55 Chevy Bel Air 2 Dr Hardtop. Gassers were the hot thing then and I could relate to them - fast but still resembled a car (unlike dragsters, funny cars or altereds). So every bit of money I made went into my Gasser inspired 55. I ran the car in D/MP and E/G on weekends as well to work and on dates - w/ dual quads and 5.13 rear end... Chevron Custom Supreme was $.50/gal. Hence today I own 3 Gassers - a 40 Willys, 52 Henry J and 55 Chevy. How about you?

 

My father had 3 mid year vette 2 65's 327 350 hp cars matching, one coupe one conv, and a 67 big block when I was a child. Riding in those cars I've been severely hooked since, got a hot rod and car craft subscription with my first paper route money. Built models, built bikes, raced bmx, skated, all the while saving anything I could, got a loan from a family member at 15 to buy a 69 camaro in 91. I worked 600 hours to pay that back. Street strip raced the camaro turning low 12s in 1994 with your daily driver was respectable for a high school kid. Building that car now, a 63 impala is next, it's the parts car for my father's 63 409 SS.

 

View attachment 2800124 View attachment 2800124 Cal gasser did about the same things as a kid. When the Amt model cars came out built all of the 36 39 40 ford sedans Thats why I have my 39 Dlx
sedan. Also in high school there was a 57 Chevy big block 396 straight axle car and that made me think a 56 Chevy would be a neat gasser car and always wanted one when I got the chance to buy a old D/MP 56 Chevy 1/8 mile car It had to be Also my first hot rod was a 36 ford 5 window in the 70s best 300 bucks I ever spent. A lot if late nights in the garage . Thanks again to those Amt trophy series model kits

 

Started building model cars 52 years ago. So pretty much whatever AMT, Revell and Monogram sold piqued my interest.

43 years ago (January 1, 1972), I was sitting in a restaurant in Tulsa, eating coneys, and looking out the window at a used car lot across the street. There was a '56 Nomad, red & white, with "Make Offer" written on the windshield. As I was not old enough for a learner's permit (month and a half short), I asked my dad to take me there the next day when they were open. It was a 265, Powerglide car with "Mickey Thompson" mags on narrow white walls. We took it for a test drive. They did not want to trade straight across for my dad's '64 Falcon 4 dr. 19 years later, I finally bought one.

In March of 1980, okiedokie here on the HAMB had a '40 Ford Deluxe coupe for sale. It was black, with maroon (oxblood) and off-white interior (at least that's what my memory tells me). 283 with Ford trans and closed driveline. I wanted that car so badly! Alas, I was in last semester of college and no money. But someday I hope to own a black '40 Ford coupe!

 

This car. Dad and I would spend Saturday afternoons driving up and down mile sections in the country looking behind barns for 32-34 fords. He never found one, but I have a 5w now with sights on a 3w next.

 

I am in my forties; Dad is a retired State Trooper. His first new car after coming home from overseas in the ARMY was a 1962 Impala SS with a 327, 3 speed and "pull overdrive" bought from Charlie Irish Chevrolet in Baltimore. When I turned 15 he found a garaged kept 1962 Impala; Honduras Maroon, Fawn "salt & pepper" interior, 2 dr, with a 235 six and "iron glide." It was the original owner who took a liking to pops. When he passed away, Dad got a call from his daughter; car was his...38,000 miles, never saw the rain, original spare in the trunk and all service records. Literal time capsule. That was 1982. We started hitting the swap meets and shows in the east; like Carlisle, Pa. I saw a 409/409 on a start stand in the back of an old Chevy pickup at Carlisle that year. The seller would fire it up every couple of hours..."$1500 o.b.o." great deal I thought. The old man had the wisdom to find an ermine white 62 SS with a 327 in it for me a few weeks later. His words; "son, you will not modify this gem!!!" That's where it started for me. I am a Chevy guy; but have had a few Fords and Mopars. Currently I am finishing a 1962 Impala SS with a incorrect 63 409/425 (63 motor) and my son now has a 1984 Monte Carlo SS we are working on. Truth be told I would have one of each. My favorite car is the "John Milner" 32 from American Graffiti. Every kid should be able to build one. Next on my list of things to do...I have kept with the period correct mods on my 62; Stahl fenderwell headers, big white walls, white tuck and roll...

 

My dad would tell me stories about this Willys. He bought it as a stock body in South Dakota when he was working up there and flat towed it back to Texas. He put a junkyard 327 and a muncie 4 speed in it with a 10% engine setback. The weak part was the 1955 Chevy rearend. He eventually sold it and always regretted getting rid of it. The 56 Corvette that I have now is my secound favorite car after a steel 37-42 willys coupe. When the movie Hot Rod came out it was like throwing fuel on the fire.

 

My farther's first car was a '55 fairlane. Really nice, big fourdoor, v8 automatic, pink and white(although he calls it salmon). The story goes that my grandfather bought the car from a friend in a neighboring town for $50, no****le, which i guess was kinda of problem in'64. They towed it the 60 miles home, and on the way my father and his older brother were messing with the round radio and got the car loose, spun grandpa's truck, broke the tow chain and went backwards through a number of yards of barbed-wire fence. Dad says the barbs scratched deep grooves across the decklid, rear glass and top. Anyway, they made it home and Pop got to drive it to school 6 or 8 months until the tags went out, then it was sold. He still talks about with pride. Recently, I came across a '55 customline half built project for a decent deal and we're having alot fun with it. He says he "don't wanna work around on old cars anymore" but he comes by my shop nearly everyday. Thanks
dave

 

Bought a street rodder magazine in about 75 or 76 ,was 15-16 years old,saw a maroon 38 ford Tudor....bought a rough 39 Tudor worked on it a couple years drove it to high school before graduating ......still have it !

 

That is a real "Hot Rod"

 

This coupe from Colorado Springs in Hot rod magazine July 1964 and others like it.. My first car was a 1954 ford club coupe . So now in my late 60s I have a 32 5W very similar to this one and a 54 coupe very similar to my first car. I have went a couple different directions over the years but keep coming back to late 50s and early 60s style. I was most influenced from around 1959 to mid 60s . That's where my hart is. My son is realy into period correct 40s and 50s hot rods, he has a very cool 32 3W but it just does not do anything for me. He must get it from the rowdy bunch he hangs out with.

 

These cars and other Fords built like them just left an impression that still effects me today.

 

The first car I owned was a Model A with a hopped up banger. I was also 1/2 owner of a banger powered Model A roadster that we ran in the old X class. 20 years in the military and a couple of bad marriages put an end to my hot rods until just recently. I'm now reliving my high school years with another hopped up banger powered Model A, and loving it.

 

Built the Revell model 55 chevy when I was 12, then got the Hot Rod issue with Kollofski's 55 when I was 16. years later when I was 32, I did some work on a friend's 55 hardtop, and a few years later I had to buy my own. 20 years after that, I've put a lot of miles on it, and had a lot of fun with it.

I don't think anything inspired me to have my old truck...it was for sale when a friend of the family needed rent money, I was 15, my dad bought it cheap. Somehow I still have it 37 years later.

 

Nurture or nature? Not sure. I spent a lot of my early years with my Dad. He always had a few old cars in various state of repair and I liked the early cars ( model A ) from my preschool days til now. I guess I never grew up -


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These two fellas and their cars were among the 1st to inspire me

 

Classic pic Robber! Grabowski and Ivo tearing down the strip. Magic.

 

Bingo Martin Harris!!! 2 of my very 1st heroes!

 

I had a bunch of rides in my buddy's T roadster and just had to have one myself so....


After much work I'm almost finished .

 

Here's one from my youth: Nick Butler's Revenge. 454 big block, 800Hp.
But it was the stylised C cab body that really did it for me.

 

This is what really inspired me as I knew the guy who built it. Not a rod, I know, but this metalflaked wonder was a real trophy magnet back in the UK in the mid 70s. Engine was Rover 215 v8, interior all*****oned velvet.

 

And then there's Dan Woods Ice Truck:

I have a bit of a C cab fetish....!!

 

Project X

 

Dad's 911 Porsche.. Really not much to do with hot rods but it was really quick and he drove the piss out of it. More of a car and driving start than a hot rod thing but it was a fun start.


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Dad wasn't into them, and nobody else in my family was either. My mom told me I used to go bat***** crazy as a kid when a loud car or truck would drive by. It was Lego's... Then model cars, then RC cars, then bmx...

My parents bought me a subscription to hotrod in the 2nd grade as a gift because I bugged them so cars were always an unobtainable fantasy that pushed me into other, more age appropriate avenues...

Then my neighbor took me and my dad to march meet to surprise me when I was 12.

My tiny brain exploded. I saw a nose high 55 Chevy gasser idle right through the middle of the show in the late morning on Saturday looking for parking.

I remember watching it idle out the back of the swap meet area and looking for it the rest of the day.

It was nowhere to be found but it didn't matter... I was hooked...

 

When I was about 12- 13 years old, there was an older "juvenile delinquent" with a rough 53 Studebaker coupe with a later engine and overdrive, he cut 3 wraps off the front coils and 6" lowering blocks. He was constantly in trouble- outrunning the cops- one time across 3 states. I said to myself " I want to be like him" All that resulted in a vintage land speed race car.

 

I was always into old junk thanks to my Dad, but I didn't catch the bug for traditional speed parts and race inspired vehicles until I saw Larry Fator's '46 Chevy Sedan Delivery in Hot Rod Magazine. There's just something about it that is so damn cool...

 

I guess I was inspired by the full fendered coupes in the old Hot Rod Magazine. I loved the ones with the right stance, white filled top and running boards, chrome reverse wheels, white interior and Corvette fuel injected engines. I wanted a 3 window like that. Then I saw the Jackman brothers coupe and thought that it was perfect. Glad that its still around.

 

When I was born my grandfather was a collector and restorer of antique cars. He started collecting in 1938 and I was born in 1950 and attended car shows from 9 months onward, so I was always around collector cars. I started working in his restoration shop when I was 13 so I had some extra money to put towards cars when the time arose. Even though I was around really nice old cars for some reason I built models of drag cars (mostly 40 and 41 Willys) and after attending my first drag race in the mid 60s I was hooked on drag cars. A couple of brothers in my neighborhood were switching from Pontiacs to Corvettes in 1967 and they asked if I wanted to do the bodywork etc on a 57 Vette that was in horrible shape that they ended up running in B/G. The other car was a 61 Vette that they ran in the stock classes (283/270). Since that day, drag Corvettes have been an affliction I will never get over and I own several old drag Vettes from the 60s. There also was a black 61 Starliner 390 hi-po car in the neighborhood that the owner rarely drove on the street. The brothers knew the owner and I talked him into selling it to me but as soon as my dad heard it he nixed it (I was only 17 at the time and my dad was the final word in my house). Never forgot the Starliner so recently I bought a 61 Starliner 390 car (not a hi-po) as I figure I better buy it now or it would never happen. It is the first done car I have ever bought and have to make a few changes to make it mine I suppose. All of my cars bring back memories of the great times I had at the drag strips and street scene back in metropolitan Detroit in the 60s.

Jason-love the Willys. I have too many projects now but the Willys are sure tempting.-Jim

 

Great shot. Digging the tow-bar.