Hot Rods What is a "real" hotrod?

I'm glad you took it in good humor, because that's a very nice and traditional hot rod!! [emoji3][emoji2][emoji41]

 

I guess I'm pretty old-fashioned....I grew up around hot rods that were pre-1952....my dad was always tinkering on hopped up old cars in the driveway, and his friends did the same thing....I never heard anyone call a car from 1955 upwards, a hot rod...they were always the older cars and trucks, made into something different than they were originally sold. My teenage years were the 1970's, and most everyone I knew, thought the same way------ It wasn't until 'slick' cars like Camaros, Firebirds, and the muscle car genre, that we all started looking at more modern cars as an option....but we never called them hot rods!!!...they were 'muscle cars' or called by their 'badge' name with respect!.....my personal opinion, is a legitimate 'hot rod' is pre-1950 that came originally with a set of running boards and individual fenders (easily taken off)

 

Hey Daddy-o!
Don't be so hard on yourself!
A little self-promo is OK in my book!
Especially from guys who "get it!"

 

^^^Tony!!That Car is the Bomb!! Pete

 

The concept of "Hot Rod" has been around as long as cars have been around.
Anybody who ever tried to go faster is a "hot rodder" conceptually.
The name didn't exist but the concept was there.
There are tons of variations. and all have a place.
Very roughly speaking, the guys around here are mostly of like mind.
I really can not define it, and never will really try.
But I know what I think it is when I see it.
And I know what it isn't when I see it also.
Most of what I see here are "REAL!"

 

VERY COOL THREAD

 

Actually if it is running boards and fenders removable it is going to be pre '37? Not to be argumentative just saying that a '48 Ford with the fenders removed would look pretty silly. A lot of us younger HAMBers get the pre '48 thing because a big club had a '48 cutoff year for a long time.

None of that really fits the question though. I was not there but if you look at the older propaganda movies and news papers hot rods were pretty much all pre war cars, all cut down and ready to take civilization by storm. And as I mentioned earlier not all of them were Fords, the socially acceptable portion of our great country lumped anything that made noise and would out run the family grocery getter into the same box.

it may go back to this, anything can be hot rodded in the strictest sense as in anything can be made to perform better, but not everything is a hot rod. Face it in 1953 no one was building hot rod Galaxies were they. So if the term hot rod has its birth place in the early '50s the only thing that is a "Hot Rod" in the purest sense of the term has to be something built in that era.

 

Of course...you are right about the years. I was really referring to the 'time frame' of when everyone knew what a hot rod was more-or-less. Personally, I think a real hot rod is something 'before' WW2....but make exceptions to those cars up to about 1950-52....since they were in the same time period. My father had both hot rods and customs of the 1950's....and I seem to remember everyone referring to hot rods as a 'pre' WW2 era car that was hopped up....they just all seemed to mix and match in those years----------but, from upwards of 1955....I don't think they were considered hot rods like 'they used to be'
I know that when cars when to 'full bodies' and the doors overtook the running boards on the exterior, around 36-37....the term hot rod was still in format, but it was a 'transitional' time and needed the years to accomodate the sleeker cars and full bodies became more vogue.-...........I my humble opinion, the true 'hot rod' term applies to a hopped up car up to, but not limited to....say, 1952...give or take a year or two.....and then ''customs'' became more popular.--------I could be totally wrong on this, but it just seems to me from what I remember growing up, and I don't understand the term 'hot rod' used on newer cars of today, but hey....I could be totally wrong on this consideration....I live in a time warp most days

 

LOL I understand the time warp I am stuck in the '60s. Was '50s born but I remember enough to know that it was not all "Leave it to Beaver" and I wouldn't go back there for love or money.

My personal belief and it is a personal thing is that boat fender cars lend themselves better to custom applications than they do hot rods. That is not to say that a boat fender car cannot not be fast just that they were more refined and to me a hot rod is not really refined, tough and tumble or scrappy would probably better describe a hot rod in my mind.

We all have a different idea according to our up bringing I suppose and language changes with usage.

 

Haha...true!.....I love the idea of Hot Rods and what they stand for...and am totally in agreement with the 'new' cars today that are built with a foundation of the traditional cars of the past...after all, there aren't as many 'real steel' cars out there hiding anymore sad to say.....but, I appreciate the tradition and love of old cars-----every era has it's good times and bad....I think I'm just happy with old style hot rods because they can be fun and built 'like they used to' without a degree in engineering....every time I open my little two stall garage out back, and tinker on my cars...I feel I am keeping a bit of the 'old school' thoughts up and running, and it makes me smile, just like it made my dad and grandfather smile at what they accomplished......I think it all comes down to, what a person 'thinks' is a hot rod and enjoys the car to it's fullest...that is a hot rod, no matter what another may say....we can't all have an 'original' hot rod of the 40's or 50's...but by golly, I'm gonna pretend it is in my own little world of enjoyment.

 

Though I'll never get there, The The Race of Gentlemen is how I remember Hot Rods. At 13 my 1st build was a 33 3 window ford. Put a 39 Merc in it. 3 years latter I bought a 40 coupe with 8ba. My dad sold the 33 for 40.00 bucks, " son you can't have 2". He's never been forgiven. I'm 72 and the plague still lives! Those were hot rod days! Thanks Oilers, you make my " Back in the Day". PS. Jim do you have a sister or aunt by name Tammy Sibley?

 

My first prewar Ford was a 15 dollar T. it had a busted flathead in it and ended up with a 283 and a 3 speed sag. An old guy showed me how to convert the Banjo to open drive and it ran along just fine until I sold to a guy who wanted to build a "real hot rod" out of it. The banjo didn't hold up to the 396 he put in it. 150 made that old Ford change owners and to this day I wish I had kept it. That would have been 45 or so years ago now. Today given my attitude toward all things obsolete I may have stuffed another flatty in it, it was a neat old build.

 

I'm not sure. I have a lot of relatives. Is she nice? If so then she's mine[emoji4]

 

My opinion... Hotrod is Mid 50s on down, only if its hopped up with some speed stuff, the altitude and attitude have been changed, gasser or lowered! Decent sounding exhaust or headers, but my main ingredients are. Built by a man/woman and some friends in his/her garage, and driven frequently.

50s Cars and trucks can go either way, Kustom or Hotrod.
Early 60s cars are some exception.
Muscle cars are not Hotrods They are muscle cars and should come with a complimentary mullet.

 

Actually the mullet came at least a decade after the muscle car was king, I currently am sporting the proper hair do for the muscle car. In the ever enduring words of The Cowsills, "oh give me a head with hair, long beautiful hair . . ." The Mullet is soooooo '80s.

 

As with real hot rods I wolds say we can divide it in early and late decades and I would say they was big in the seventy mid to late 70s.

1976 is where this guy showed the mullet.
In OT cult movies, (car-ish movies) in 1977 (smokey and the bandit), 1978 (hooper) and so on.

IM SO STUPID!!! Thanks to Seb Fontana to point it out. I read mullet, and my brain got mustache.

My bad!!!!!!

 

You guys gotta remember, the Hot Rod is really a time machine for the driver.
porkandbeaner really has it nailed.
The only thing sad is that so many say
"wish I had kept it."
I look at it differently.
I'm glad I sold every car I ever had.
If I hadn't I wouldn't have had the chance
to have and drive so many others!
The time machine thing is very relative.
If your perspective is today's refferance point,
a hot rod makes no sense.
But if you get in a car and referance the time it was
built and try to get what that feeling was when the guy
who built it was driving it, you are there.
My avitar car has been with me longer than any
car I have ever had.
It has given me more fun, more good times,
and more good friends, than any other car I have had.
And when I drive it it is always about 1952,
and I'm always about 18 years old.
I found out it's not what you drive, but what drives you!
A Hot Ford is never going to run like a Jaguar, on the back roads.
I know because I had about 10 of them.
It's never going to beat almost everything stoplight to stoplight
like a '63 Impala SS with a 409-425HP 12/1 compression,
4 speed 4:88 rear, like the one I had.
It's not going 0-60 in 4.5 seconds like the '86 Turbo Regal.
But it does make me happy every time I go for a drive.
Because a Hot Rod is just a state of mind.
And that, is that!

 

Right on Tony... And Pork you got me again on the mullet. haha.

Nothing like a Model A Hotrod... Never knew what all the hype and enjoyment was about till I built mine.

 

Actually Tony I think you are closer to the truth than anyone here, it is a state of mind thing. If you plant yourself firmly in the seat and it does not take you back in time at he very least in your mind you have missed it and it does not matter how many original old parts you throw at it.

 

Ha Ha,
Right on pork!

 

The state of mind works for me every time.
We went out for ice cream the other night.
My wife, my youngest son, and his girl friend.
We went in a 1929 Model A.
It was 1931 and we were Bonnie and Clyde, Buck and Blanch.
I even heard "Foggy mountain break down!"

 

Now if the parlor had an old player piano it would have been perfect.

I loaded up my dad in my old '46 once about 30 years ago. I knew where there was this old soda fountain that was a gennie time capsule and we went for ice cream sodas. One of those perfect days.

Too bad we miss so damned much by staying alive and not spending enough time living.

 

Beaner,
This is why I try to drive an old car every day.
I don't have to go fast and I don't have to go far.
I just have to go!
Not to get sappy but somebody said "Life's a journy not a destination."
(I think it was Aerosmith!).
Anyhow, I gotta go out and ajust the noisey speedo cable on my son's
Beater '40 coupe. He's 27, the car is a '40 coupe, and it's been a Hot Rod since
1958! You can't make this stuff happen, It just does!

 

I didn't know Reynolds do in SATB was a mullet, thought it had to be long in the back? Or maybe me thinking of another style; not that I have any! Good post Tony..I feel it every time I get in one of my cars..

 

You are completely correct, that was me not being totally focused. I thought we was talking mustaches, and gut a little carried away with the mullet. I forgot mullet is a hair thing, on the back.
Sorry, my bad!
Back to hot rods

 

I cant drive mine to work every day.. But I do make up for it by driving them from Friday to sunday, and not getting in my later model tow pig. Both have their own feel to driving them. Instantly turning the clock back at least 50 to 60 yrs. Even though I wasn't around back then like some of you guys were, I can get the feel of what it was like. All that through 4 wheels, motor, and some vintage tin. But the people I have met along the way, and the people I will meet soon is what makes this even better I think.

The look on a kids face when you let them sit in your truck/car And turn the steering wheel, knowing that maybe one day he/she will build their own. Pass on the torch and tradition.

 

I got one right, I got one right!! ..

 

""I don't have to go fast and I don't have to go far.
I just have to go!"" Per Tony...Good one..

 

LOL the older I get the more I got to go.

I have discovered that I don't go about as much as I used to but I do enjoy every trip.

 

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!