You might want to have a wank before you take her out, you'll last longer than a few seconds that way.
But seriously, I have a late model muscle car and it's stable mate is in my avatar, and there is simply no comparison. I definitely get more smiles to the mile in the '58, hands down winner. Everyone loves it, even people who aren't car people. But in summer Houston traffic I do enjoy my A/C, and it will haul ass because I didn't leave that engine alone either. Amazing what you get with a "tune", plug and play. That with some old school hop ups like full length headers, performance exhaust, larger throttle body, CAI and I'm mid-13's at the strip on street tires. Minimum body roll and understeer, means I can be at the same speed as you but beat you through the twisties, face it, technology rules in this area, and I'm having a blast with it even if it is dated by the latest muscle cars coming out. If I put some metric dollars into it I could keep up with a blower kit and a set of cams, but I think I'll trot down to the dealership before I'd do that. I'm lucky I can enjoy both sides of the fence, no shame in my game.
My wife does cross-stitch even though she has zero interest in any other kind of needlework. She wouldn't even sew on a button. Tell her she can't do cross-stitch but that there's a new form of knitting that's demonstrably so much better, and she'd probably take up something completely unrelated instead. I can understand the new-car thing up to a point. It's how my dad's mind works. My dad got me into cars but his mind is completely different to mine. He is all about admiration; I'm all about creativity. My dad's cars are cars he admires; mine are cars which generate exciting possibilities. As soon as a car ceases to spark my creativity I lose all interest. Up to somewhere in the '90s I knew all about the new cars, because if you cut this off around there, remove this and machine that like so, then put in one of those ... At some point new cars stopped doing that for me. Today they allow of no response except 'yes' or 'no'. On a completely different point: how fast do you need to go to have fun? I suspect some of the new cars can be dull at 200mph. My Morris Minor is bags of fun at 40mph.
Actually I have driven some pretty fast new cars. But performance is only one key component of the total package. Impressive, yes. But how often can you put a car like that through its paces? Not very on the roads around here. One trick pony. So yeah, my refined tastes would still confidently say SNOOOZE.
"""So, he asked me how much HP I was expecting from mine and why would I bother building a Hot Rod, when I could get something faster and more efficient from the factory""" funny how no one ever says the same thing about a guy buying a boat or an ATV or some other fun vehicle. he is comparing fun toys to vehicles. you should have asked him why he would spend 70 grand on something that will be worth 20 grand by the time he is done paying for it.
He knows his car probably won't hold it's value and he's okay with that. I think "everyone deserves one shot". No matter what it is. The world is full off people, who didn't take a chance on something or didn't try one thing or another. It would suck to end up on your death bed "wishing". So, he says this is his shot. Honestly, I can't fault him for that. Oh, as stated earlier, he didn't get the Demon. He got a T/A instead. Which is better for his limited experience with fast cars. It's still a beast, but a little more sedated than the Demon or Hellcat.
I read all of the posts here this is a great thread. I have had a few fast cars since I was old enough to start driving and recall being 16 years old and walking into the local Dodge dealership in Moose Jaw Saskatchewan. There sat a brand new yellow with black stripes 1970 Challenger T/A with the 440 6 pack and the hurst pistol grip 4 speed shifter. I sat in it and dreamed of rowing through the gears with my foot to the floor. At the same time my favourite local car was a fellow just down the street that was running around in a primered (red oxide) model A coupe with a hot small block 327 with 3 carbs. Full fendered and I loved it. Raising a family I was never able to afford a hot rod of my own. After my kids were grown up and my wife of 24 years moved on I decided to get myself a new toy. Down to the local SVT dealer I went and bought a nice new 2004 SVT Cobra Mustang. 4.6 DOHC with an Eaton supercharger and a Tremec 6 speed. Oxford white and one of 316 white ones built in 2004. The Terminator SVT Cobras were and are a lot of fun. I only used it once in a while and just about lost my license in it I decided to sell it in 2008 because I just wasn't getting the enjoyment out of it that I thought I would. My daily driver 2015 5.0 F150 has a Borla exhaust with a nice growl and I enjoy driving it. After the Cobra was gone I started looking for a project and went back to what I had wanted for some time a hot rod roadster. Plenty of rides in my buddies T roadster stoked the fire. By chance one day surfing the Kijiji ads and there it was, the start of my 26 RPU. This has been and will continue to be a great journey and I'm sure that my little fenderless hot rod RPU will bring me more enjoyment and smiles than the Mustang ever could Larry
And THAT is what it's all about, man. It has NOTHING to do with envy or one up manship. It has to do with what's inside. When it awakens, nothing else comes close. And by Webster's definition of "passion", that feeling fits.
I like hot rods but I'll tell ya, passion is everywhere. I know a handful of guys with OT vehicles that have the same desire/passion you describe, Fred. I wouldn't want to discount them. It's not easy to build a 1k hp vehicle with streetcar manners but I know a few folks who do. They don't have to hunt for the parts (which is part of why I love hot rods) but they are every bit of a hot rodder in my opinion. It does take some balls to buy a Cobra Super Snake and tear the top end apart and upgrade it a few thousand miles into ownership. I grew up down the street from a guy that was (probably still is) into Porsches (and airplanes and weird, old machinery, etc.). He'd cruise around in his Pike's Peak record holder and I got to ride in it a few times. That was about the meanest, most uncomfortable, balls-out machine I've ever been around. This was based on a 70s 911 and every frill it once had was removed and only the sense of anger was left in the mannerism of this car. It's a car I'll never forget. As well, I'll never forget looking over and seeing that bearded burn-out "drive" that thing. Each time he shifted it was like he was spasming, haha, but he was having a blast. Truthfully, I'd take that over babying some hot rod that never gets the chance to stretch its legs.
I'm still with Fred on this one. I had a 65 Barracuda that I slid a hot 340 into as my first car. Black with wide back tires and Walker blue bottle glass packs that you could hear from 3 blocks away dumping off the fender well headers. Every dime of my $3.50 per hour job went towards parts from the local speed shops, Wheeler Dealer and Pacemaker Automotive. After that I had a nice 55 Chev 150 2 door sedan. Black lacquer paint that needed polishing every 5 minutes ( Like that old song, black cars look better in the shade) Those early years first seeing the hot rod coupes and roadsters and tri five Chevy's that the high school crowd played with set the stage for my passion. I fell in love with the sound of a hot Y Block powered 55 Ford sedan during that time, that probably explains the Y Block for my RPU. The Cobra was a really nice really fast car. And I had started in with the usual modifications, I was planning to pull the supercharger and put on a twin screw, the interior was going to come out for the required cage (after which the interior would go back). If you know anything at all about the 03-04 Terminator Cobra mustangs you will know that with relatively minimal modifications they can be pushed into the ten second quarter mile time zone. ( hence the required cage) A few more serious modifications will get you low 9s or better. In any case, I was spending piles of money and the enjoyment- passion was missing. It just wasn't the same as wrenching on my earlier rides. (maybe because it was brand new and everything was clean ) Don't get me wrong, the wail of the supercharger and the exhaust growl as you went through the gears were outright intoxicating and almost as good as sex But for some reason, whenever I visited my long time rod building buddy and rode in his roadster the spark was ignited and glowed for days. Then when I started building my own RPU it was like ....YES this is where it's at. At least for me.
This is the crux of my point. Passion is where you find it. A pal I grew up with has 3 drift cars and brings all three to events so he can drive throughout the day. This guy's passion is relentless. He's not into hot rods but any willing hot rodder could sit and chat with this guy and get it. I think, too often, we distance ourselves from people whom are into non-HAMB vehicles. Like you and many others in this thread, I've bounced around from air cooled VWs to nitroused Honda drag cars to rock crawlers to muscle cars and always settle back to the early Ford stuff. Still, in all of those groups I associated and learned from there were guys saying so-and-so doesn't get it. And you know what, they were right, just as you and Fred (and others) are right.
When I bought my '63 Galaxie 427 new, that down payment would have bought me 3 new Fords like mine. How the times have changed....
Interesting to compare this thread to the umpteen HAMB threads where guys daydream about what they would buy if they could go back in time, where everyone is blathering on about hemi/ZL-1/L-88/409/fuelie belairs ad nauseam...
If I could go back in time there's a few spots of trouble that I avoided that I would happily go back and get myself into. None involve cars, but did involve fast, fast women.......
Hello, When my brother was in his early hot rod state of mind, he did not want anything from the factory stock cars. He wanted to “build” something with his own hands. He knew that with his skills, he could build whatever he wanted and be fast. But, one day, in comes this cool, fast 58 Impala and that lasted several years until we started building a 40 Willys to go faster. He was now on a go fast kick with more horsepower. When the Willys was complete, of course, being a street legal car, we took it for several drives around the area. That car had such acceleration that we could not get from our 58 Impala. The Impala had great acceleration with the extra horsepower and the new C&O hydro, but driving the 40 Willys on the street was exhilarating. The instant power threw us back into our seats and continued until we let off. For the fisrt drives, I was sitting in the passenger’s seat fighting for space with the Moon Tank between my feet. After several forays out to 6 miles and back, I got to drive the 40 Willys. As soon as the 671 SBC motor started, it sounded like it was ready for a race, not a pleasant cruise to a speed shop across town. (although it was more than pleasant) I went through the gears, accelerating and it was fast. (and loud) but, the feeling of going fast was pretty fabulous. After our drag race days and times, the final race of the Willys proved to be disasterous. Several months later, during recovery, my brother’s initial thought of going fast in a car waned. (I am sure it was a mental thing after the fire) he went from a fast race car to a less than 40 hp VW van. His motto was… “it is not how fast you get there, but how well you arrive.” That sounded like it came out of a fortune cookie. He stayed on this slow track for many years until one day he introduced me to one of his smaller, fast street motorcycles. Then within a year, he jumped up to a 900 Katana and he was fast. Now, our discussions were how fast the bikes were vs our old cars. Several more years and now he is in the 1100cc street bike group. Yes, 0-60 times were down to 3 secs or less and there was no comparison to our race car acceleration. When I rode that last bike, it was so fast and the wind was flattening my face just going down our street accelerating. Jnaki But, after all of these discussions about fast cars, times, motorcycles, it always came back to… “If you want to go fast, buy a 1100 cc street bike or build a dragster.” And…If you want to feel good about what you built, build a hot rod. That hot rod feeling never goes away.
The Jalopy Journal
