Hot Rods Is the traditional "fad" over where you live?

Maybe it's just me, I'm on the younger side so I wasn't around when the traditional build was original but I thought part of the hot rod build thing was young guys souping up their cars as they could afford without sinking big bucks so to me it becomes traditional vs. traditional. Building an old car with all original parts or building something affordable. I have a 49 Ford Tudor, now as much as I would love to have a flathead with all the go fast goodies I was able to pick up a running driving late model donor vehicle for 500. Now I'm going to build it to look traditional including original wheels and caps and will be teaching myself how to lead instead of slathering it in bondo but it still won't be traditional because of the motor. Now you can have someone go out and spend big bucks on a brand new 32 Ford body and frame and slap a flathead in it and it will be considered traditional even though at least 90% off the vehicle is new. I love this site, there is tons of great information on it but the "traditional" only rule is why I won't post a build thread, it would just get deleated.

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Part of my point has to do with this. If you really wanted to be traditional you could. But you also want to drive it sooner. You are willing to compromise for ease, which isn't bad, just a parameter.

I bought a running 303 Olds rocket motor for 300$ recently (which plops right into a shoebox with an adapter and a littel elbow grease. With some scrounging and legwork you could probably go the same route and not have to compromise a traditional build.

It's just the work that goes into making contacts, finding swap meets, etc...

Not ragging on your way, just saying there are other paths my child

 

Then you're looking at the wrong industry. A good heavy equipment mechanic can pull down $35 per hour easily, and can pretty much go anywhere in the country he wants to go. Add in over time hours and 6 figure income is common for these guys. And every heavy equipment dealership, every construction outfit, every quarry, every landfill, etc in the country is struggling to fill open positions. Good mechanics are treated like rock stars.

 

The traditional" guys are one niche' in an interest constructed of various niche's. You have street rods, street freaks, tuners, muscle cars, sports cars, kustoms, customs, low riders, and about 60,000 more!!!!
Things ebb and flow, rise and fall. Face it, real "traditional" parts are 60-80 years old and getting more scarce every year .DUH. It's really about building antique hot rods. Old classic hot rods.
Eventually, all motorsports as we know it will be gone, time ,technology and society marches on. Always has been, and always will be this way, NOTHING you can do about it.
I live in Van Nuys, part of Los Angeles. NOTHING is ever over here, it's really the still fast beating heart of car culture, never stops, never! I really love it.
I don't really get questions like this aside from making conversation, just ENJOY what you like while you can.

 

"Traditional" is pretty narrowly defined around here, and maybe cars that meet that narrow definition are becoming less common, even here on the HAMB we regularly see cars with modern features like T-5 or 200-4R trans. Even A/C. But other than those features the cars are closer to Traditional than they are to Street Rod or Rat Rod. I have to say that around here (Orange County, Inland Empire) traditional style cars are still very popular and well represented against the Street Rod and Rat Rod crowd.

 

BTW, someone posted above something about "alternators and automatics" as making a car not traditional. Hate to break it, but by '65 pretty much every car came with an alternator. And GM had auto transmissions since the 40's. Even the Powerglide dates back to 1950, as does Ford's Fordomatic.

 

Who's tradition?

If tradition is defined by the exact rules of this board, it was never a "thing" where I am.

It is not really a fad if less than 10% of builders are doing it.

 

Real estate prices (where enough people live to have viable customer throughput), are unreasonable these days, too.

If I wanted to pay skill-trade wages (with benefits) to mechanics and fabricators where I am, and pay myself, and cover all overhead, including the outrageous rent, I'd have to charge $180/hr.

This is one of the reasons that I can no longer have a shop.

My last professional fabricator job for a well known shop paid all of $18/hr., and offered no benefits whatsoever.

A Mickey-D's manager makes more than that here, and they will train you.

 

In a city where the average price of a home shows a million dollars, $100K per year won't go far. Median income shows $140,000.

 

In my area you seen the Decline in Rodding at the same time as the Decline In full Service Stations. Nobody could wait till Saturdays to go hang out in there Dad or Uncle's Shop and pull wrenches. My best Friends Dad always had a lot full fix-n-repairs in the local Exxon parking lot. As the fellow mentioned earlier about paying his shop guy's $38 bucks and Hour or something, how many kids you let hang out there and learn a trade or just curiosity, probably none. Insurance and all the Lawyer's have Nipped that in the Butt.

 

Bingo.

You want a beat-up starter home, in a neighborhood with only sporadic gunfire, you are looking at $1,100,000, here, and you will be out-bid by a foreign buyer, who has cash.

 

Sounds like Vancouver, only without the sporadic gunfire.

 

Traditional is not a fad, it's a tradition. I'm 30 and I have always been into customs and hot rods. I can remember sitting at the table with my dad at 6 or 7 and him showing me how to draw a 34 Ford and a 41 Willys. I got my subscription to Rod and Custom when I was 13 and never looked back. Thank God the whole rat rod thing has died down. I think a lot of young guys stay away from this stuff because with popularity comes increased cost. All the flathead parts went up in value, now the same is going to happen with banger stuff. Nothing I own involves parts that are in demand, so I can get away with doing stuff on a budget. I have worked on a lot of other people's old cars but haven't had time to finish my own, they go on the road for a year then off for 2. Young guys that have the drive will always be into this stuff. And old guys that have the drive will be kept young by this stuff.


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I used to get on the HAMB five times a day, now I might get on five times a month. The strict interpretation of traditional that occurred a couple of years ago did it to me. I'm still building what I like, and it has a traditional vibe, but not 100% date code /part number correct for some folks on here.

This place used to be more like family than my own family....I don't feel like that anymore. I will build and enjoy my 54 studebaker coupe with a 15 year old motor, radials, and a/c and sleep just fine

 

Sadly, this is not uncommon. It happened to me, with a local builder. I kept track of finances, so I knew what was up. He was clearing $105,000/yr. off of my labor alone, after overhead, without doing a single minute of work.

He kept complaining that he was paying me too much, too.

 

He was commenting on another post, by a person living in Corte Madera, CA. It is in the immediate San Francisco Bay Area.

 

Sorry, I missed that. I'll delete my post. Kinda off topic anyway.

 

No worries. It's all good.

 

Like to leave them where they still are based on fords, chevys, dodge, etc of a gone era. I never stopped liking resto rods. Was not welcome in the boyds smoothie, pastel, billet, tweed phase.

 

Hello,

This whole build thread may rankle some, while others just do what they want. There are always people that jump on a band wagon just because they want notoriety and slide into what they read is important or popular. But, in my neck of So Cal, people build and drive what they want, no one speaks up or down on the traditional hard core guys or the other rat rod style of cars.

Look at the weekly gatherings of parking lot coffee and donuts groups, there is a wide differential in styles and builds. Which one has more that show up, the feeling I got was, who cares, they are all hot rods or modified cars.

The ones that get the most stares and second looks are ones that sound good without uncapping the headers or cut outs. There are still the “evil stares” for those who think they can be cool with loud pipes, but others know that is one thing leading to closure of these weekly early morning events.

A few local events have been ruined by some idiots, but, most of the people attending these events are good people interested in only one thing…hot rods. No one says you can’t attend unless you have a traditional hot rod or not.

Jnaki

We saw one event that a new, dealer sticker, 1 mil sports car came rolling in, but made and exit when he saw that 90% of the cars in attendance were hot rods and not sports luxury cars. So, everyone has their own group(s) to join or be part of that scene.

At a couple of others weekend events that are now closed, the hot rod guys came in and the reverse was obvious, the luxury sports cars outnumbered the hot rods, so they were parked away from the center of the parking lot event. Sometimes, you just have to pick your battles and ignore what “others” think of your hot rod or build.

The old car clubs in So Cal (and other places) allow a myriad of builds within their memberships. It is the friendships of those clubs that still linger on today. The builds, they range from mild to wild and belong as they are part of the hot rod scene.

 

Well said


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HAMB is a forum I visit twice daily because there's more knowledge here than in most of the other hot rod forums I have found all lumped together. But I often find myself at less than 6 mos to 80, disagreeing with lots of stuff, including the opinions of Ryan and his moderators about what is "traditional" But I try to hold my self in check on my comments as I don't want to get threads deleted or God forbid, myself banned.
I feel the biggest problem here is in terminology, and that the type of cars and builds in favor by the powers that be here isn't necessarily traditional but rather "period correct", as in cars that were built 'back inna day", before 'Mustangs, Camaros and the like. Desired parts and pieces are what was available then, and modern developments aren't really welcome, especially if easily visible, either for use or to write about and discuss here on HAMB, and quite likely will get deleted.
And that's fine, as Ryan owns the site, appoints the moderators and dictates what is to be talked about and depicted here. In return for abiding by these rather haphazardly applied rules, we get a cool site to meet and discuss what we are doing in our own little corner of the hot rod world, which is, I think, a fair exchange.
But becoming interested in cars and hot rodding them goes back to about '48 or '49 to me, when the older boys met every afternoon in the backyard of a house nearby where lived a guy a few years older who had a Model "A", later a '37 flatback Ford. Cars frequenting there were those of friends and included things such as a '36 Chrysler, various Chevys, and even an Austin Bantam I was the pesky 12 year old kid who asked endless questions, and was quite willing to do anything asked, however menial or greasy and dirty, just to get to touch these cars.
From then on, I've been hooked to high performance cars of one sort or another, and I feel that my definition of "traditional" of using whatever parts and components you can get to work and get up enough cash to get them is what's traditional.
I'll say no more because the last thing I want is to get this thread deleted or myself banned.

 

Its all a about personal taste and attitude. For me I never thought of this as traditional, it was just how I liked hot rods. I was raised on the little books and Rod and Custom, Rod Action, old Street Rodder, so that is what I learned was a hot rod. That's my personal taste, and doesn't discount anyone's desire to have a completely modernized version of a 32 ford, just not for me.

For me part of having old cars and driving them is about sort of experiencing a part of time that I was never even a part of. I tell people it the closest thing to time travel that we have. Hop in fender less roadster and blast down a country road, and you're feeling the same way a teenager or some GI just back from the war felt when they blasted down the road. You get to feel some of that time, when things were a little bit simpler, no stupid cell phones and 45 fucking news stations telling us all how screwed the whole world is.

Hot rods are not supposed to be comfortable, they are supposed to be stripped down to make it go faster, stop better (maybe), and perform better than when it was built, and the added bonus, if done right, is it looks bad ass I have a relatively new truck to drive when I want something smooth and comfy to drive. I love all of the different styles up till about the trends of the 80's. That being said, I do certainly appricieate the craftsmen ship and work that goes into super smooth billet clad car, its just not my taste.

But there are cavieats to building a traditional styled car for me. I want to drive them, I want to drive them hard and not have to worry about shit blowing up 400 miles from home. So yeah, use a T5, put in an over drive, it gets you going better down the road better than a 3 speed and 4:11 banjo will, you know its true, and you can drive you car more, with less worry. I build cars to drive with a flare for the time period im shooting for, but with the ability to be driven anywhere I want, and not have to worry about the generator dying, or the bearings giving out on the 39 three speed. If you build a car with all the old stuff I love it! I have done it too. I just got to the point of "why am I putting all this work into something that I cant drive how I want?"

In summary of the longest thing I have ever typed on here, Build your car how YOU want it. If you want it traditional, do it. if you want a billet covered show queen do it. Stop Worrying about labels and build your dam car. If you're building your car how you think everyone else thinks you should or because its what is cool right now, you are not doing this for the right reasons. You do this out of love and passion for the cars, if your not doing that, you have already failed.

 

^^^ Jason, this is very well said. Thank you. ^^^

 

That is a big reason why I changed careers. Besides working my tail off for peanuts. You also deal with the stigma that your just one of those mechanics trying to screw you over when you find areas that will need attention on a customers car. Got burnt out of working on cars for quite awhile after I quit doing it for a living. But I also had moved to the Caribbean and had other fun things to focus on for awhile.


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I think a lot has to do with the economics of it. Pre-2008 everyone I new was building cars, new guys coming in the scene all the time (myself included). But in my world work and family and everything took priority and the hobby back but weed a while right through the hey-day of traditional builds. Parts prices kept going up, and it became a way less attractive hobby for the young guys.
I know a lot of guys with a lot of parts, but like anything if you want top dollar you need the right buyer, and those are farther and few between.
I agree traditional cars are timeless, as is the desire to hop them up and drive them, so it's only a matter of time before we see an uptick again.



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When Vern Tardel and I sat down in 1994 to work out a build plan for my blue roadster, along with a book to chronicle the project, we established for ourselves a rule that said no parts manufactured after 1950 would be used. This was said tongue in cheek; the pacing element was a pair of ’50 Pontiac taillights that were as essential – for me -- to the build as a ’29 Model A body and frame; they were the taillights on Don Ferrara’s AV-8 roadster that sent my head spinning when I first saw it in 1950.



More importantly, the “rule” loosely restricted motive hardware to Ford elements from the post-WWII period and earlier. And it also said “traditional Ford hot rod,” thus ruling out the use of those early GM monkey-motion motors from Oldsmobile and Cadillac.



Our take and intent at the time was that it was still possible to build a satisfying hot rod for reasonable dollars, much as it had been in the way-back following WWII and before. Sad to say, the conditions began to change within a few months of the release of the book; swap-meet prices for the desirable Ford hardware began to escalate noticeably. After six months of book sales Vern commented “I think we shot ourselves in the foot!” remarking on the increase of prices on old-Ford hardware likely driven by the book.



Our use of the term “traditional” wasn’t intended to establish boundaries for how hot rods should be built but rather as a style of hot rod built from affordably accessed and promising hardware.



A while back our publisher asked Vern and I if we would update the book. Sales, approaching 18 years now, were beginning to trail off and they wanted to reenergize the book. We asked what ideas they had for updating a book titled “How to Build a Traditional Ford Hot Rod” and they suggested such things as SBCs and other OHV motors, along with later drivetrain hardware, etc., etc. . . . To our minds that’s an entirely new and different book and not one we had time or interest in doing. There’s nothing wrong with the idea of such a book; we’re not luddites who know nothing of the later good stuff. I’m SBC and BBC crazy for much of my gearhead life, and Vern’s been almost all the way through adventures in the OHV Ford engine adventures. Mostly, we’re old and kinda tired and like to do what makes us happy. For Vern that’s building flathead motors in his white-room and then waking them up on his run-in stand. For me, it’s porting and modifying blocks for Vern!

 

I n 25 years billet will be traditional. Build what you like and let someone else label it. I like anything that is well thought out and clean.

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^^^^^^^^^^^^X2

 

No! There is the fifth year of the hot rod hill climb, and the third year of the hot rod dirt drags. All traditional type hot rods.



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