Hot Rods What came first...the part or the car?

There’s more to that story.

 

Once upon a time I recieved a freebie gas cap… not long after I built an aluminum body and fuel tank underneath it. Several years later an obscure overhead valve cylinder head came along… let’s just say there was some machine work involved…!

 

I started one with a donor chassis. The chassis was good, the body on that chassis, not so good, so I started looking for a body to put on the chassis. The 48 Plymouth coupe in my avatar started life that way. That one worked out pretty well.
Actually, I started, and finished two projects like that. The one before the coupe was way off topic.

 

My cars started as complete, but only used about 50% of the parts; did build a bike around a carb I found at a swap meet, but changed it after it was on the road.

 

I’ve always started with a car then came the parts, that includes my pro mod I built not long after high school using my race car as the base.

 

I have been collecting up a 35/36 5 window for a few years. The first thing I bought was a nice windshield frame, because it was a good price, and I just KNEW I would need it someday. A parts car for a frame, a dash, and other random stuff followed. I found the body (an insanely good one, but bare other than the deck lid) a couple of years later. It is still in the parts collecting phase, though.
Funny thing is that I want to build it as a 36, but 35 parts keep finding me.

 

I am on the lookout for a 33/34 grille and a pair of divco wheels.

 

Hello,

It is a toss up as to how one looks at the industry or the original designer overlooking a forest, thinking of how to speed up getting to the grocery store for more food. Ha! But, as history evolves, the need was there, so was the idea of powering a wagon to “get to the store on time.” Thinking in rough ideology.

The car factories put out models and had the parts to make the cars. That was the starting point. Parts, then****embled cars with those parts. Then other makers of the parts blossomed as factory orders for the part expanded. When all of the new parts every year were designed and made, it became a stock pile of new parts for the “new” cars of that particular year.

In the 1800s when the first car was developed and shown, parts were already made in little shops all over the area of factories and stock piled as orders came to make more. Then the horse drawn buggies took a back seat (pun intended) , even with their supply line of “parts before cars or buggys.”

A person had to make a quirky body on wheels as a designer. Then, with the adding of power to move the body on wheels, other parts had to be created. So, in that case, it was the idea of a car on wheels that started the whole process, first and then the myriad of parts to make that original drawing come to life.

Jnaki

But, in the timeline of automotives, without the car, there are no parts. Yes, it seems like we all at one time or another searched for tons of parts in various locations, from junkyards to an antique auto parts store that just happened to be built in an old shop around the corner from your old teenage house. those stories all come alive at one time or another.

When we were little and not involved in cars, other than riding in the back seat, then it was always cars. No parts stories because we had no inclination to buy parts for an unknown quantity. Cars were beyond our purview. Later on, when cars came into our lives, then it may have been car parts search. At no time was it ever parts first. Again, without cars first, there were no parts. YRMV

Thanks to that guy in the forest thinking of ways to “get to the store on time,” philosophy, was he a hot rod guy, way back then? Modifying a horse drawn wagon with a motor of sorts to move faster? Wow, a hot rod guy in the 1800s timeline… a car idea, before the parts.

 

I’ve usually come up with the car first but I’ve started engine projects with parts I’ve found before I’ve had the engine. The current 289 in my 64 started with a new forged Ford crank that I gave $50 for because the parts guy was tiered of moving it around and didn’t know just what it was. Then it was a set of H beam rods for $215 next a friend came up with a 5.0 block and it was game on.

 

I've done it both ways. Usually it's finding a car and then start searching for parts. But when I got offered a rebuilt BBC engine back about 7-8 years ago I began looking for high performance parts for it so I could build a gasser type car. I found an old Weiand tunnel ram, then a pair of 600cfm Holley carbs, and finally a pair of Edelbrock aluminum heads. Then a friend said he had a Super T10 four speed he'd sell cheap when his friend defaulted on a $500 loan and told him to keep the fresh four speed.
A few months later I was still searching parts and found a 3.73 posi from a Ford 8.8" rear axle cheap, so*******ed that up for $120. Then one day I'm sitting in the living room and my wife says, "I wonder what that drunk is doing with that nice old Falcon?" I jumped up to see my neighbor's truck and trailer rounding the corner with a clean old '63 Falcon Futura on it! Grabbed my coat and walked down to his house to see what was up. He tells me he had the Falcon in a friend's barn for 23 years, and his friend sold the property, so he brought it home. A couple days later it was in my driveway and I started planning for the Falcon gasser with a BBC swap.

 

My problem is there are times I will come across a part and it ends up changing the entire direction of my build.

 

I bought a fox body as a parts car because I thought I needed the transmission for my convertible. It turned out I didn’t need anything from the parts car so I built a cobra out of it.

 

The Country Squire started with my Daughter being born and discovering her car seat didn’t fit in a mustang.
I decided to sell the mustang and buy a big car, wife insisted it had to be a woody wagon.

I haven’t gotten around to selling the mustang yet, daughter just turned 12.

 

I was 10 years old in 1961, spotted a 1932 Ford Grille hanging on a nail in a friends garage, I asked him how much he wanted for it. He asked what I had to trade. We got on out bicycles and pedaled to my house. Dad had the floor mats from a two month old 1961 Ford draped over sawhorses drying. Peter said he'd swap the '32 grille for the mats. It's on my basement wall now, a 93 year old grille I've owned for 64 years