Hot Rods is building a tradHOT ROD or CUSTOM easier or harder now,compared to the 40's,50's???

Probably harder now, IF you're going for a truely "period correct" car......as "back in the day" guys weren't trying to "recreate" something from the past, they were moving forward.......there was no such thing as a traditional hotrod in the 50's....

Easier if you building a traditionally "influenced" car....as so much is now readily available repopped, and with resources such as the HAMB.

 

I have to agree with getting the knowledge.
I have a local old timer that has commenced School lately.
He has answered the questions and given me the direction for my 37 truck.
He really likes the design. The suspension could have cost a ton. it looks like right now it will be a drop in the bucket.
Which is par for the course with me anyways. I start off with all the bells and whistles and then say F'dat amount of cash and build it my way for less.
I think the internet has really blown up the prices but also given us a bigger market.

 

it's more easy today. the parts are more scarce but you can find what you need from anywhere in the world sitting in your pajamas drinking coffee with your fuzzy slippers on.

welders, grinders, metal working tools... again, as close as your keyboard.

metal. I'd guess it was hard to find places that sold metal since so much was built with what looked like scrap

information. back in the day much of it was trial and error. couple of magazines... now anything you need to know is out there.

the hardest part about doing it today is finding the money to buy al the cool parts

 

"Easier and cheaper back then. For hot rods anyway."

Was it cheaper ? I used to buy 49 Ford 3 speed transmissions for $25.00 each, but hell I was only bringing home $52.00 a week .

That was half my pay and yes I am old.

 

up here in the backwater is was easy.when i was 14 ,i decided i wanted a 32 ford 5 window,just like in the hot rod mags of the early fifties.my father tried to convince me to get the dusenburg that was for sale in amherst for $40! no way ,i knew what i wanted.
i looked at about 10 32`s before i found a 5window.my old man talked him down from $18 to $8. no rust car with newer flathead and hyd brakes.carb was of it but it was a pluged fuel line.had to order slicks and dropped axle from california,
and i was driving it around that fall.(channeled and fenderless.)took it to the drags and the old flatty only ran like 18 seconds.and when we added 2 carbs and homemade headers it went slower.a hot nail head fixed that.

 

It must be harder now, or you wouldn't have so many people asking other people: What color should I paint my car or my wheels or what kind of dash should I put in my car.

 

plasma cutter and wire feed welders. internet and 50 years of knowledge. much easier.

and sawzalls...definately sawzalls.

 

that would be technically very period un-correct. As everything was either bought from a catalog (ordered from a speed shop if very lucky), fabbed by hand or adapted.

 

in the early sixties I bought a trans adapter 322 buick to a ford 3 speed we had to drill all the mounting and make our own clutch bearing spacer it was an on going learning process and you learned from the people around you, so knowledge was limited and so were specialty parts. to-day it's easier to find parts, references and better equipment.

 

I am 55. I used to rely on Hot Rod and Rod and Custom, once a month, there was nothing else where I lived. The internet and the HAMB changed that for the better. The HAMB is the Google of Hot Rodding, it's amazing. You can find the right parts now from home if you try and have them shipped to you. Lots of reproduction and Hot Rod parts made today. Info and parts seach are much better.

I used to search Pomona Swap meet in the early 70's. It was great, but still a treasure hunt, maybe what you want was there, maybe not. Still only 4 times a year. Where I live now, there are no real old style wrecking yards, the city and county has run them off, so searching in the boneyard here is really limited.

Tools, today's tools are like something from a science fiction novel. Before migs and sophisticated cutting tools, it was all oxy/acetelyne and you either really fucked it up or you were a master. Much easier today from the tool aspect, anyone can make major mods now.

Getting to do the work. A lot of us live in housing tracts, very restrictive, much worse.

Prices, it has always been expensive for me. It's the same.

 

It was easier to build my 32 coupe back in 56 because the parts were still plentiful. You could still get NOS 32 stuff from a Ford dealer AND I didn't have to meet some stupid "traditional" criteria! Cost (&#37 wasn't all that different. I sure didn't think I was building a traditional hot rod (vs. street rod) then. 30 years from now will a "traditional" car be Boyd/billet? I will say you young guys sure make us old farts feel like heros by working so hard to copy what we did with what we had. If I could have cruised the main drag with softer riding radials pulled by a SBC that didn't overheat I sure would have done it! Bottom line: build it the way you want..some day it'll be "traditional".

 

I have no idea really. It may be harder to find parts now a day but could you imagine trying to build something that you heard was going on across the country with no TV or internet.

The level of talent I think has increased dramatically and now we have novices build frames from scratch. Yeah, we have to hunt parts but we don't have to hunt that hard for our questions to be answered these days. I am sure that if it was all laid out it would come up very close. Although, just taking the fenders off and putting tractor lights on it and calling it a hot rod sounds like something of the past it's not. ChevyGirlRox just did it although it did have a few more bug to be worked out!

 

Somebody put that on a billboard somewhere!

Well said, and it's a spirit sadly lacking in recent years. Up until the mid-late 90s, the focus seemed to be on going FORWARD, then...this new trend towards the past blew in and 'traditional hotrodding' has become a game of being the "same as it never was"!

Oh, there've been guys all along sticking to the strict style of the earliest rods, but with the recent explosion of interest in this once unique niche segment...we've suddenly got ground-dragging 20s and 30s sedans and pickup trucks being built in an imagined "lakes style theme" (?!) by people who look like extras from Sha-Na-Na!

And don't forget the fenderless 30s and 40s pickup trucks and sedans, too!!!

It's EASY to get into the 'scene' today...but a lot HARDER (and more expensive!) to do a truly accurate 'period correct' car...

...but the few stunning examples that surface now and then still cut the mustard in a sea of poor imitations, phoney 'barn finds', ridiculous rat rods and so on.

It's the best of times and the worst of times...as the old story goes!

 

I think it's MUCH harder to piece together an ACCURATE 40's hotrod as opposed to an early 60's hotrod.....to many "rules", most early cars have the same "ingredients", ya know?
The late '50's and early '60's was such an explosive period of inventiveness, much more creativity going on.....even if some of the "modifications" were a little on the tacky side...haha....I think a 60's style car "allows" today's builder of a "traditional" car a little more creative "freedoms" and still remain true to the era....but it still ain't easy...

I love 'em all......

 

I've got a pair of bias ply tires on 40 wheels I mounted in 56. Bet that 56 air is worth something today!! Get with it guys..if you keep copying what we did 50 years ago this hod rod thing has no future. Keep the look if you like, but use all the neat technology available today.

 

This is a cut and paste from another post I made. It is my personal experience from when I was a teenager. Try doing this today.

Started working on my first hot rod in 1959 when I was 14. Had been addicted to the "little books" for several years. My ride at the time was a Cushman Eagle. I can still hear that gutted muffler in my mind. My friend's grandmother gave him a 1941 Ford Sedan. He was building a Model A touring car, and needed money for an Olds engine he had found. I bought the sedan for $30.00 hard earned paper route money and traded it for an engineless 1946 Ford coupe. I got a running '53 Hemi out of a scrap yard for $10.00 and bought motor mounts and transmission adapter from Honest Charlies Speed Shop in Chattanooga. Picked up a '39 gearbox and away we went with a glove box full of axle keys and skinny 16's all the way around.<!-- / message --><!-- sig -->

 

I am 67 years old and lived through all the "period correct" years. We built what we could afford with what we could scronge up close to home. I grew up in the mid west and the ideas that were coming to us from the west coast were slow to get back to us. I am not saying that their ideas and styles were always correct but we all went nuts over what was being done on the west coast. I supported my car hobby, my craving for the girls and trying to keep my belly full on 35 cents an hour. While it looks like parts were cheap back then we did not make much either. Another thing that happened back then was that we always had buddies that helped each other out on our cars and when they needed help the favor was ALWAYS returned. We did the best we could with what we had to work with.
Later,
Dick

 

Both. There's a lot more how-to help out there, there's a lot more aftermarket support, and there's the HAMB....

But finding, and affording, a good original car to start the build, is a hell of a lot harder. Especially if you want a 32-36 3-window coupe.

Even there it goes both ways, because a lot of cars no one would have gone near 40 or 50 years ago, are perfectly acceptable to build now.

 

Much harder today. The light isn't as bright as it used to be. Can't get things in focus, and the garage floor is colder than ever. Might be getting older!

 

As everyone else has stated... much easier today. Plus there are a lot of cars that would have been trashed due to the scarcity of parts, but today no matter how rare your ride is with a few hors (days!) son the internet you will have found your part. The only problem is the internet has also raised everyone&#8217;s awareness to how valuable those parts are so the prices reflect that.

 

I find it funny that guys say that the internet makes finding parts so much easier today. I think it proves almost the opposite. Guys back in the day didn't need the internet because they could go to the local junkyard/dealership and get just about everything they needed. When customs were being built back in the late 40's early 50's you never hear about guys like Barris, Ayala etc scrounging for parts they simply went to the dealership and bought whatever grill they needed or whatever fender they needed and made it fit on the car. You needed a merc grill surrond for you shoebox go to the dealer and pic one up. You needed appleton spots order them. I'm sure most hotrod stuff was the same way.

As far as the information thing I think it is sort of a two edged sword. I think guys use the ease of the internet to find info a bit of a crutch. It's easier to go on line and look something up than figure it out themselves. Guys back in the day just figured it out. What I think the easy access to info has done is given guys/girls that normally might not try to figure something out on their own the info and confidence to do things they wouldn't normally do and there is definitely good and bad to that. It has also opened the hobby up to a whole bunch more people also good and bad.

I think that the technology of today has probably made the actual building process easier for the do-it your self home builder, not taking into account the need to find parts as they don't need the same level of knowledge and skills going into a project that builders in the 40's and 50's required.

 

Depends on where you live or was raised as a child. Where I come from a hotrod was a hotrod. No such thing as a traditional or a custom.

You either had a standard issue vehicle that became a jalopy after so many miles of use or abuse. Then you had vehicles which were modified with bigger motors, tires, chop tops, etc. These were your hotrods and were called such regardless of quality of build. There were also a few called sleepers. The vast majority of "Hotrods" back in the day would be called "Ratrods" by today's standards.

Yesterdays hotrods may not mean the same as todays version of "traditional" unless you localize it. Southern USA especially SoCal is where most of the terminology is based on & from. Or at least the customs. I could be wrong, I've never thoroughly researched it, just what I grew up with.

To the original question is it easier or harder now compared to the 40's & 50's. From where I'm standing, it would be harder. Lack of original parts and selection of donor cars/parts to duplicate a true traditional hotrod of that time period.

However, if I wanted to build a traditional hotrod of todays meaning it would be easier. For the simplicity of finding/ordering parts, replacement or custom/speed parts etc. But then again I live in a hot rod deficient area, Hickville when it comes to traditional hotrods of America. Hey, but I got "hotrod ( high speed) internet."

 

i'd say harder now, back then, it wasn't 'traditional', it was 'what can i do to make it lighter and faster with what's laying around at the junk yard for cheap'

easy now, we have a recipe, if ya got deep pockects, you can recreate 'tradition'.

 

i ran around with my 2 older sisters, there boy friends in 64 had the hot rods on queen street in toronto,s east end. 7 years old riding in the vettes, 57 chevs,model a coupes. the guys with money had the best, but i remember a coupe at a gas station at woodbine and cosburn in 67/69 that was primer red channelled with a plex-glass insert in the roof that was red and put a nice tint on the interior. when i asked the mechanic/car owner about the roof insert, he told me thats all he could afford. now, around that time guys. up here anyways started to stack the roof panels and inserts thick and wrapped in vinyl . 40+ years later it still cost.s what you can afford. there are still alot of barn finds out there. guy,s that primer red 33-34 coupe was driven hard and was loud, very cool memories of that car.

 

Back in the late 50's my best friend and I decided we were going to build a hot rod. We compiled a list from magazines of what everyone used. We walked from Downey to Hunington Park to junk yard row. When we found one junkyard that had everything on our list, we called his dad for a ride home and money. This was the first of many trips but his folks had bucks and our limited skills worried us about the terrible slam of having it called "Mickey Mouse".

 

you have to compare apples to apples. Today, most guys are piecing together cars, and looking for each part. I think the main difference is that a traditional hot rod that was built pre/post war were basically mildly modified and bare bones cars that were still being driven. in my opinion it wouldve been much easier to reverse a spring eye, swap a motor, swap brakes, and strip off fenders etc back then. I think that you would need to search pretty hard even on this board and including my own coupe to find a TRUE traditional hot rod, that is as authentic as it wouldve have been. everything is getting pretty watered down.

 

This one says it all.

Though I'm from after the "golden age of Hot Rodding" (I was born in 56) around our parts, we used what was available and what we could afford. There was always someone that was faster then you were, didn't matter how much you spent. Sometimes being faster was simply a matter of being lucky. We didnt have a list of things we needed in order to have a cool hot rod. If you wanted to be fast, there was a list of things that helped, but even sometimes you could get by without some of them.

Even when I was playing, we had more concern about how the local law enforcement officer's view of our car then we did about some fool across town (or on the internet). The officers had the power to take away your ride.

As far as building a triditional car now compaired to back in the day, there is no way to compare. Different times, different processes, different parts availability, different quality standards. Add in more idiots you have to share the road with now. Gene

 

Dont know about customs, but hot rods are a lot harder now, here in New Zealand. Not only are parts harder to come by and more expensive, but the authorities have seen fit to try and regulate hot-rodding out of existence. Thanks to the efforts of an individual named Tony Johnston that has'nt happened yet, but it means there are many regulations to abide by when building.