"It depends on where your standing as to how dumb you are". My first was on an album cover but I can remember the group, it was a red t-bucket with a short set of zoomies on it" might have been beach boys or something like that. It was parked on a street in front of a park. was running a set of bigs and littles. its been 30 yrs since I have seen it. if anyone remembers the group/album I'd love to look at that car again?
I take exception to 1970 birth date for the term Street Rod. In 1953 Henry Gregor Felsen published his novel STREET ROD. Some how the term has been ruined much like GAY. We don't want to be aligned with it. But it wasn't always that way.
Famous, would have to be Milners coupe. Influential, I'd say California Kid or ZZ Top Eliminator. As for my favoriate to date, it's the Ardun Roadster that Jimmy Shine built at So Cal a few years ago. The car that most influenced me personally was the 32 roadster that the two guys built for like $11,386.00 in thier garage and Hot Rod did a " you can build it " article on the car. It got me back into it after almost 13 years. Thanks guys.
Hey Johnny, You hit it on the head, it just depends on where you were and when. Nobody has even mentioned the green roadster from the Ozzie and Harriet show. That on sure rang my bells until Kookie got out his comb and his T.... Da Flash
I agree it is way too subjective, like asking "What goes best on toast?"! It ends up being a generational thing due, in part, to trends of certain eras. For me...at my young age...the Ed Iskenderian T has always screamed Hot Rod and been high on my "rock star" hot rod list.
As a kid fresh off the farm and never exposed to any kind of modifed car I moved with my dad to his first Air Force ***ignment after WWII. Our first stop was Savannah, GA where our neighbor was a hot rodder. He let me look at his complete collection of Hot Rod Magazines. The first one I opened featured Bill Nieamp's AMBR winning '29 Roadster. I must have stared at the magazine for 2-3 days drinking in a whole dimenson of life I didn't know existed. To this day the Neikamp roadster remains my favorite if only for sentimental reasons. Frank
I remember seeing the Ricky Nelson Roadster car on TV and my uncle and I went ga ga over it... pluss I'd watch "77 Sunset Strip" and couldn't wait to see the T bucket! I remember when it was for auction and sold for over $200k... http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1721 Allways thought that car was a Tractor!
SeabeeCMC, Thank you! I was completely unaware of this reference. So I stand corrected in that the birth of this term seemingly can be credited to Felsen. Yet I would submit that the beginning of its general acceptance into the "hot rod" lexicon can be attributed to the NSRA. Chris
I believe it has a lot to do with when you were first exposed to Hot Rods,,some of us ol' graybeards will say the Doane Spence made a big impact when we were kids reading Hot Rod Magazine or numerous others of that period or maybe Norman Grabowski's T bucket on the old Television show 77 Sunset Strip back in the 60's. Some may think about the yellow Roadster pickup in Happy Day's,,or the California Kid from the 70's. May identify with the cars in American Graffiti in the 80's.. The list could go on and on depending on what era you relate too.HRP
Pre-war cars, I'd vote for Grabowski's. Post war, it's gotta be the Project X '57. I watched it change through it's various iterations. Its current state is cool, with the input from the Chevrolet skunk works. That hood with the built in cold air intake is the sh**s!
Remember the T-bucket that Ed "Kooky" Burns drove on the old TV series 77 Sunset Strip? It introduced a whole country to the notion that hot rods were cool.
I've got to go against the grain here. To my way of thinking, the American Graffiti coupe is not a hotrod. It's a movie prop. Huge difference (to me, anyways). I'd probably put Grabowski's up there in the top two or three of most famous...
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