History What us trad rodders were doing in the 70's...

Neat. Some very high profile cars from that era here. The black Model A roadster with the americans is nice.

 

love!!!

 

That was the height of the resto-rod era. Once the billet craze took over a few years later there was a lot of original style parts at the flea markets cheap.

 

Is this an Odd or Even day? I need to get me some grass,er',...I meant some gas.

 

It was a bitch when you had two cars, one odd the other even, and you had to plan EVERY day around sitting in line for ten gallons of gas.

 

55 MPH speed limit! It was like the whole world was in slow motion, or on Reds.

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I couldn't put up the original video, with the dumb ass Ferrari, WTF, what was he Thinkin'?

 

ha, I had a set of magnets of thse guys on my fridge...
I also used to put together snap tite funny car models as a kid, they had a pinto, and a vega funny car, and who did'nt have the army snake funny car stickers as well...

 

man i loved the 70s.but i looked and still look like im stuck in the late 60s. long hair, my beard braided in 2 braids a both ears with rings.i also got a ot 74 nova with long shackles and some big whit letter tires in the rear.BUT you would have never caught me wearing that stuff.lol ragged ass blue jeans and a t shirt or flannel shirt. black leather coat and my cut.damn i still got it. lol

 

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Oh I remember it well. Until the billet/pastel thing started happening, I was straddling the "fence", after the whole billet/pastel/grey mohair thing took off, I abandoned the whole street rod thing, and had both feet firmly planted on the drag race/musclecar side of the fence for a lot of years. Bet thats the story for a lot of guys. My magazine collection tells the tale. you will find lots of Rod Action and Street Rodder up to about '75, then theres this HUGE 20 year gap. Man, there were some ugly-assed cars built around that time.
Most of the young 'uns probably dont know this, but the first real traditional rod resurgance actually happened in the very early '70s. wasn't a real big movement or anything, but that was actually when I first started really looking at cars like Niekamps, Spencers, and Mcgee's and so on. It was at that time that I actually saw a forties style rod in person for the first time, with kelsey hayes wires, flatty and quick-change, in the spectators lot at the Maple Ridge swap meet. I would guess that was probably '73/'74. There was alot happening in the seventies.

 

Although I didn't realize it at the time, I guess wire wheels were big in the late 70's.

 

The 70s,

"Street Is Neat" pre-48 ONLY!

Customs died, the only ones even carrying a dim torch were the Lowriders.

It was mostly the Insurance companies that made life difficult, and not just for those Muscle car guys.
...

 

I remember guys having insurance payments that were double their car payments. I skated around the problem by buying a Ranchero GT and registering it as a truck. I probably could've bought a station wagon with a big inch engine for "towing" and gotten around the high insurance too.

 

I used to buy a plane jane and beef it up. The numbers a lot of the time would come back as a six cylinder car. Come to think of it I still do.

Falcon George,
There were a lot of us right up into the '80s that were building cars as close to traditional as many of the cars on this site. They were not actually trad in the purest sense but built with the older fellas cast off parts. i used to keep an eye on everyone that was building either their first resto rod or " street rod" then show up and try and buy their old intakes and wheels and the like. For me it was a matter of econimics during the '70s and I just never quit building that way. Always at least 10 years behind the trend.

In '77 I got my '46 coupe from a fella who was building a very trendy Vic.He had this coupe and the cad mill and hydro sitting in his shed behind his place and his Vic in his garage being assembled. I think I got the whole shootin match for 150 or so because he said that it wasn't worth anything. I had to borrow the shop truck from the local harley dealer. it took me all of a week of evenings to get it rollin on the old worn tires with the caddy. I loaned it to a couple of ladies that I knew when I took off on one of my vairous attempts to see Mt Rushmore. When I came back they had waxed the hell out of it, vacuumed out the inside and put carpet cut from an old persian rug they found at a thrift shop. The old metalic blue paint looked pretty good.

 

That black Model A sedan is badass. To me, that car would look great and fit right in, no matter what the current trend was. Very, very nicely done.

 

Man, around here it was all peach and teal, monochromatic, grey mohair, billet wheels and crybaby dolls. Just HORRENDOUS. Enough to induce projectile vomiting. At the same time, Mission was closed, and the street racing scene was HOT. The scene was actually pretty polarized around here at that time. We considered "those guys" to be ridiculous old grey beards with oh so slow, show-boat poser mobiles, and they considered us dangerous, unruly, foaming at the mouth, speed freak maniacs. Hot rodders, in other words. In my experience, hot rodders(guys that modify older cars for improved performance) and street rodders still dont mix real well. I would call one of my best friends a "street rodder". We get along well socially, but our approach to building cars and our ways of looking at them are as different as night and day. I have to turn the engine talk WAY down around him, or his eyes glaze over. To me, traditional car or sixties era car, the build is engine-centric. Thats the primary focus, and pretty much dictates the way the rest of the car ends up being built. To him, he'd be just as happy with a crate motor. (this board still needs a puke smilie)

 

Some of my dad's stuff from 71-81.

 

High school car. maroon w/ gold brake drums and traction bars. Loved that car. 1978

 

You missed all the real car fun!

 

Yep! We need a bigger smiley page...

 

I can think of a time that a smiley giving a one finger salute would have been appropriate.

Maybe a flying fickle finger of fate award smiley.

 

Rowan and Martin's "Laugh-In".... Who could forget that show???.... I wish they'd bring it back!..

 

...

 

That's them!!!!... ^^^^

 

Ahhhhhhhhh yes, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In! Great show!

Loved Artie Johnson on his little tricycle, and the operator "One ringy-dingy!" *snort*

 

when I was a kid my mon and dad went to a halloween party dressed as Ruth Buzzy and Arty Johnsons old mand ervert character....I was like WTF, but looking back at that pic tere were right on...

 

Like I said before, I was selling Hot rod Stuff at Gratiot Auto Supply in the mid 70's,... This is a 1977 Gratiot catalog scan,... check out what we were selling NEW 426 Hemi Short Blocks for !,... And we would send them to Mancini for heads.

 

I was there for both the late 60's and all the way thru the 70's.
I can say some of it was good times and some I don't care to remember.
my high school rides were a 65 Chevy ragtop sbc 4 speed and 65 Plymouth 426 wedge motor, 4 speed, L-60, ladder bars and air shocks. Somewhere I put in a Mr Gasket V-gate shifter and drove that on the street. That was not one of my best ideas, ever! killed your fingers pulling it up so you could downshift. Bought my 1st Model A body in 74 for 200.00 bucks, then sold it for 300.00. Still have my 69 Mach 1 bought that in 74 and a 56 basket case Vette that I bought in a bar over beers around 75. Somewhere along the the time line, fell into the Harley's thing, still have them too. Oh did the 70's van in days to plus the 4 wheeling bullshit too.

if this vans a rocking don't come a knocking ------------- sex, drugs and rock and roll

don't let the streetrod40 screen name fool ya, been at this game a long time.

 

I had purchased and built up a 1939 Ford Coupe- kept it for 27 years- we called them street rods-