Hot Rods This ain't no disco, this ain't no rat rod, this ain't no fooling around!

...always loved Barnhart's car, liked it better as a coupe but dont matter; these guys were on the forefront of the whole "havin fun with old cars" movement before all the labels were applied;...back then they were just called beaters.
...had the pleasure to meet Pat, Cliff and a few of their friends at the R&C Americruise in Chillicothe, Il.....these guys knew how to have fun.
The Street Rodder feature on Pat's coupe will always be one of my favorites,

 

I saw this thread... and though wow, thats my dad! Pretty cool! I guess I know where I get it. He always says "You cant teach cool" and "if it aint low it aint mine" As of now he's driving the 60 Sunliner pulling the Bomb Fried Pie trailer a (60's) shasta. He is in the process of getting another 1946 Ford Convertible on the road... It will be going to the Roadster Show in California on Fathers Day Weekend, along with abunch of others locals that have commited to the road trip across the country. He went out on a limb and slicked this one up and of course slammed it.... its gonna be a super nice car. It wont be long until ya see him cruisin it around.....

 

I remember that ford coupe/convertible at the events I'd drive to in my old 56 Pontiac. This photo was taken at DesMoines Goodguys 1st year...the coupe/convertible was there and at Americruise and at ......

 

Ok gang, I need some confirmation! Was this car at L.A.R.S. this weekend? Either with or without Pat? The reason I ask, I had to leave the show a bit early yesterday to pick up the Incredible Miss Judy at LAX after her 23 hour flight from Hong Kong. We did a quick lunch in Santa Monica and made a dash home for Phoenix. Pulling the giant grade east of Indio, I saw this car... Had to be! Y.O.M. Texas plates, a mediocre black paint job (shiny?), no top in the desert heat (been there, done that), low as hell with the red wheels and wide whites. I tried to hang back, but we were rollin' 90mph or so and he was at more like 75, and well you know, if you hit that hill and have a clear shot, you keep on going! I even woke Judy up (who was delicately hanging from her belts and drooling on her seat, snoring, and I mean that in the sexiest way possible...) and told her that that car was one of the reasons the Plymouth existed. Then it disappeared in the rear view...

 

G-g-go Greased Lightning....

 

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OK!! This thread, and these cars just made a decision for me.
I was thinking of doing new paint on my 47, but now I think I want it to be just a notch or two up from the cars on this thread. So, I'll keep the shitty paint, put in my own interior, and call it good. I like the idea of a car that looks like it's owner is having too much fun driving to be polishing....Which it true!
I love the HAMB!

 

If that was a reference to my quoted speed, that was only because I was trying to get the hell out of the way of others going faster! If you have ever run I-10 between Phoenix and L.A. you'd know the word desolation. 100mph is pretty normal and not entirely frowned upon on that section of road. Hell, if 90 shocks you, I won't even begin to tell you what ElPolacko's twin turbo truck and my avatar Plymouth have gone through that section of road!

Still looking for confirmation on Pat's Convert at L.A.R.S.? Any body?!
Bueler!

 

Yes that was Pat.

 

One thing you all have forgotten to mention is that this all comes from our cal look vw days. When we were kids and driving in our cal look vw's we looked at the hot rod guys and could not figure out how in the hell we were going to get enough money to build a finshed car then we saw these cars talked about at the begining of this thread and the light went on and we all saw a way to combine our vw cal look into hot rods and the rest is history. Hell if any of you have seen my coupe you have seen that influnce in the taillights and part of the dash, 56 oval bug. This is why I hang out with Elp and Chip because we are cut from the same cloth. Slam it and drive the shit out of it, break it, fix it and drive it again.

 

Cool!!! Sorry I missed the car at the show though...

 

It goes a little deeper than simply the socal VW thing. It goes back to the roots or hot rodding and kustomizing.
When I first opened this thread I was surprised because it was almost like the HAMB had come full circle.
Those types of cars were the frontrunners to the rat rod scene before the scene was overtaken by mini-truckers and their shock rods and art cars. Rat rods, beaters and jalopies have all been around since the beginning of car kustomization. All three of those terms have been used to describe unfinished or at least unrefined hot rods and customs for a lot longer than the shock rod scene of the last decade or so.
Hate to say it, but unpainted cars aren't really traditional. I can't recall ever seeing any finished cars in the period referred to as traditional running around indefinitely with no paint or in primer. Neither can any of the old guys I've talked to. They've always explained it to me as the cars being built in order of necessity, paint being the last. The whole faded/patina'd/oxidized look is a modern trend. I'm not against it, but it's not traditional, and seems to be inspired by people wanting their cars to look like a surviving rod or kustom.

 

You are correct as the same old guys that I know tell me the same thing. I was mostly refereing to the age group that Need Louvers refered too. Here on the west coast it took off alot faster that the rest of the country. Well before the magazines got ahold of this and well before Viva Las Vegan took off there was us driving our cars becasue that is all we had and paint was not and in some ways is still not the priority.

 

Very, very, much agreed! The built around ultra lowness, wheel/tire combos and fit, the stock trim or mildly shaved stuff is all direct call back to Cal look VW stuff to our generation in this part of the country. I don't expect to have some one from east of here understand that and that's okay too.

 

Yes, Beaters have been around since the beginning of time automotive wise. I had never heard the term Rat Rod until the late nineties when Gray Baskerville used it in a Rod and Custom article on the shifters. But this stuff goes back much further. My '39 coupe in '81 had the same styling, primer spots and "rough edges" along with the ultra lowness. Saying unpainted cars are "untraditional" is absolutely ludicrous! I remember the guys that hung out with my dad and uncle in the sixties and seventies and most had unfinished cars that were being driven. I have also been told stories all my life about the faster than fast "sleeper" running around town that had faded, beat up paint and what ever hell making engine could be stuffed beneath the hood. I don't think "not traditional" is the issue here either.

The point of this car and the era it came from was to thumb it's well traveled nose at the then accepted norm of "finish it, make it perfect, show it, and treat it like a Faberge' egg". The late eighties and early nineties were like that. This car was one of two strong signals that it was okay to have fun with something you could just drive and not worry about. The other was about 6 or 7 seven years earlier when Barakat and Eastwoods '32 made the cover of Hot Rod.

Never quite have been able to figure out the "gotta paint it and make it shine" guys myself, but that's just me. To each his own I guess. I just know when the Plymouth hits the road again in the next couple of months I'll drive it again everyday, everywhere, and I'll pile more miles onto the 250,000 on it already...

 

Yep, I agree, but I missed that point, and I agree with that too. It didn't get dirty until the mini-truckers and the ricers saw jalopies and ratty beaters and started throwing shit together the same way that they throw their trucks together.

Gray himself had been using that term since the early 70's I read somewhere. Maybe it's a regional thing, but I've heard that term thrown around since I was a kid (obviously not as long as some on this board have been around, but still longer than the trend). my older brother used to build rat bikes out of spare parts in his shop. They were fast, nasty and loud and built out of leftovers, not garbage. I've also seen old timers at car shows refer to unpainted, unfinished cars as rat rods and what most people here think of as rat rods as complete garbage. They forgo the rat rod label as it means something else to them. Around here at least.

You mistake my meaning. I'm not saying that unpainted cars is untraditional, I'm saying that never planing on painting it is.The guys back in the 50's and 60's who were pouring all their hard earned time and money into their cars didn't want to loose em to rust. Paint wasn't a priority, but purposely aging a car wasn't even on the table. Everything else came before paint. I'm of the same school of thought, I'll get around to painting both of mine someday, but only after everything else is done.

 

You mistake my meaning. I'm not saying that unpainted cars is untraditional, I'm saying that never planing on painting it is.The guys back in the 50's and 60's who were pouring all their hard earned time and money into their cars didn't want to loose em to rust. Paint wasn't a priority, but purposely aging a car wasn't even on the table. Everything else came before paint. I'm of the same school of thought, I'll get around to painting both of mine someday, but only after everything else is done.[/QUOTE]

Nah. We're on basically the same page. something you said that I was going to touch on though, but didn't want take the time to explain - "lose them to rust"... See, regional thing again. We don't even think of that as a possibility 'round these parts! HotRodRon's deuce has been in bare metal fro the better part of ten years now, and my Plymouth just burned through the last little bit of it's lacquer primer that I applied in 1993.

 

My old Model A pickup from the mid 70's.."Neater in a Beater" HRP



My old truck stayed in primer for about 5 years,work,raising children and just try to keep the wolves away from the door but that didn't stop me from enjoying the truck.

When the day came to take it apart and do the body work and paint,I was torn,,I drove the truck every single day.

The truck was apart for almost 3 years,,again work,raising children and trying to keep the wolves away from the door.

Finally the truck was assembled,painted and finished,,,and I hated it,,it lost it's soul!

I sold it and always wanted another one,,several years ago I found my 32 pickup and built it like I wish I could have way back then,,I wanted primer but I settled on a s.g. black,,I couldn't be happier,,BTW,,the interior is still yet to be finished.

Bottom line,,I'm happy with it! HRP

 

We painted our cars because we wanted to get the girls. Girls liked guys that had a nice car. If you pulled up in front of your date's home in a beater, her daddy wouldn't let her go out with you. It was just that simple. Seriously.

 

Another of Pat's slightly more recent builds...though these shots are probably close to 10 years old now. Though this might have been Mike Hubaceks? Either way, they all ran together.

 

Maybe losing it too rust is a little extreme, but not by much even around here. I took the hood of my 49 to bare metal to rework it and it flash rusted overnight and now has a healthy covering of the stuff, even though it's garaged. Moisture in the air I suppose, and you guys are probably a lot drier most of the year out there.
I like specialed's explanation, and to me that one really strikes a chord with a lot of what I've heard. These days most rodder's and customizers are married adults, but back in the day it seems to have been more of an adolescent pursuit. Most adolescent pursuits center on chasing tail...

 

Interesting thread and filled with a lot of insight. My question would be, do guys not have a finished (shiny paint) car because of circumstance or because it's accepted now? When I started my T, thinking that it was going to need a good (expensive) paint job was always in the back of my mind. As I got further into it, I stumbled onto the HAMB and that's when I learned that guys were driving their cars unfinished. It enabled me to relax and be comfortable with a non painted car.

The other day, I was talking to a guy about doing a metal flake job on my T and he asked, "Why I would do that?". He said it looked like a fun car without all the worry of a flashy paint job. And once again, I decided to leave it as is. But deep inside, I still feel a finished car is just the way it's supposed to be and my next one will be. And growing up, the hot girls liked guys in flashy cars.

Beaters being accepted has gotten a lot of guys into old cars and that's a great thing. It means this stuff actually has a future. But is it somehow wrong for the guy who can afford paint, to just build what's seems to be the latest fad? I realize it's not thought of as a fad by a lot of guys, but I personally know some mini-truckers who switched to rods just because they could ride around "looking" unfinished.

I guess what I'm wondering is, while the OP car got a lot of guys to drive an unfinished car, is that same thought behind cars built today or is it being done to fit into an accepted group? The old guys, when they were young, drove in primer until they could get paint. Are the new guys doing it just because it's allowed now?

I'm hoping my question makes sense.

 

For the first 5 years that my coupe was on the street, the body had original "Henry" paint, while the rough fenders were rattle can primered, due to me having stripped the paint from them several years earlier. It had the original upholstery and glass in it, with the exception of the windshield. At the time, that was all I could afford, but had dreams of it being pretty much restored interior and a black/flamed paint.

One day, when it was sitting in the parking lot at the office, a local kid had left a note on the windshield, asking me to call him. He was wanting to do the paint and body work to help his personal referral base. Being a kid who grew up around old cars, I remembered catching a bicycle pedal on dad's rear fender and getting my butt chewed, so I decided that an inexpensive "slick up" was the way to go until my kids were done and out of the house!

That's about all the "finish" work that I have ever done to the car, since it's been on the road these past 18 years. The original running board covers have crackled and what used to be about 90% covered is more like 40-50% rubber, the bumpers are rough and what's left of the original upholstery is still in the car. Every trip down the highway, I somewhat expect the headliner to blow out, but what's left of it continues to hang on.

Dad keeps getting after me to "finish" the car, but other financial priorities (and some apathy) tend to keep me just filling the tank and driving it more.

The truck, on the other hand, I have no intentions of doing anything to. I battle the whole preservation/restoration thing, every time think about doing anything with it, due to the fact that other than paint, it was pretty much original, when I got it. Plans for it are continue maintaining it and putting some wax on the old '70s Vo-Tech school paint job, that my uncle had done, and driving it!

 

I will take "Henry" to breakfast on Saturday morning, or one of the informal parking lot shows around here, and invariably the subject of paint comes up.
Most of the time, I'm making apologies for the "amateur" paint that is on it.
Usually, the consensus is to leave the paint alone. Most people, especially non-car people, think that for a 66 year old survivor a less than perfect paint job is appropriate.
I'm really torn though, as my dad was a top notch body man and would have insisted we paint the car the day I brought it home.
I graduated in 66, and we wouldn't dream of leaving a car in primer. Sure, the mechanicals would be done first, but as soon as the car was a driver, it would get paint. Even if it was done on the driveway one Sunday morning.
I see a lot of really nice cars here on the HAMB that, to me, are screaming to be one color. I guess I'm too old school. Rant over.....Thanks, Mike

 

Love the reference, I was in college in those years so I guess it shows my age.

First thing I saw when I could actually scroll down to a car was the yellow L37 Oldsmobile 2 dr, which is pretty rare in itself.... most were 4 drs.

 

Cal-Look,

Perfect description Ron. I jumped that bandwagon in '91





Built it in two months with the help of friends and under $2500.00. I can tell you this, I didn't have any other goals than to get a cool car on the road. My intent was to fix the rust and I did consider painting this car. Until I got an offer for $4K.

The new owner sawed the best part of the car off, got it featured in Hot Rod then painted it red, put a shitty canvas top and sold it to the highest bidder. Car lost its soul as soon as it left my hands.

Don't miss it though.

 

Everytime I see this photo it makes me laugh that you, need louvers and myself all ran in the same circles but never meet till later aorund 94-95. Maybe it was the 100 mile difference between tucson and phoenix. I loved seeing this car but never new it was you till later. The other bad thing about posting pics this old is we looked so much better when we were younger.

 

Yeah, look I had hair!

 

I miss it damnit!!! I still got hair too...

 

How did it lose it's "soul" after you sold it? Because the new owner made it into his vision?

 

No love for mini-truckers, huh?