When did we all become restorers?

I agrre. I asked my friends on the HAMB for advice on my 1939 Ford deluxe coupe tail lites. i wanted to use 1959 caddy lights. 9 out of 10 said use the original Ford tail lites!! I did not liston of course. But if you don't want to hear it(opiniopns), don't ask!! To each his own. Hot rods were originally considered an expression of a persons ideas of a neat car. still is as far a i can see. And I do value the opinions of the members of the HAMB very dearly!

 

I sometimes have restorational tendencies on my builds but it stops before I get to the drivetrain and brakes.

 

What makes our 'old-car' hobby so unique is each one's personal expression displayed in their rides in ways always different and beautiful to a variety of tastes from vintage to street rod. While the concept of 'restored' or not is the topic, ironically, the highest cl*** of automoblile judged is: 'unrestored', as in original, never touched, rolled out of a showroom and into a garage, etc. If you took for example a '53 Cadillac, Eldorado, convertible, either restored or unrestored in number 1 or 2 condition, and modified it, you would most likely cut the value considerably; which from the start would be roughly a quarter million $.
The point is, as stated here already, it really does depend on what you start with. The vintage folks, with everything correct down to the right decal have their point and I respect that because they are preservationists at heart. Fine. They might be at one extreme of our hobby, but when their sharp penciled judges swarm around my car with their clipboards I respectfully tell them there's nothin' to see here.....and that they should disregard my period correct 54 Bel Air hardtop 'cause it's a mild custom and has no factory door knobs.
But for certain it brings me right back to my youth on the streets of Flatbush Brooklyn rather perfectly, and that's the sort of restoration I still cherish.

 

BamaMav and I are on the same page when he said, "it's a resto-mod. Stock sheet metal, later running gear, a few creature comforts. Comfortable to drive, spirited enough for a high speed sprint, yet simple enough that you look at it and wonder what is stock and what's not. No crazy custom paint or tweed interior, but a subtle color outside with a semi- factory looking inside. I like it, and that's all that matters......"
I've been working on my '29 AA for 40+ years now and have incorporated things from each of those decades that will make it more comfortable, practical and most of all, safer. After all, if I ever get it on the road, I don't want to die in it. I wouldn't be around to enjoy the irony.

 

why does one see himself as a realist?
cant he see he is an idealist like everyone else?

we preserve our perception of history to identify ourselves in our version of the present

step outside those simple guidelines and you will not fit the group,
the group will reject that which does not support the group.

 

I have never restored anything and at this age most likely never will, That is why I am a Hot Rodder

 

In a sense building a period correct car is a sort of a restoration even if you start with a hulk and you are the first to build it. At least it takes the same amount of discipline.

That said while I have done it in the past for a paycheck I don't really have the patience for restoration. I would build a period correct car or what we normally consider "traditional" but as for period perfect, I.E. using only parts manufactured in the particular period I am shooting at, it is most likely not going to happen. I am just big on date codes when a piece manufactured a couple of years later will look and work just fine.

I think the whole deal of finding a car build by Joe Blitzfitz and restoring it back to the way that it was is a little lame, if that is what you are talking about. Granted to find a historical vehicle and bring it back historically is a different story all together, but what are the odds that I will ever land say the green dragon or the like.

To carry this a little further if I did find a rod built in a certain period and mostly intact I would be inclined to stay with the period but make it my own and not someone else's car. There are even limits to that as well. But why bore you with my philosophy on things.

 

To further confuse the issue, I am building my tub the way I would have done it as a twenty something guy in the sixties. A lot of what I am doing might not be considered traditional here, but it is true to my personal tradition (I did build a bucket, dodge hemi-powered, in '65 and '66 so I know of which I speak). For example, I got the entire drive train out of a '50 Ford and am using the whole thing (flathead , O.D. transmission, rear end, and the stock motor and transmission mounts). That's what I would have done then; it's what I'm doing now. No biscuit mounts or 9" Ford for me. Most of the rest of the parts are miscellaneous stuff I have picked up at swap meets or on eBay over the last 25 years. I'm using a gl*** body because I found one I could afford. The funny thing is, I almost got nudged off my own personal track by spending too much time on the H.A.M.B. and started to overthink what I was doing. Thanks for the thread Jim, I think I see exactly what you are saying, which allow me to get my head back together and back on the track I originally started down.

 

Tub man that is totally traditional at least in my eyes.

We used to grab an entire wreck if we had to and move the best parts over to our hot rod, granted I didn't start building on my own until the late '60s but I learned what I knew from guys that had been building since the '30s for the most part.

One of things that kills us in our builds and I believe keeps half built cars on the market for some of us is overthinking it. It has been that way about forever, at least that has been my experience. I have bought a lot of half built cars over the years because someone had to build it into a perfect car from the info he or she had at hand and then got burnt out.

Anyway your approach is not a restoration because when you did it the first time around it was not a restoration and you are not snagging someone else's dream. You are just recapturing your youth (if that is at all possible).

 

I have been wondering about what cons***utes "traditional" as in the style of 1965 and earlier?

Is it the intention behind the build, or the parts used to modify the car?

Please bear with me, I am a Philosophy major that turned to wrenching in order to pay for his car hobby. Basically that means I'm a car guy who is full of **** and talks about weird things sometimes.

It would seem to me that the "spirit" of the original guys in the 1950s and 1960s would include the addition of anything to make your hot rod more compe***ive at the track or otherwise better to drive... And to do so as cost efficiently as possible using what parts are readily available.

Now I'm no fan of the Rat Rod guys, though I appreciate their work when I see it— and I can see that their stuff doesn't belong on the H.a.m.b.

I also appreciate but am not a fan of the Foose and Rad Rides By Troy stuff either, and I don't figure that stuff is H.a.m.b. fare either.

But what about the "resto-rod" crowd? Resto-rodders want the traditional car, but want to include as much drivability as possible.

Personally, I would include myself in this bunch- we want our cars to be driven reliably, safely, economically and we want to build a reasonable amount of horsepower so we can have a little fun. Shoot, I bet some of us want our cars to corner well too.

So is the addition of modern driveline parts, like an LS engine and computer controlled automatic transmission or a DOHC Coyote 5.0 with a six speed manual, and bigger better brakes and maybe sway-bars?

How about a small block with EFI?

Where do we draw the line?

You can bet I'm not going to stick brakes from 1965 on my '56 Mainline, and I'm debating on using a fuel injected 351 Windsor out of a 1st Gen Lightning pickup as I intend to drive the car as much as possible and the Y block may hinder that intention.

But is that "non-traditional"?

I would think that the resto-rodder would be right there in the thick of the "spirit" of 50's and 60's hot rodders— trying to make their cars better/faster with what's available.


Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!

 

I can agree to rebuilding ("restoring") a truly historic car to it's original state. However, just because it was built "back in the day" and had a picture of it at a rod run published in a magazine does not make it historical nor worthy of worship. There was a lot of **** built back in the day both asthetically and mechanically. I built some of it....broke & uninformed high-schooler. These should not be preserved nor copied just for the sake of being "traditional". There are a couple of "restorations/rebuilds" on the net right now that are good examples. One is an exceptional example on the outside....just don't look underneath. The cars were built wrong back then and will still be wrong 20 years from now.

BTW.....I had disc brakes on a T bucket in 1964 but have been told by someone 25 years my junior that my present build won't be traditional if I put discs on it. LOL

 

Tbolt 64
Actually this has been discussed at length many years in the past.

I think that where you and many of us have missed it is that there is a small chasm that separates hot rodding in general and building a traditional hot rod. Hot rodding in general being main stream and traditional hot rodding being the niche.

yes in a sense and perhaps in greater the greater sense says anything that makes an average car go faster or perform better in some sense of the word. A traditional hot rodder in this instance is using a larger set of rules, one that rules out using the more readily available pieces to make his or her vehicle perform better and looking back to a time when what we take for granted was not yet available.

Lets use a different example, when I was little we owned a TV that was at least to me a large wooden box, it had the channels and sometimes we could get a 4th. Today we have thousands of channels at our disposal and people watch their favorite shows on their telephone. So if one were to start a movement called traditional television it would have to be confined to the old original networks on an ****og television set even though digital television is more readily available.

This could actually be done with a lot of things, math for instance could be done with a slide rule or written papers could be submitted using a type writer and paper.

Ok so enough foolishness, you catch my drift right?

 

Jim, That simply isn't true.
There are lots of folks building "original" cars from the cars of yesteryear.

 

Here's the way I see it. I have a Deuce Hi-Boy roadster and a 1946 Ford Woodie. I drive the wheels off my cars, the Hi-Boy has 60K on the clock and the Woodie has about 40K. Don't get me wrong I love to drive my Deuce, but at 68 years old after 8 hours behind the wheel, it takes me a while to recoup. With the wind, engine noise and sitting low in the seat, driving my Hi-Boy is like driving a four wheeled Harley. My Woodie is like driving my living room couch, and I can drive it all day. The Woodie is a resto rod, with chevy drivetrain and many people mistake it for a restored car. It simply boils down to comfort for me.

 

So, then it is the parts that makes a "traditonal hot rod".

I had thought a traditonal hot rod would be primarily based on the car and secondarily on the style in which it was hot rodded and perhaps the parts being a tertiary matter.

Lots of fibergl*** and vivid colors, like the Eliminator Coupe, would not make a traditional hot rod, I understand that.

Maybe I'm too young, but where would a "street machine" style car (mag wheels, big cam, headers, high rise intake and a big Hurst shifter) fall?



Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!

 

Restored, traditional hot rods, customs, survivors, muscle cars. I appreciate them all for different reasons. I really prefer not to over-think it and just enjoy each one for what it is.

 

Guess that depends on the style of street machine?

pre-64/5 wide tires ( like in N-50s) were not common, an 8" wide tire would have been a wide tires for example. Big cams and headers were happening in the early '60s as were multiple carbs. I don't recall seeing too many "tunnel" rams, if that is what you are calling a high rise intake.

Mag wheels were happening by '65 although mag wheels a lot of the time were magnesium wheels.

I am going to fathom a guess that you are thinking about street beast cars which were not really popular until the very late '60s and early '70s.

 

I have a love for the Ford "Total Performance" era, which was at its height in the mid-60's, as I understand it, and '60's NASCAR as well.

That being said, I dig small block Fords and FE engines.

Based on that, which is pretty traditional in my mind, I figured the H.a.m.b. would be a good place for me.

I appreciate Flat Heads, big Caddies and Nail Heads, but they don't particularly interest me - they seem frightfully inefficient.

Maybe I'm a touch too late 60's to be into "traditional hot rods".


Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!

 

Sorry to be having an existential crisis in the middle of the thread. But, if you are building something to be "period correct" wouldn't you be restoring the car in a sense anyway?

Perhaps a "day two" restoration as opposed to a more "historical restoration," even though the car may have never been hot rodded in the past?


Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!

 

The thing about restorations—whether restoring to as-new, or restoring a period-built hot-rod—is that it is a safer path. All decisions have already been made, absolving the restorer from making personal or esthetic choices. Just take it apart and put it back together, refinish or replace as you go. I’m not saying this isn’t difficult or expensive or rewarding, I’m just saying that much of the creativity—a major part of the hot-rod equation—has been eliminated.

I relish the challenge of limiting myself to a specific period, and only using original stuff. I enjoy the hunt, and making adaptations. I also enjoy the process of making a change, stepping back, and asking “does this look right, or does this look goofy.”

And yes, to me, the provenance of the parts matters. Of course, my car will only see a few hundred miles a year, so the additional risk and discomfort of archaic period stuff is acceptable to me. I certainly understand the concessions people make for daily drivers—discs, T-5s, dual-pot masters, etc. But I think the moderators are pretty clear about keeping that on the down-low. When people don’t, sometimes the traditional police come out. In a way, I get that too—I mean, when were “hoodlums” ever concerned with comfort and safety?

Here’s a pic my traditional/non-traditional speedster. A mashup of period parts, some of which were married by a hot-rodder in the early ‘50s, some introduced by me.

 

I'm still trying to get jims point myself, but on a traditional board you're going to have quite a bit of the "cars like they were done in the past". That is the point of the board. The mentality of a restorer and that of a hard core traditional hot rod builder are the essentially on the same parallel but the out come is different. The restorers aim for a mark to bring it to the factory specs with correct parts the traditional builder aims for a style of the past using the correct parts. The mentality of the guy building a hot rod 60 years ago was to use what he had, that mentality in its entirety doesn't apply on a traditional board in 2014. You need to use what he had, try something different with the same parts he had. It's a tough road because there's been many who've tried also. Much of the "different" is used up already. There's plenty of room for better though.

If you squint hard enough every damn car looks the same. A Kia sole looks like a model A sedan in a relative way. Everyone has a different kind of "happy" and as long as your car makes you happy it's all good I think.

 

As long as they came from the factory as standard equipment I'll take 'em either way.

 

Maybe you should look for other sites ?
Killbillet.com
Ratrodzrule.com
Fauxpatina.com
Trailerqueenshowcar.com

 

I don't think anyone is saying it's wrong to build new and innovative hotrods or build hotrods/customs/racecars to different eras than pre 65. They're just not the focus of this particular forum.

I've got a few projects going on right now that I don't post about on the main forum, because they don't meet the criteria. I'm even working on an Anglia that's been a racecar since the 60's. Even though I'm building it to "old race car specs", it's not pre 65 so it's not gonna be on here.

 

I'l catch flack for this. To me a traditional cars do not include stick tab A into Slot B. It's all about repurpose.

 

I guess my point is more of a question. Is this site for people that want to build hotrods in the style and spirit of the days of past, or is it a site dedicated to the building of cars to a formula and not to be deviated from with fear if being ridiculed for thinking outside of the box?


Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!

 

I'd have to say its the first, at least in my opinion and to me anyway. A group of like minded individuals with a wide swing of opinions and experience levels.

Just for an example- speak of putting a model A body on 34 rails and you'll be overrun with contrary and negative opinions, Because it doesn't follow the formula. Actually pull it off well and you've built a traditional rod with period parts that's not seen very much. Not seen because it Probably because it requires some extra work and thought vs the easier path.

The high road is there to take, but it certainly easier to do what's been done. Not much adventure for a seasoned and jaded builder but a whole world of excitement for a fella that's building his first car. I imagine landspeed racing to be the same, not much thrill in running 150mph if you've already been 200, but 150 to the guy who's only been up to 100, well he's living on his edge. I've seen your threads and your builds, your edge is in a different place.


Btw, your orange coupe has been my desktop background for years.

 

31vicky, from what I see here, there is a lot of formula building going on, which could loosely be considered restoration. (Build 'em the way they were) My creativity makes it hard to follow any ones formula, so I don't call myself a traditionalist. If I see a good idea on a traditional car I might use it, but I doubt I will ever have a strictly traditional car.
To anyone that asks why I'm here if I don't follow the doctrine, I seek knowledge where I can find it.

 

Of course there's a lot of formula building, its easier. There's a lot of rookie builders and what would you expect from first timers building traditional cars? Follow the recipe of proven success. Most People like to take the path of least resistance.

There's a handful of guys that work on a design team, but an army on the ***embly line.

Jim, just build what you want, don't hold back for fear of ridicule and ill bet there will be plenty of guys who try to follow your formula.

 

Haven't read most of this thread and am no doubt repeating what others have already stated but here's my two bits anyways.

One thing to remember is every body has different degrees of what they consider "proper or correct" and no matter what, people will but heads. Still, most every gathering place has it's norm and seems it's already been established a while ago that the particular boundaries of the H.A.M.B. are essentially era correct hot rods and customs, pre 1965 with a sprinkling of historically related sidebars.

Rules can always be bent and I see innovative but tasteful stuff on here all the time. It's still just a burger joint though and I don't come here for the Gluten free organic goat cheese pizza which although not really my preference, there are other places that would gladly indulge me.