Featured Technical This traditional?

This caught my eye, blurring the category of traditional or not.

 

Depends what era your tradition is set in.

only thing I see that’s not traditional into a pre 1964 era is the radial tires. Might get some push back on the tube center crossmember but I’ve seen plenty of simular set ups in 50’s race cars.

 

all kinds of street-rodder things hidden in there, plus the plate might get you a ticket in LA if the cop is a jerk.

 

What's not to like, it has three pedals!!!

 

Perhaps not traditional but there is nothing there that couldn't have built it period using the tools of the day.

People are way to stuck in this traditional mindset, I like 40s, 50s and early 60s builds but there were many cars built back then that would be considered far from traditional.

Ak's Millers 1932 Ford with 1940(?) Chevrolet front suspension.



Chet Herbert's propane-powered, Horning 12-port head GMC, 32 sedan


The Nolan Swift Super Modified built in the winter of 1960 for the 1961 season.
The frame was built out of tubing, just like the Indy cars of the day.


Mallicoat Brothers Gasser

 

About everything could have been done in the day but anyone looking at that will know it was not built in the day . welds all to nice all the plates and such cut on a plasma or water jet , tubing all bent to well on stuff most did not have then as well as the machne work . sure it was all doable but very very few had acrss to tall the stuff at one time in one spot . IMO

Its pretty nice looking set up nothing wrong with it

 

The concept is traditional. The execution is modern high tech.

 

Um, simular means false; specious; counterfeit when used as an adjective.

Is that what you meant?

 

I believe he meant SIMILAR

Resembling without being identical

 

Based on the color, Is that Wayne Carini's Moal built Speedster?

 

So people didn’t know how to weld back then?
There were people who were good free hand with a torch or there weren’t torch tables back then?

There weren’t tube benders ,band saws, or Bridgeport’s?

I am reminded of an interview I saw of Willie G. Davidson, he wanted to do something and the engineers and designers told him it wasn’t possible they didn’t have the technology.

So he took them to the H.D. archive pointed to an early motorcycle and asked the how they did it back then?

Maybe not everyone had access to these things but that doesn’t mean people were building junk.

 

I agree with you.
The neighbor a road over, who passed some 20+ years ago, was probably born in the 20’s.
He started an Almond orchard. He did have to build his frame work, etc for scrapers, disc’s, etc. almost all his equipment that hooked to the tractor.

One day I was over, he told me he built them all, I was admiring the 50/60? Year old welds, I told him “nice welding.”

He said “all with my torch”.
I was double shocked.

 

This would be an “Aha” ride for the day!

 

Not Carini’s car. I believe I see a tailgate, so a pickup or RPU. Looks like it came out of Alan Johnson’s shop. I like it.

 

...Please explore the differences between to, too and two. Yeah, I'm the grammar Nazi.

 

I cut the bird heads for my cage using a cut off wheel, a 4” grinder and a 1.75 hole saw in a bench top drill press.

 

Nice work! Where there’s a will there’s a way, and that philosophy is timeless.

 

The plated and drilled ladder bars are the only thing to me that stand out and we’ve seen stuff like that in the late 50’s early 60’s. The radius of the bends in the center member aren’t super tight totally feasible back then. The driveshaft loop is tight but that is a smaller diameter and could have been solid round stock heated and bent.

I’m sure there are some fittings and small details that weren’t around til now. But it blows me away when people think “traditional” has to mean hacked together in the 40’s jalopy. There were plenty of very clean and painted cars.

 

Its currently listed on Bring A Trailer...

 

so if the same chassis had booger welds and spray can black paint it would be traditional?

 

Nice work . seriously nice work
My point was it could have been possible but most will look at it and think it does not all ad up that it was all done so well in so many ways with so many skill levels back in the day and know it was a more recent build . ( Id love to be wrong )
Most average guys did not have access to everything at once.

Im not saying to do a lesser job today im just saying it looks to good for 95% of the stuff done back in the day . Sure there were perfect cars built then .

I have more equipment in my personal shop than about any custom builders or repair shops had in the day . In the 1950's my grand father had a welding % repair shop in nothern CA and he had a single Forney AC stick wleder , a set of torches and a big lathe with no power feed or gears and he had more than most .
even in the 70's growing up a Heliarc ( TIG ) was very very rare to have in a home shop and most businesses did nt have them . didnt see many MIG welders until the late 80's we did not have Mig welders in HS metal shop in 1980

I ran a stock car in 1981 ( street stock ) and id say 99% of the roll cages were done with a stick still then . We had a sprint car in 1984 and we at the time knew nobdy who owned a tig in a home shop . We had to go a town over to get some tubes wleded in in Northern CA.

We had the basics . I had the only big grinder in or group and my buddy had the only torches for a while .

Today I have three mills three lathes , mig, tig , stick , access to a tubing binder , shrinker stretcher, brake , bead roller all the paint equipment , hoist big compressors , sand blasters. port a powers and on and on . Nobody has all that stuff back in the day unless it was a full blown fab shop . I recall it was a big deal to have a porta power in the 70's No harbor freight then LOL That said I doubt I cluld do that nice of a job on every part it . I doubt I can match your work and I have all the cool crap .

The way I see it is the car is a very very nice modern build in the traditional style .

I recall making a MX bicycle frame in 1976 in JH and finding chromoly tubing was about im possable let alone a tig to use . I brazed my frame . we had no internet to find stuff or share how to do it . it was magazines races and car shows . back then and im not that old .

 

No it built in about 2021 to look traditional with 6 speed and a aftermaket body and stuff like that. Its a very nice build but as I said in a above post first glance is it does not add up as a old build .
Id be damn proud of it if it was mine .

355-Powered '32 Ford Roadster Pickup Hot Rod 6-Speed for sale on BaT Auctions - ending November 11 (Lot #170,220) | Bring a Trailer

 

The suspension parts are JHRS

 

I've got to go with Tim and 49Ratfink, why the hell do guys think that only cars hacked out with a cutting torch and hack saw are "traditional?

For a home builder the big difference between "that's okay" and "that is hell for nice" isn't $$ spent it is hours spent paying attention to little details that often no one will ever see unless it is up on a hoist.

A lot of cars that a lot of guys are basing their concept as "traditional" were the slapped together lakes race cars done by low buck racers. The Forerunners of the Friday/Saturday night dirt track racers in a lot of towns in the 60's and 70's who's cars were pretty well beyond crude by today's standards and from what I saw in Central Texas in that period couldn't pass today's safety tech inspections on a bet. Those guys did stuff that would scare the crap out of a rat rodder today.
Still if you look in the old little books or the rotogravure section of 50's and early 60's hot rod there were some nice hot rods being built with fit and finish at a high level top and bottom.
Then remember in the early 70's Cotton Werksman did all the welding on the roadsters he built with an acetylene torch and didn't own an electric welder of any kind. Pretty well welding them up the same as most of the clones of Piper Cub frameworks are still done today.

As for that particular roadster pickup, yes the level of fit and finish is right at the top and it would draw plenty of attention at Deuce days NW next summer. It may not be what most on here see as a traditional hot rod but it is sympathetic to traditional hot rod build practices and there aren't glaring things that most guys would find as way too street roddy. https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1932-ford-hot-rod-75/ Someone might just get a hell of a nice car for far less than the original owner paid to build it.

They don't get much more traditional than this one that is also up on the block right now but it is hell for nice too, I don't think even the most hard core can gripe much about it. https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1932-ford-hot-rod-72/

 

Oh.

I’d drive it

 

I can't help but chuckle at the thought of quality workmanship isn't traditional! Hilarious.
So back in the '50's and 60's guys just welded things together all boogered up, or bent tubing over the edge of their anvil?
I needed a good chuckle, so thanks for that!

 

I would run that setup in a heartbeat. Maybe one concern would be the amount of compliance in those truck arms. It is hard to see what bushings have been used at the front of them. It might all work ok.

As @choffman41 said earlier, "The concept is traditional. The execution is modern high tech." Nothing wrong with that. It's cooler than Frosty the Snowman's pecker.

 

agreed. Johnson’s hot rods billet aluminum radius rods. I don’t mind a little bit of CNC machined one-off parts here and there, but I do not like these very much.

 

I'm with Anthony, I'd drive it.

I'd also bet it would be accepted at any of the invitational 'traditional' events.