Hot Rods What came first...the part or the car?

Maybe it's a set of Hub Caps, a dashboard, a set of taillights, engine, steering wheel, grille, etc. bought before the car, with the intention of building that car of your dreams with the "must have" part that the car is to be built around.
What part?...what car?, Let's see some pictures.

 

With me it usually starts with a couple beers and a foolish idea, where it goes from there is anybody's guess.

 

The Car And Then Many Parts...

 

Reminds me of this one.

 

The part . . .
. . . and the car.

 

Run, I hear a chicken joke coming..........too late!

 

Yes. That’s my answer

 

I’ve got many first parts, and the dream that goes with them, that might someday be built into cars. Seldom have I ever started with the car first.

 

You tell me. I have the electric clock out of my '51 Ford I had when I was in high school in the fifties in my current car (it works fine), and the automatic choke linkage from the '67 Corvette I bought new in my current '67 coupe.
Just trinkets I saved for no particular reason and put to use when the situation presented itself.

 

A good friend of mine, back when we were teenagers (I'm 70 now), would buy parts for a '57 Chev...Gabriel Hi Jackers, Headers, Chrome wheels, etc..
He didn't own a '57 Chev at the time, but knew he would....eventually he did buy one, and he had the parts to put on it.
He had a vision of his dream car, and the wherewithal to make it happen.

 

I had my blown flathead completely built before I bought the car it would end up in and the Desoto hemi was completed built prior to finding the truck.

Funny story (short version) @Pist-n-Broke actually PM'd me on here when he read that I had the hemi and pitched his truck idea at me. I bought it...instantly.

A lot of people say wheels or stance or color makes a hot rod; those things make nice cars. Hot engines make hot rods. And as Confucius said "man with hot rod, burn rubber"

 

An idea.

 

I know the first thing delivered at a home site lot is a fiberglass shower surround. The house is built a round it!

 

What comes first for me was always a homeless pile of rusty sheet metal that at some point in its past had been a car or a truck. I would drag the mess home, then figure out if i make it back into a car or truck again. Then came lots of parts.

 

I've started both ways and too often. Starting with a car or a part and adding to the collection to a point and then having a change of heart and selling the car and/or parts. Not always though....I have finished a few, at least to some level of being finished.

Lynn

 

Mine started out with a single pic of this '31 Slantwindow I found on the internet. I put my finger over the C pilar and thought: "that would make a cool Sedan Delivery."

2-1/2 years later...

 

I can’t think of any part that started a project for me. Mine have always seemed to start with a car…although some may have been considered marginal parts cars.

 

My build is based on Richard Scaldwell’s GN JAP creation, and surely his is built around the 5.0L air cooled V8 of which only 3 exist in the world. Aside from the cyclops headlight which is super cool IMHO, the exhaust is what does it for me, which is what I aimed to replicate using my C59A flathead.

 

Both.
I thought I was starting with a car until got a serious look at the work on the frame.
Welds made to Z both the rear and the front end.
They were disgusting and disturbing.
The rear diff had welded spiders.
No tragedy as the price was right.
I came upon a chassis that was sturdy and made to hold a Mouse motor and a 350 trans.
A problem arose when I realized that I could not call it a Hot Rod as it had a Corvair front member / with MG rack and pinion and coils all around.
My blood was hungry for a Hot Rod from the time I was in second grade, 1955
I now have a 1930 frame with banjo rear and 35 front axle, and 59AB

 

For me the big item is this 8BA flathead that I bought because I have wanted to build a flathead powered car for a long time. I've probably spent more money on that thing than the law allows but still don't have a car or truck to put it in.

I'd really like to build a bobber truck using a 35/36 ford truck cab with it if I can find one.

 

I used to call my buying of car parts "Collecting DNA"

Won a battery voucher at a rod run once, so figured I should build another hot rod so the battery got used.

 

@40FORDPU it may be an interesting twist to your query to pose "what part do you have in your possession at the moment, that you would build a car around?" A question like that might keep @Moriarity up all night but for the rest of us? It gives me pause.

 

Before I found my roadster I found a chrome F100 steering column at a swap meet. I already had a flathead and a 3 speed with overdrive, so I was planning on building a column shift stick car anyway, but this was the first part I bought with the car in mind that I didn't have yet.

The shifter was modified for an automatic and the handle was cut down, so I welded the bottom of an unmodified column shifter back on it, and I used an old cowl vent handle to make an extended shifter.

 

First I bought this tail light at a swap meet and began gathering the rest of the parts to put the modified together.

 

My problem with buying parts before I actually buy the car is finding where I stashed the parts before getting the car. Some never to be found again.

 

Speaking metaphorically. Man kind has been known to purchase a carriage before the horse. So does a roller project count as a part or a car?

 

I would call a "roller" a car, albeit a project needing many parts....typical of many I've bought.

 

I started with a vintage pair of BLC for lights.



Ended up with this. HRP

 

A girl i worked with gave me a glass gearshift ball for a small weld job i did for her. I then built a 32 5w around that glass ball.