Can you love traditional cars and high tech rods too

"the real feeling of a hot rod under your ****."

Are we all going to pretend that he didn't say this!

 

I like cars.... and my eclectic collection proves it.

I have a Traditional Model A with a Stude motor
Working on a Belleflower style 59 ElCamino
And my daily driver is a new BMW, but it does have 300hp and a 6sp.

 

I say, SURE! I love traditional rods, but I'm also addicted to big boxy cars like Box-Body Panthers ['79-91 Cr Vic, Gr Marq, Town Cars]. I'm on my fifth--an 88 Grand Marguis wagon and i'm waiting to hear the price of a 91 Town Car I found last week. I love Mopar C-bodies. There is a 20-something kid at church who has a Civic done tastefully, not all bling-blinged out. It is simple silver coupe with 17" wheels, lowered, exhaust [not fart-tipped], and slightly tinted windows.
The car is smooth and it flows, unlike the typical rice you see.

My first actual hot rod was a '79 Cadillac Coupe I built two years ago. I learned how to cut springs, grind my own wide-whites, and adapt dual exhaust [from the last Panther]. I had a BLAST with that car, going on two Power Tours, driving to my first Road Rocket Rumble and 'Pileup in that junker. Was it traditional? No, but what I learned I can apply to my Shoebox. And MAN, am I havin' fun!

 

Trad interior as well.

Perhaps I shoulda said "under the skin."

I wouldn't mind having an electronic fuel injection setup on the big Buick - 12 mpg in town, 16 on the highway - engine, but I'd leave the hood shut most times.

The 25-28 mpg electronic fuel injected computerized engines on the aerodynamic as a brick highboy roadsters is appealing.

I know, for most the better mileage wouldn't amount to much as little as they drive their cars, but I use mine quite a bit - it's the family's 2nd car - and it would be nice to not be such a familiar face at the gas station.

 

Yes you can. Yes I do.

 

My sedan has almost 400 hp.........gets 26 mpg, but the flathead roadster is the one that goes on most of our trips....it's just too much fun!

 

Sure you can. I can appreciate the work but I'm always hearing the voice in my head when I peer into a 40 Ford with P/W P/S Leather buckets billet column with wheel saying, "WHY?".

I hope the person found the car trashed and rebuilt it, or I'm stuck wondering how anyone could discard an interior like that, when it was done just so perfect the first time.

I see people pulling works of art gauges to install digital gauges. I saw this Cadillac the other day..........



........Now he left it alone but I've seen people pull those beautiful art deco gauges to install nasty new gauges.

You can like alot of things. I'm stuck wondering "Why" with so many things though.

 

I like modern rods from an engineering standpoint...you can't say that there's not a lot of effort going into "improving" many of those cars. But, from a styling veiwpoint, many are not what I consider to be "cool".

A couple things I've observed. The modern rods have "up-to-the-minute" style....which is out of style a short time later. Traditional rods seem to NEVER go out of style. The modern high-tech rods are nice to look at and I can appreciate the work going into them, but I can't picture myself performing that type of work or PAYING for it to be done. So, the traditional rods are more appealing because they appear to be "do-able" and "affordable" and maybe they won't need to be re-done to conform to next year's styling craze.

 

What i don't care for is a car that is thrown together, made barely driveable and nothing is finished. Rather than finish anything, they just call it traditional and talk down about anyone who finishes a vehicle. Calling it traditional makes it finished in their book. Don't even wash it.

 

No!

 

Of course a guy or gal can love traditional street rods/hot rods and modern street rods/hot rods. I do find it difficult, if not impossible, to develop an affection for stuff like Zippers and Decos and other such contemporary interpretations of old cars which have little in common with old cars at all.
This new clique of rodding, rat rods, is a sad and pitiful waste of good parts on junk ch***is and in junk bodies, BUT that's my opinion. I have to wonder what these, for the most part talented folks could do along the lines of building a "real" car without the cartoon silliness and disregard of any and all safety standards.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.

 

i like cars....

 

Love what you want. I love traditional cars, but high-tech (and usually high dollar) have a place too.

The guys who came before us were making do with what they could, but some of those guys just could get more, just think of the first guy to put a Chevy motor in his car or a Cadillac. Those were the high-tech mods of the time. No different than now, we just have a history to look back on.

In 30 years there will probably be a bunch of old school guys making Honda's the way they were in the 90's.

 

if its got teets or wheels, i will be looking at it. i think most guys are the same way.right? mike

 

Here's a car from a guy that Likes both. Traditional style '32 with a BLOWN Lexus V8 and a six speed that's easily over 400 hp and gets about 25 mpg, even when you're beating on it.

People either Love it or tell him he ruined a perfectly good '32.
I love it, It's fast, Loud, Has Three pedals, and it's a "hot rod". And by the way the guy built it by himself in his garage... Including the wiring for the engine.

So is it Traditional or High Tech?

 

You like cows and cars?
DD

 

Variety is the ****e of life.........people with limited interests tend to be boring.....

 

The problem I have with the high tech street rod syou see is that the big wheels and Lexus interiors just don't look right on an old body. It clashes instead of complimenting. Now you can do some of the high tech stuff like a nice interior and a/c without compromising the looks of the car. That I don't mind...

 

you know duece , sometimes it can get down right lonely on the farm. cows , pigs, sheep, kinfolk ,whatever. NO i dont like cows, i just did not want to type "****ies". mike

 

Just kiddin' ya Mike.
DD

 

I always feel weird inviting my "trad buddies" to the shop for fear they will shun me for my obvious love of the Muscle Car.in the shop right now, I have...
Buzzards 55 Chevy
a random 90's Corvette
a 31(?) Desoto Coupe
a 1979 Monte Carlo
a '64 g.t.o.
a 54 Chevy
a 67 Ranchero (power maker)
a 69 Chevy pickup (power maker,billet boat)
a 73 Mach 1 (nice)
a 68 Firebird (Reeeeal nice original)
a 68 Charger (BIG power maker)
a 78 Pontiac Wagon (455, lowered "mild sleeper")
a 52 Chevy (Resto-Mod)
a 67 El Camino (ditto)
a 66 Bel Air (just plain cool.)
and My 31 Tudor (Trad...sort of.)
I like working on all of them (Except the Charger...what a pain in the ***.) my only problem is sticking to a specific Genre whilst working on them. you use enough Pro Billet Distributors, and you decide that all else is junk.
Cool thing about that is then you figure out how to make one look old.

but yes, you can love them all. you can only get real serious with all of them at once in Utah.

 

I can appreciate just about anything someone has created in their own vision. I even dig some of the stuff the kids that work for me do with their tuner cars. They put in a lot of time & effort to make them theirs...

 

As long as they are well done,tastefully and not gaudy,I think I like the craftsmanship more that the style.

 

It's some of the streetrod people that I have a problem with. I'm a Kustom car guy and most kustoms don't fit in with pre-49 cars to well.

 

I think you can. The idea is the same. I can take a 29 coupe, and make prostreet monster, or someone can take the same car and build a traditional hot rod. Its the same concept. Making a car the way a person sees it, in his or her own mind. I like seeing a well built hotrod, low doller or high. It still takes a craftsman to do one or the other. I agree with hotrod1940, them death traps some people call ratrods should not be on the road. But that just me. Travis

 

"Traditionally", high tech billet street rods have Mustang II front suspension.

The last Mustang II rolled off the line in 1978... 29 years ago.

I think I'm confused.

 

Any of you guys remember in the 70's when NSRA was started. They said street rod was preferred because of the negative image the that hot rod had on the general public. Now it seems to be reversed and hot rod is in, which I am thankful for. They were always hot rods to me. My 36 is kinda traditional except for the AC my wife said it had to have if she was gonna go to shows and runs with me. Gotta admit the AC does make it nicer in the hot weather in Texas...but there is still nothing like an open car with a big motor and loud pipes to get your pulse rate up.

 

Like a former employer used to tell me, "if it has ***s or wheels, it's cheaper to rent than own."

On a more serious note, I've always thought of myself as a 'car guy', not an 'old car guy' or a 'traditional hot rod guy'. I've always wondered a little bit about the guys who only like one kind of car.

I had a buddy sum it all up real good once: "you could be married to Miss America, but you'd start thinking about that runner-up before long". That's how I am with cars.

Apart from 'Pro Touring' cars, chubby-chasing, fart-can exhausts and man-love, I'm down with most anything.

Well, let's see if I kill this thread...

-bill

 

Its a free country, you can like whatever the hell you want. Personally I wish everyone liked the street rods again so all the old **** would be cheap again, guess that will never happen. Back in the 70's you could hardly give a Flathead V8 away, now they get $800 for one that don't run. When will it all end? Its almost and sickening as these gas prices............sorry, I had to let that out.

 

I'm with you. Rodder's Journal and Street Rod Builder are two of my favorite magazines, along with Hot Rod, Modified Luxury & Exotics, Four Wheeler, and a ton of Cycling magazines. I have a sorta strange (looking from the outside in) mix of cars too: '63 Galaxie 500 XL upgraded with disc brakes and some light mods; all original '52 Chev. wagon that my Grandfather bought new; '71 Chev. Suburban ambulance (that I sometimes refer to as the Hambulance-nobody gets it); '37 Dodge coupe in the parts-gathering stage; '41 Pontiac 2 dr. sedan project currently up for sale (it had been sitting since '59 when I bought it); '79 International Scout II; '98 GMC Yukon daily driver in the winter, and '85 BMW 535i summer daily. There's a few others here and there, but I like having a lot of different stuff to choose from. I have to say the BMW is an incredible car-great handling, smooth ride, good performance, good economy, you can buy them all day long for less than $2k and easily modify them. It makes a good driver for the dollar.