What do you guys think the next big thing is? I just read an article in the Rodder's journal about Pete and Jakes (anyone else read it?) which describes how these guys built a couple cars, then started a company building updated parts, then revamped the whole industry. I'm just young but to me I don't think there's really been anything since to really change or update the way most hot rods/street rods are built since these guys opened their doors back in the seventies. With all the traditional stuff going strong (which is great-traditional rods are my car of choice), and companies like factory five trying to write another chapter on hot rod styles (the sports rod? anyone? haha) I thought it might give way to another pete and jakes story. I don't know-what do you guys think? Opinionate away.....
Cars, just like fashion, are cyclical. So if that rings true, look for the nostalgiac Pro Street look to make a comeback. Easter egg painted bumpers and lazer heartbeats and all. But this time, look for updated technology like carbon fiber velocity stack fuel injection with sophisticated driver programmable engine management and monitoring, cartoonishly giant disk brakes, and "matrix" type futuristic interior. You heard it here first. Oh ****, I've already said too much. I've got to run hide my tubbed out Beretta so nobody steals my vision. Nothing really goes away. Guys here probably don't really care what the next big thing is. It's the same for guys here as it is for guys over on some bomba forum or some import forum. We all align ourselves with some sort of little niche we want to fit into. Here, it's everything that is "h.a.m.b.". Whatever the next big thing is, it probably won't be anything hamb like. And all the cool guys will poke fun at it. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.
The next big thing will be Segways built into hot rods.they will be channeled with gold wire wheels and wide whitewalls. Just remember you read it here first...
The next "big" thing to come is real car people will still build and drive cars for the enjoyment of it. The big change will be no more buy a car for $600.00, put 15K into it and sell it for $100K, those days are over. The good thing about those days its that it brought in more people to appreciate the cars, and hopefully the younger crowd. Mark
Haha, awesome. I was hoping to hear stuff like this. I'm a traditionalist (hence why I'm here) but I don't have any young guys around me that are into this stuff, so all I hear is pessimism about it. Had to make sure it was just a few and not a whole.
I tell you, I think tat 36 Ford will lend quite a few "New" ideas in that issue. Though it is a high end car I am sure we can figure out how to fab those parts, like the single Arm front independent suspension with brake lines that run inside the arm and buick drums inboard on an IRS Halibrand quick change. Yeah it is a trailer queen cuz the tolerances are so tight but they hit it on the money. I love Art Decco and they did a good job using that theme. It even has an integrated (one piece, or looks it anyhow) set of trans/engine oil pans. Can't wait to build my shop and throw some of the newstalgic idea I got out there that look old but no one has ever done.
Yeah I agree, that car is amazing, troy nailed it with the design. I dig the whole "newstalgia" thing too. I love what modern technology has to offer as far as handling and performance, but I like the traditional style. Thats the cool thing about rods-you can do what you want. I just hope some of my ideas look half as good as that 36
Haha, you said it! The guys I hung out with in college were all about this stuff, but now they live all over the country, the closest is 300 miles away. but thats where the HAMB comes in handy!
Whatever the next trend is I hope it slips right past us (preferably during the night while I'm asleep) and takes with it a whole bunch of wannabe rodders. Frank
It all revolves around the economy. People make a ton of money, buy a muscle car or "rod" or exotic, they lose their *** and can't afford any toys. "Real" car guys do it in good times and bad, rich guys do it when they have money and bail on the hobby with the chit hits the fan. Down the road it will all come back again, but it will be a different crowd, people that have no idea what the history of custom cars / rods whatever you want to call them, because they will be too young to have been around. I see a lot of people NOW that really don't know too much but want to be involved. It's great there's an interest. Will it last? Yes, as long as they are considered "cool."
lol. Yeah agreed. I hate it when these guys just buy a car to park in their collection. Had a friend ask me one time...If you hd a mint 57 Chevy with like 20 miles on it...would you drive it. I replied without skipping a beat hell, yeah right after I slapped on some performance parts.
Not totally sure what answer you want. from my standpoint the industry leaders are quickly getting older what becomes of Their shops will dictate the path of the future trends perhaps we"ll be legislated to greendom curtiousy of california or maybe drake and speedway will put a repro body in every garage. we can buy all the "stuff" via catalog thanks to pioneers like pete and jakes. And certainly cars woud have been built without them but trends follow what is available. watch what happens to the industry. Forget what is " popular" you. Are in a good place to see it
Good PR. Definately a success story, but without them the hobby would not be that much different. Many people buy parts because they are there, but if the parts weren't there they would figure out something anyhow. Manufacturers of spare parts and new components will continue to produce what the market will bear, but absent that people will improvise when the need arises. Each generation will, as they always have, see themselves as the trend-setters, convinced that they are what makes the world go around. When we are pushin up daisies somebody will take what we left and make it fit their needs. A hundred years from now somebody will be presuming that it is because of them that traditional hot rodding is alive and well. Everyone that wants a traditional hot rod will keep on keeping on whether somebody provides them with new parts or not.
HAHAHAHA! that s funny. there was a guy at quicktrip gas station waiting in line standing on one of those things! are people really gettin that lazy!
gotta agree with Sawzall on two points...Green regulations can definitely be the end of hot rodding as we know it...out here on the left coast (which unfortunately sets the trends for the rest of the country, especially in regulations) there are too many in power that would kill for the ability to get us all into electric vehicles (Prius is too poluting). We all need to support SEMA and other organizations that are fighting for our lifestyle. Second point is the trend I'm not comfortable with, but don't know what the answer is: a credit card number and hit "send" and you can have any part you desire, from a frame, body, or full car. Not much individuality in that
Give that electric vehicle **** ten years. It won't be around. It's not gonna take long to figure out electric vehicles are just as polluting as anything else when it comes time to trash all those hazmat batteries when they run out of juice. Not to mention the cars themselves as it will be as cheap to buy a new one as it is to replace all those expensive dead batteries. They'll be polluting the soil and our drinking water ten times worse than we are currently polluting our air with fossil fuels. Electric cars for the sake of the enviornment is a ****ing joke. Electric vehicles are just a transitional growing pain to a more enviormentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels. The battery technology is just not there. There will come a time when the majority of vehicles are running on something other than gasoline. That said, that doesn't mean hot rodding will go the same way as gasoline. There will always be guys trying to make stuff faster and lighter. Think about it, people stopped running bangers when flatheads came out. Then they stopped running flatheads when the sbc came out. Not to say that these motors don't still have their fans and rightfully so, but I can see a guy forty years from now with a duece with some kind of hydrogen powerplant smoking his bias plies. Will that be any less "hot rod" than what we're doing here?
Terd I couldn't agree more with your ***essment, but from North Carolina I'm not sure you see the real threat to our lifestyle...it's scarry **** out there! The green movement on the west coast as well as the northeast is doing all they can to get rid of the internal combustion engine, anything without a ton of smog gear and anything that isn't "politically correct" We all need to watch what is coming from our legeslatures and raise hell when we need to
Ya had to have been there... I am trying to tell my 27 year old son why it is that I get such a kick out of this stuff by enlisting his help now and then on my coupe build...and he now has a 34 pickup cab now that has lit the fire.... I think it caught on with him...I'm at peace now.
I am 22 and I think the hot rodding hobby will be drastically different in twenty to thirty years. If hot rods are not allowed in the states, I think I might just have to move. As far as I know, I could be building my cars to put on a very big shelf... who knows?
--------------------------------------- You got that right and you spoke the god honest truth. Electric cars are every bit as practical as they were in 1900! But regarding hydrogen- the problem with that is - and one that the enviro-NAZIs conveniently forget, is that it's not an energy source, There is no such thing as a hydrogen well that you can drill into and extract fuel. Hydrogen is merely a way of storing and transporting energy. Hydrogen is made by using electricity to break water down into hydrogen and oxygen and each time you convert one form of energy (in this case electricty) into onother (-ie - hydrogen) you have a net energy loss and have to put far more energy in than you get back out. The real losers are the proposed fuel cell powered cars where the plan is to take hydrogen, produced by using electricity - and then use the hydrogen in an onboard fuel cell to create electricty to drive an electric motor to drive the car! In other words you are first creating electricity, from some other energy source at a net energy loss, - and then turning the electricy into hydrogen at a net energy loss - and then using a fuel cell to convert the hydrogen back into electricity again at yet another net loss! It's the same thing with ethanol. Remember that scam? All ethanol did was drive up food prices by diverting food crops and farm land into ethanol production and growing and processing the stuff requires the equivalent of 3 gallons of oil for every gallon of ethonal produced! Then add to the fact that a gallon of ethanol has only about 2/3 the btus of a gallon of gasoline, so you need to burn 1/3 more of it just for the same results as using a gallon of oil in the first place. Henry Ford figured all that out in the 1930's and said as much then - and it was reaffirmed in spades during this latest sociaital experiment with the the stuff. So much for that one. There's a reason that we still drive fossel-fuell powered, intenal combustion engine powered cars .....because of the laws of physics and because that's all that has proven workable and practical. Mart3406 ========================
Todays fashion, yesterdays fashion, who the hell cares I build what I build and have found a groupe of others just like me traditional is the only way to go. I have seen styles come and go been that way since the begining. Our style has not changed much. I think the tree huggers can sit on it, cruising my gas burner wont be the first law infraction! The Theo has spoken!!!
I keep up some on what it's like for you guys in CA. I really feel bad for you guys. The nanny type state, highly restrictive gun laws, I don't know how you guys stand it. I'm not saying don't worry about smelly hippies. I'm pointing out the hypocrisy of the cars like the Prius being enviornmentally friendly versus an old car and how this is shoved down our throats by the .gov and celebrities. Besides what I posted above about the batteries, the pollution caused to produce our old cars has long since been gone. Not so for producing all these new hybrids. The same with the resources needed to build these new hybrids (or any new car for that matter). So you junk an older car so you can produce a lot more pollution, deplete a lot more resources, create landfill nightmares for future generations, and you look gay driving. All in the name of 29/36 mpg? Sounds retarded to me, but what do I know? I thought CA was supposed to be progressive? I thought they were supposed to be smarter in CA? They way I see it, nature is way more powerful than man. I'm not sure we could kill the Earth if we set out to do it on purpose. It's said 30% of US co2 emmisions come from forest fires. We, as mankind, are small time in the grand scheme of things. Sorry if this was a slight hijack. Back to the next big thing. Where was I? Oh yeah, Pro Street.
I hope rods are never forced to be "electric" but say what you want about regular cars, it would be DAMN NICE to never have to pull into a gas station ever again and waste 50-90 bucks on a tank of gas. And I'm the farthest thing from a tree hugger, but the internal combustion engine is TOAST in the big picture. Just think if the industry would have been tinkering with electric cars full time since the early 1900s, we would not be so dependent on oil today. Just sayin' --- !!!
while I am certain that the article is good pr, The fact remains that without the ability to buy 1 800 parts. The hobby would have been doomed the visability of the hobby as a highdollar industry gives us at least a little clout with those so foolishly elected.
The Jalopy Journal
