Actually a traditional custom as we define traditional here would have a little TV and or a record player that plays 45s. So here is a question that begs to be answered, was there a custom term for the record player or the TV set? How about the swivel seats that were so popular in the early '60s?
I see most terms have been spoken for. All I could add: Tubbed = oversized inner wheelwells to fit wide tires. Bombed = She's wearing every possible piece of car accessory jewelry. Roadstered= Permanent removal of hard top to create a faux convertible. Louvered= speaks for itself
Right put me straight so i know how to best decribe the sort of car i normally scoot about in is called. My question, whats cl***ed as a cruiser? For me i've always defined any of my previous 50's/early 60's cars as tidy old cruisers. Shiny(sometimes), stock, nice original cars, slammed down a good measure, on WW's/detailed stock rims, with some custom detail and maybe some pinstripes here and there. Not big buck cars either, normally driven a fair bit. So is it a "cruiser"or something else?? Last question then. To apply the term "bombed" (have lots of bolt-on vintage accessory and era related options/extras) to a "cruiser" does that make it a "bombed cruiser"? Have to ask as sometimes terms mean different things in some places. Nice one, Dan
Wow I totally forgot about reel to reel. I knew this surfer dude that had a Woody surf wagon, he had the back seat removed and had a reel to reel and the absolute most tricked out sound system you could ever ask for for the day. It was stereophonic maaaan.
It's cool. It's hard to understand people's tone over the internet. We are all car guys on here at the end of the day. I read a great description in a car mag once. The author said when you look at a car and you can't tell weather it was built today or back in the day. Only he had better vocabulary and described it better
The catch word they were using a few years back was "timeless". I think that the key to any build custom or hot rod or something in between is to use restraint and avoid trendyness. If it is all glitzed out in a year or two it will look like all the rest of the cars built this year but if you use a little restraint it will last forever and no one will know when it was done.
According to some here : Street Rod: any car that's nicer than yours. Rat Rod: any car that's in worse shape than yours. Hot Rod and/or Custom: any old car. Traditional Hot Rod/Custom: any old car as long as it's flat black and has WWW's. Patina: rust. Gold-chainer: anyone with more money (or a nicer car) than you. And since it got asked, my idea of a truly 'traditional' hot rod would be one built with all pre-war parts. Seriously though I dig a lot of what Porkn****** and the Highlander have to say. It's funny how many guys use the word 'street rod' in a derogatory sense when that's exactly what they're driving.
Juiced, Lifted, Cut: Equipped with hydraulics Wrapped: Frame reinforced Undies: Undercarriage Pinners: Thin white wall Brains blown out: Sunroof added Person inquiring about a car your selling but has no money: Craigslister
Agreed: but timeless is a huge philosophical barrel of worms. It doesn't take long for an expression of timelessness to become surprisingly datable. That really shouldn't be a problem, but to the incorrigibly trendy whatever happens to be all the rage will always seem supremely simple and rational, quite unlike the gratuitous fancies of two years ago. For they always perceive today in terms of its most elegant exemplar, and yesterday in terms of its most contrived. That view always goes with the chronolatrous impulse to dignify fashionableness with the substance of moral virtue. In architecture I keep hearing about the duty to reflect the age, and that anachronism is a moral sin, which is ********. Architecture is about shelter making sense on various levels, and one's point in time is only relevant in so far as setting cir***stance; it carries no moral imperative. This generates all kinds of tangents around the idea of timelessness. A non-chronolatrous viewpoint frees one from the notion that later is always better (I think we can all identify with that at some level). Add to that a thorough knowledge of one's subject matter, and one can start entertaining questions like whether late-medieval Perpendicular represents a degenerate form of Gothic architecture, which to the chronolatrous viewpoint is moot because it's all "old fashioned". If you're wondering why anyone would want to entertain questions like that, rather consider if the early '60s show scene represented a progression or a degeneration of the custom movement. The more questions one is capable of conceiving, the wider the variety of stuff one is capable of thinking, the better off one is. Of course something can be timeless by simply being too weird, unprecedented, unintelligible, and plain fugly to put a date to. And that raises another philosophical question: whether "timelessness" requires continuity with a coherent discourse over time. There's some of that in our "traditional" at***ude, but I think there is something to be said for random introductions out of hitherto unconnected discourses. Think of it as a room in which a debate has been going on, and someone suddenly comes in from another room where another debate has been going on about something entirely different. Some of the original people will resent the new intruder because his terms of reference mark him as an outsider; others will welcome his fresh perspectives. One can keep unpacking this stuff forever ...
A few pure examples of "timeless" in our world could be a Duesenberg, the Hirohata Merc, a Ford GT-40. I resist and almost resent that a traditional car has to be all pre-war by definition. That simply defines an era, not the long and storied history that spans decades of hand crafted automotive art. If you really look close, really study what was done in the 40s vs what was done in the 60s, you can see and pick up on the natural and necessary progression of quality and craftsmanship. By the definition of pre-war parts and that era of car, then I guess guys like Winfield and Hines are NOT tradional builders. Of course most of us know better. I'm 60s style in my vision and desires. They happen to be the cars that were in vogue when I gained awareness of this stuff. Cars I was able to see at the 66 Autorama and in my dear ol Dad's shops and home garage. I tend to think that a 36 Dodge pickup with a Cadillac Eldorado dual quad motor/trans wedged under the hood, fitted with power brakes and steering gleaned from the donor car, 15" wheels with pinner whites and 57 Belvedere wheel covers, and all frosted up in metallic blue with some simple rear body mods and conservative pinstripes, happens to fit the idea of "traditional" in the purest sense of the term. Not single store bought part except the tires and supplies. Turned out to be faster than the day's Corvettes. Faster than the hottest tri-5 Chevy in the Oakwood area of Detroit. That lil truck was whipped up, again, from the mind and imagination of my dear ol Dad. It was done in the backyard and I remember how scary it was to ride in as a child. I was maybe 6-7yrs old then and didn't help much, but damn I wanted to. Or maybe I'm just ****ed up. That "street rod" from the early 60s doesn't really qualify, even though he had been slingin hot rods together since his 1st car, a Model T roadster pickup at the age of 15. Can't remember all the roundy-round cars, wasn't old enough to see the kemped out 47 Caddy fastback. Nope, none of em "tradional". I knew he shoulda built a Deuce hiboy dammit...
I think I will kick off some paint terms to try and set this back on track. Flake- a paint job containing metal flakes suspended in clear. Tapefade- using tape (usually) or various other masking techniques to create a pattern of graduation fades. Usually done in candy over flake. Candy/candy apple- a transparent paint. Usually a concentrate added to clear then sprayed until the desired tint is reached. Now let's get a little psychedelic... Cobwebbing- mixing the paint thick so that it leaves the gun in a stringy mess. Looks like cobwebs on the cars surface. Freak drops/freak dots- usually done in candies. Achieved by holding your airbrush in one spot until the edges of the dot grow "legs". Acetylene painting- just that. Apply acetylene soot from the torch in a random fashion and clear over that ****. Im gonna stop there for now. Paint terms could go on for days!
I still have a roadster with a mod that was called duck tails in Calif.. Just above the rear wheels, the panel is tapered in to the rear reveal. I haven't hear of any one else talking about it or I haven't seen it on another car. Its a 32 ford roadster.
Ok here is a great one for yall HACK JOB---- the epic fail of the art of fabrication, mostly found in the mini trucking scene and Rat scenes but not limited to by any means...
Actually "timeless" as a catch phrase is a little hard to nail down. It could be applied to a '30s build as well as an '80s build. Its like the whole "Nostalgia" thing. Be pretty hard for me to call a '40s era car that I owned a "Nostalgia" car. Perhaps it could be considered nostalgic to my Ol' Man, but I wasn't around yet. I probably wasn't yet even considered to be a good idea, something that I am sure they rethought many times after the fact, but I digress. You cannot wax nostalgic about something that you have not yet experienced. There are a whole lot of people, hopefully not HAMBers, who will consider the '80s to be traditional at some point in their pitifully short time on this planet. It is just a natural progression, perhaps something that we would like to overlook but a natural progression none the less. It hasn't been too many years that you could even call a "traditionally built" car timeless. Looking back a few decades to say the '70s and the type of cars that I built and drove were not considered timeless at all. They were just not stylish. I was never a custom type per say but if I had cruised a '50s style custom especially say a late '50s style custom to a show it would not have been considered timeless it would have been considered p***é even worse it would have been considered an abortion by many as the later '50s was a time of pure excess as far as customs go. Enter the trend for "Traditionally Styled" cars and it all at once is considered timeless. So here is one that hasn't yet been adressed, customs had a period when grafted on quarters from a different car were popular. Some of you either remember that period or embrace that period or both. Was there a term for that? Just curious I guess. Oh and one other thing, when I first remember the word street rod being bandied about to excess the car had to be pre-48. Although I have owned a driven several pre-48 vehicles the overwhelming majority of my cars have been '50s cars until recently they didn't fit into the street rod catagory.
I agree with this cruiser deffinition also. I also think a lot of what defines all the terms like custom, street rod etc, is a little personal prefernce.
Thanks Supersized. I would see cars at the Autorama that said nosed and decked and would look at them and think WTF the hood and trunk look stock. Thinking they were talking about pancaking them.
I used to think that lightening holes was spelt lightning holes and should look like a thunderbolt. Sled did we hit on sled? Any custom I suppose would work but I think it is a '50s term and in my mind should only pertain to cars built '50s style.
The Jalopy Journal
