Mike , You as one of my all time hotrod hero's , you absolutely said all that I had to say. So I am here to say that I am not reading any more on this thread because I think you sumed it all up.
I think its great you are building a hotrod to enjoy but I would not call it the Roach rod, it may have the engine but its just not the same. Does that mean you should change directions, NO, build what you like and enjoy it. and El P, please keep posting the How To's.
Anybody remember the Monty Python complaint letters? The ones to the BBC complaining about complaining about complaints? I'm sorry, but that's all I see here and it's really quite funny. I say fuck it. Build it and drive the piss out of it. And as for historical significance, If I owned the Hirohata Merc, I'd repaint it and bag it, so there. And that back window never looked right to me. So what? I could go on for days about "historically significant" cars I might change things on, but like it's been said - That is what Rodding and C/Kustomizing is all about. And that Crocker is so bitchin, I couldn't care less about it's history..It is cool right now. Ignorance? Maybe, but that's my complaint letter like it or not.
Hi guys, I am new here and do not want to step on anyones toes yet but I just read through all this crap and almost got caught up in it myself but then I remembered it is not my car. Now where were you Steve? Wasn't there a car being built here? Steve, I am in Mesa and would love to come by and check out your shop sometime if that is cool with you.
First off- REST ASSURED-.....Steve will exceed the quality of Sams old car.....Not because the original wasn't a good car,but because he will not do it any other way. I personally liked the old car, but it was just another ONE of us HAMB guys-hot rod's and I think its being over romanticized here.......JUST AN OPINION......
Right on Kenny, besides, in 30 years someone can RESTORE the car to the original configuration. Then all 3000 of us that were on the HAMB when it was built can bitch about the inaccuracies of the "RESTORED" version Cynical asshole arent I?
To tell you the truth - I think its fitting to tear up the Roach Rod and rebuild her. Sam built that car on the cheap with his taste in mind. Its only fitting that the next owner does what he wants to the car to makes it his own. Thats what hot rodding is all about, individual taste and style. The Roach Rod started a craze - it is somehow poetic the skin and bones are changed, but the spirt of the car lives on in someone elses care. It will rise from this change only to be changed again in the future.
Just a quick update. I just checked and found no pulse. I conclude the horse is indeed DEAD. That fact hasn't carried the day before so I doubt it will now. Carry on men, it's only wasting Ryan's money. Frank
Thanks for trying to post some decent tech Steve. Too bad drama followed. Maybe, we can edit it out for the tech-o-matic.
Yea, nice work & keep the pics coming. Just a suggestion- maybe its time to let the RoachRod name go when refering to the new hot rod you're building. Its not the RR. That car had its part in the HAMB history books & is gone now, at least the way I see it. If the name is retired, maybe there'll be less drama about it.
Franks right. Forget it. The guy who put it together didnt care enough about the car to keep it. (or to give it a decent name) So why should any of the Hambers care about it?
Looks great. Thanks for sharing those frame building tech tips. I hadn't even thought about needing a that prying tool for aligning the parts of the tapered part of the rails.
My friends know who they are... but the rest of you are a bunch of fuckin' keyboard pecking sheep... Sam.
I got it. Some people do need to get a life because they just will never understand. Sam is one of the most talented and secure people I have ever met. There is always room for improvement, but all the over-restoration being done today of the most historic of hot rods does not eclipse what they mean to hot rod history, it just honors them. Cutting up anything impactful or meaningful was unheard of 50 years ago because "hot rod history" didn't exist. I heard about a restored '32 Ford B-400 being made into a slick street rod & almost threw up. To some people it's just tin, to others it's much more.
Just outta curiosity what happened to the engine that was in the roach rod? and is sam getting the dash back?
Kenny doesn't 'get it'??? I've met the man, stayed in his home and toured his Empire ...he "gets it" as much as more than most others...he has been living the Life for years...he's the Real Deal. The Roach Rod was cool, but it's gone. Cherrish it's memory and admire what it stood for and symbolized...THAT is it's true value, it personified one guy's dream to build something cool on the cheap, and he did it. Your brother will have that feather in his cap for life. The car? Like almost all old hot rods, it will live on in many new forms again and again. Life EVOLVES, Man! El-P...keep the tech flowing, it's good stuff.
and? i didnt know Sam was obligated to be diplomatic? dork. a wise man once told me, "think Preservation, not Restoration"...
Fuckin crybaby restorers. Cars are only good for ONE thing....cuttin em up...........THE ROACH ROD IS DEAD!!!! LONG LIVE THE ROACH ROD!!!!!
Lets keep this to a short response, boys-its Ryans space..... I do get it. The roach rod is one of us Hamb guys hot rods. Sam had fun building it and it was "in a magazine". The roach rod was just as good as most of the rest of the Hambers cars. I was building hot rods when both the Strube brothers were not even born. Thanks for letting me speak......
This intro post will tell you that fivesdaddy has the body and is keeping the dash in it because he plans on resurecting the Roach Rod that will still look to th e world like the Roach Rod we have known. Which engine? Weren't there a couple of engines? "Classic" like the Blower Bentley that was at the Road Kings Picnic yesterday are identified by the original engine and frame, the original and originality of the chassis. All the bodies were one-off custom coach work anyway so it doesn't matter if they are changed, the car is what the original chassis is. BUt with hotrods, we've grown to identify a car by a particular body. Reason being, the frames and chassis configurations change under them like sand dunes blowing in the wind. So when I think of the Roach Rod, I think of how it started. I think of those particular T coupe body 1/4 panels and cowl I saw in the back of a ranchero at Bob's Big Boy and Sam had the cash and the dream to make them into a one of a kind looking T coupe with the top cut off roadster. THAT was how The Roach Rod started. It was built around that body. It wasn't the engine. The engine was just one more SB Chevy. It wasn't the front cross member, althoough that was a signature part of it. It wasn't any of the individual pieces and parts that any of us could find similar copies of at any swap meet. It was the whole of those ingredients, and the concept of it as it evolved. I say evolved because if I remember right, there were changes made, in a short period of time, but Sam redid a few things as it went along, so each of those versions were part of Sam's Roach Rod, while Sam was hotrodding it. I've said before that hotrod's are never done untill the for sale sign goes on. Then they are done as far as that owner is concerned, and just beginning as far as the next owner is concerned. That owner, parted the chassis of the Roach Rod from the most unique and identifying part of the Roach Rod and sold it to fivesdaddy. Fivesdaddy said he plans on putting a chassis under "number 5" and have the Roach Rod, with dash intact, on the road again some day. I think this bickering about the Roach Rod IS getting old, but it's going to continue as long as the name keeps coming up, and some people being irritated that it is being applied to the wrong pile of parts that once was that car. I'm a visual person so I tend to go with what I recognize visually, the body. If the Pierson coupe or the So-Cal coupe bodies got completely new frames and running gear put in them (I think they both have over the years. They may have even been rebodied and got five different axe handles installed in them too but they still LOOK like the same body,) they are still the Pierson Coupe and the So-Cal Coupe. Five's daddy own's the #5 body so in my view he now own's the visual essence of the "Roach Rod". (If anyone does... Did Sam keep the California personalized RWCH ROD plate? to put on another version of it some day? Like so many Swamp Rats?) MilesM own's a hotrod chassis that he is cutting up and renovating and making his own with a roadster body, not a coupe body with the top cut off so call it the "MilesM Modified" and paint "3M" or "Mcubed" on the door and quit calling what looks like a really fine car that's being built now the "Roach Rod" because that title is only going to continue to cause static, and let it get the credit it will deserve in it's own right. I suggest calling it "Miles' Modified"
Thats what I was thinking. I enjoyed the tech part of the post, in fact I'm pretty sure thats what the post was SUPPOSED to be about. I'm sure Sam is overwhelmed and flattered beyond words by some people comparing it to the Isky T, but I bet he never would.
he doesn't. dork. and a wise man once told me, "opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and they all stink except yours"...
engine number 2, the first one got blown up at sams motor melt down. The only reason I asked about the engine was cause well it came outta my chevy, then sam reserrected it and made the mundan 350 look as though it was a 283.
is there an opinion in my post? my opinions are held in check but you are a Sys Admin, dork by nature. so what reason made you feel it necessary to post a comment? other than putting your useless 2 cents in this wasted thread.... maybe, in your infinite wisdom and hot rod knowledge, you would be able to make Sam realise he is an asshole? do you know Sam? i do.... it backfired... and this thread is stupid <---- that is an opinion.
The only thing I don't get here is this: If Miles (a nice guy, I actually have met him unlike a lot of you on this thread) wanted a slick little roadster, why didn't he just buy the parts and have Steve (a talented guy and really cool as well) build it from scratch. From a financial standpoint it doesn't make much sense to pay full pop for a car and then pony up a bunch of cash to turn it into something else. It couldn't have been that hard to find another front suspension setup and a motor, cause that looks like all that it is getting reused. Would have been a heck of a lot cheaper in the long run, don't you think? Plus it would have saved all of the heart-ache that Sam is going through seeing a car he worked really hard to make into a really solid driver be dismantled.
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