Why do we love these cars? (research)

I've often wondered this myself. Having an old car is like having a weirdo magnet. I don't care where you go, some smelly fruitcake is going to strike up a conversation with you about something you really don't give a rats ass about. But, I wouldn't be without one. (the car that is)

 

For me,

Old cars have a style and sculptured lines that may never come back.
They are machinery with many individual parts with a simple design that work on simple therories.
They give me the oppertunity to improve on the simple designs with my own two hands. Even if it has been done many times before, I get to try to do it myself.
They allow me the chance to add in my individuality. To creat something uniquely my own.
They give me a chance to escape from the reality of life for a short peroid of time and be in my own little world where I make all the rules. True freedom.
They give me the chance to say "it's mine and I built it myself."
They give me the chance to really screw something up and they give me the chance to repair what I screwed up. Someplace where I have to accept the responsibality and conaquences of my actions and its up to me to correct those mistakes.
I enjoy driving the old cars. Try as you mite, they still drive like old cars and thats different then how the new ones drive.
I like the way they look.
I like the attension they get.
I like the chance to build something from nothing and being able to build it my way.
Gene

 

As a youngster, my Dad had lots of car parts in his garage. Interesting stuff for a kid to rummage through.

He had the remains of a '27 Rugby sedan that had been cut down into a truck.
Our family car, for a few years was a '36 Ford sedan, until that broke down and was replaced with a '38 Deluxe sedan.
The '38 eventually broke down in some way that must have been serious, because it sat in the shed for years until one of the neighbourhood teenagers made an offer on it and it was resurrected.
I remember playing in that car when it sat disabled.
A few years later when I was actually interested in cars to a greater degree, I regretted Dad selling the '38. Of course!

Due to a shortage of cash, as with most young fellas, my first cars were older, cheaper cars.
Naturally they tended to have things go wrong with them and I had to fix them. On the occassions when I had to resort to taking them to a garage for repairs, there was always something amiss somewhere on the car, due to unfamiliar hands on them. I hated that, and still do.

Old cars, repairs, modifications, naturally progressed to hot rods.
However, most of my buddies were'nt into hot rods.
Their cars were a means of transport and fun but they didn't actually see the attraction in hot rods. They'd look at them and admire them but couldn't see the sense in owning one. Many of them wanted to progress to newer cars.
I knew what I liked and didn't try to explain it.

I'm still pretty much the same these days. I like the relative simplicity of hot rods and old cars in general. The camaraderie of driving such a beast and having like minded people wave out to you on the road. Roadside repairs are necessary at times but most often are do-able on the spot, even if just enough to get you home.
Modern cars broken down on the side of the road are most often waiting for a tow truck.
I hate lifting the hood on new cars!

 

Character.....Wanting to be different....Can't stand 'modern lookalike' cars...

 

When I was a kid my family was dirt road poor. When I got my license I sure wished I had a brand new '62 409 4 speed Impala, Coronado red with the SS package. But instead I bought a '40 Chevy 4 door that had a rod knocking. I tried to turn it into something cool. I bought 4 bucket seats from the junk yard and fabed up a center console out of scrap plywood in wood shop. Heated the springs and put big and little whitewalls on it. It sure wasn't a 409 Impala, but it wasn't stock. Stock wasn't cool. I wanted to date the socialite cheerleader chicks, but alas, no Impala, so no cheerleader nookie. But the scary bad girls with the ratted up hair and make up would cut school with me and go to the dam to party. And they Put Out. That was IT as far as I was concerned. Later I had a '50 Ford 2 door, dropped, nosed, decked, glasspacs, baby blue with primer spots and a record player. I kept that baby spotless and shiny. The socialite girls started to want to go with me in that car. I belonged to the Barons then and we had a bad reputation as street racers and hoodlums. The sosh chicks saw us as dangerous and that made them want to use us to make the boyfriends jealous. Of course, when we broke them out of school, went to the dam and drank Olympia Beer with them they climbed in the back seat just like the bad girls. The guys with the new Corvettes and Impalas hated us for it and that made it even better. The appeal is the cool, outsider guys were seen as cooler than the daddy's boys. It's sort of funny now. The old ground scrapers and loud and rowdy cars are the rich guys toys in large part. But the traditional scene is the low buckers thombing their noses at the Fat Wallet Bunch. I'm 59 now and my tastes have changed to the early style of custom, or I should say semi-customs of the early '50s. And very conservative at that. No flake or shiny wheels. I want wide whites and hubcaps. I want it to look good to the bad girls.

To describe why I love serious race cars and the Bitch Goddess of Velocity, CH3NO2=NITROMETHANE, is a whole other topic. But it invovles beating the rich guys and getting the Trophy Girl too.

Mmmmmmmm, trophy girls.

 

So you wanna have them “other” people understand us???? Well frankly UNLESS a person has spent hours & hours on a creeper to not only solve a problem, but come up with a solution so simple and elegant that ANY and EVERY nitwit walking up to it later will say – “Big deal! Even I could have come up with a simple bracket like THAT!!” Hence the challenge – to dream up solutions so complex that they’re downright simple! Ok let’s step back for a second, in the beginning it may have started all about girls, but that faded quickly as they yelled and screamed to “slow down” when that Mustang or GTO in the lane next to you decided to see who was faster. Bottom line – there’s as many reasons to hot rod cars as there are people. We all do it for different reasons and of course we probably share quite a few of the more common ones. My FIRST car was a 1964 Rambler – this was DEFINITELY NOT a COOL CAR in anyone’s book – then or now. But to me it allowed FREEDOM! But first I had to get it running, and being poor the only option was to LEARN how to fix it. Well learning to fix it turned into learning how to make it BETTER. Did I fancy myself some GREAT ENGINEERING GENIUS to improve upon what a gazzilion Detroit engineers could not do – only if I wanted to KID MYSELF. Nope – I took parts that other great Detroit engineers designed and incorporated them into my ride. Yep THAT gave me my first taste of HOT RODDING. So there I was – wanting to learn MORE. Wanting a peek at how these mechanical marvels were actually designed – to understand them and maybe I could actually engineer a part myself instead of cutting and pasting what others before me had already done. Yep I was hooked. I went to school and paid attention in math because I could use it to work on cars, I paid attention in Physics because it too applied to cars. I got my first job because I “talked cars” with the owner of the company – he was so impressed he offered me a job working for him. In the BIG PICTURE -cars are a WEALTH of engineering effort and knowledge to be gained if we are inclined to learn it. And so there’s the challenge and at some point we all start to fancy ourselves as some sort of “automotive” engineer. Sure we use different words – car builder – hot rodder – piston head gear head, etc etc, but in the end we fancy ourselves as some sort of automotive engineer. Sone become so “in tune” that they can design things entirely based on them “looking right” – while some of us with lesser abilities actually resort to making a calculation or two! <grin> While yet others simply let the ROAD TESTING determine their success – and rightly so as THAT IS the ultimate use.



Now “Enter the age of the Internet”. We get to share ideas with hundereds if not thousands of people who think like we do (for the most part). And we are suddenly finding ourselves cautious in what we might say.

Some become very aware of every word posted – in an effort that they may “reveal” the perfect hotrodder that everyone will worship. While there are others among us who simply don’t get it or don’t care for the hidden politics & simply speak their minds without any reins. Just like the cars some of us build. Some make no apologies! In as much Freedom as we profess we are at times slaves to the conscious opinion of our peers. Then again there are always those who build these iron monsters solely for themselves with all others opinions NEVER even coming into their minds. I suppose it can be very humorous to those who are uninitiated. Bottom line (yeah ANOTHER one) – we tinker with cars because we ENJOY IT! We drive them because we are thrilled to TEST them. In some cases we are TEST PILOTS! There’s danger there – thrills – conquests - satisfaction! Take a car with 400+ horse power and BUILD IT – I mean REALLY build it – figure out the steering ratios, brake ratios, is the chassis gonna BEND, FLEX, BREAK? etc etc – then weld it all together and take it for your MAIDEN VOYAGE – your adrenalin will pump so hard so will find the beginning of an addiction that you seek no cure for. Trying to explain THAT to the uninitiated will likely prove impossible - even if they CAN understand the concept.



Building cars is a hobby for those who aren’t afraid to fail – the learn from these failures and get better. Those not afraid to bust their knuckles every so often – those who embrace a little dirt under their finger nails – those who think gear oil might make a good cologne. For some it envelopes every facet of their lives – how they dress – how they act – who their friends are – how much money they’ll make – it can become all encompassing.



…….and some of us – we just like to drive fast!!! Nothing wrong with THAT!!!!

As for me - I fit in there somewhere.

Cars I own presently:
1929 Chevy Pickup truck - in pieces in my basement!
1934 Plymouth Coupe - Hemi Powered
1937 Chevy truck - Small block chevy auto
1947 Ford truck - Hemi Powered
1956 Chevy Sedan Delivery - Big Block Chevy -stick
1964 Rambler American Hemi Powered (my first car)
1964 Rambler American Convertible - only unmodified car I own
FED 180" WB - Hemi Powered
last but NOT least Euclid Beach Bumper car - battery powered!!!!!!! with Hot Rod Scallops!!!!!

-HemiRambler-

 

To me it is not a lifestyle, but a hobby that I am into more than anything else(almost anything else!) I love building cars and I love driving them.
For the most part I enjoy the people that are like me, the ones that are into traditional cars and street rods.
I started when I was 16, painted my first car. 1961 Chevy Belair two door, 283, 2bbl, 2 speed glide. Next was a 65 Muststang, 289, four speed,436 gears under the rear.
After I got married, quit the cars for a while and then went to motorcycles, drag racing them.
Been back into cars for the last 15 years and do not plan on quitting anytime soon.
I like building something out of the mainstream, with my own hands and used parts. Most anyone can build one out of a catalog.
When I found the HAMB, I found a lot of people who are like me and this is probably the best thing to happen in a long while.
When you are on the road in a car that you have built with your own hands, there is something there that I can not explain, you have to experience it for yourself.
Cars I presently own are 1934 Dodge modified, 1940 Chevy four door sedan, 1948 Chevy Stylemaster coupe and a 1964 1/2 Mustang.

 

My Mom tells the story best. When I was 2, she found me in the shop, inside the toolbox, playing with screwdrivers. I was born to take stuff apart. Its the putting it back together that loses me.

 

Good Lord, talk about getting more than you bargained for!!

A very sincere "THANK YOU" to everyone who has posted a reply so far, and keep'em coming! It's amazing how many of the responses I'm reading make me smile, laugh out loud, and nod my head in recognition and agreement.
As far as helping the outsiders understand us: my job is to try to explain it. If they get it, they get it. If they don't, they don't. Life goes on either way.
I will tell you all that when I presented an earlier version of this paper a few years ago, everyone (about 200 sociologists) was nuts for it. They might not "get" us, but at least they find the whole thing interesting. Some of them were actually startled when I explained what it means to chop a car! One incredulous woman said "You mean they actually cut the roof off with a saw, and weld it back on with a torch? WHY?" That (the "why?") is what this article is going to be about.
Thanks to all of you for making it not only possible, but easier than I thought it could be.

Dave
[atomickustom]

 

Because the old cars (at least up to '64) have class.

 

Hot Rodding - I like to think of it like smoking it's a little tough getting the hang of it but once you do you gotta have it. There is no reward like building a car the way you want and driving it. The best part is when that one's done time to start another!

 

This is how I feel. Sure it's about the cars, but it's more. It's learning how things work, it's learning what dosn't work. You may not realize it but math and science are a big part. Being able to visualize how to make something work properly and safely, and then build it and make it a reality.

History, there's lots of that too. Tradition and stories. Sometimes I'll walk through an old boneyard and try to picture the cars when they were new. There was a time when someone was really proud of that car. I'm sure they still have memories of things that they did with that car. It would probably break their hearts to see them sitting there like that...

Everybody's got a story. I love my dad's stories. How he broke the door on his bosses new 409 Impala, how his mom made him take the triple carbs off the family '53 chevy because it was bad on gas. How impressed he was as a kid when his dad pulled up in thier new to them '53 merc hardtop, so sleek with fender skirts and a filled hood scoop. Or how he hid his A in the chicken coop behind the house for months before his mother found out he bought it.

The people. It's gotta be about the people. Sure there are dicks like there is in any crowd, but for the most part some of the best people I've met are other car people. They may have never met you before in their life, but they treat you like a brother and go out of thier way whether you need help finding a part or need help on the side of the road.

Nick

 

For Me ...
It's about :
a sense of Pride
a sense of Individuality
a sense of Accomplishment
a sense of Comradery
a sense of Ownership
a sense of Joy

On any given day i own a bakers dozen of cars....why?...
Because it makes me happy !!
(See above reasons)

If they have a hobbie they should get it,if they dont, they should get one!

 

Just like everything else in this world... you have to dig in and find out "for yourself" to understand the true feeling and experience, doctrines alone can't explain why we do the things we do and like the things we like
CAB

 

Steve

i've read your "how i got into rods" story from a couple of different places and sources... and having also read a few others in this thread i think the reasons how each one of us got "here" are most of the time BETTER than the car or cars we own and or build.

its a journey not a destination... trying to explain rodding and cars to someone outside looking in, i REALY dont think its possible. Cars are like religion man,,, when you finaly understand its like enlightenment in a way. . . you just GET IT, kinda all at once yaknow?

 

Another real good reason is that if you ever break down on the road, you almost can't get to a complete stop before someone pulls over to offer help. that sure doesn't happen with a cookie cutter late model.

 

My coupe is a Time Machine that takes me back to my youth. Got my first hotrod when I was 18. A 1935 Ford 4-door. 283/Powergide. Ansen Sprint mags. Red oxide primer. It was bitchin'! I couldn't afford a 3W coupe then. I can now. 11 years ago I was standin' in line to pay for gas and a yuppy female lawyer standin' next to me asked how much my 3W coupe cost to build? When I told her, she said "My God, for that much you could have got a new Lexus!" Priceless.

 

Plastic melts if you apply a torch to it...

I've had this conversation many times with friends.

I've always been into old timey things. I don't know why. I have a huge respect and reverance for the WWI and WWII generation, maybe it stems from that.

I'm a computer programmer by trade, so my livelyhood is forwarded by the advancing of technology. But all my free time is spent on old:

- Cars
- Scooters
- Guitars

A passion for style and deco design? A yearning for a (mythical) simpler time? A masochistic penchant for tooling on things and problem solving?

Probably all of those wrapped up somehow. Plus I get to hang out with like minded people.

I like working on things, and why work on something that isn't cool? Of course "cool" is in the eye of the beholder and its weighed against presupposition.

And the older the thing, usually the simpler the thing, so its more accessible to a hobbyist. Modern cars are just too complicated and computerized. I have a huge amout of respect for the engineering in modern cars, but I can't just jump in and work on them without a lot of extra equipment and training.

Mike

 

A kid in the 60's growing up watching ABC's Wide World of Sports. The stock car races they showed. The first Demo derbys from Islip Speedway.

The Liberty mutual commercials at that time crashing cars and telling us why we needed their insurance.

Cars then had soul. They looked like their owners. Probably because their owners spent so much time with and on them. Maybe by necessity or just a want to have something nice.

Today they have no soul. They all look the same. All Euro styling. Where's the individuality in the new stuff. Ain't there.

When you watch NASCAR its about the drivers mostly cause most people cant tell by looking what type of car they are.

Its about The Drag Strip out by the Old Kenworth plant in KCMO before I-435 took it. Lake City Flats in Indep on a Fri or Sat night. Noland Road. Sydney's and NuWay's drivein's.

Getting lucky in a 62 Chrysler backseat. More room than the first trailer house we bought.

The friends. The skills. Doing things with and to a car nobody around had thought of before.

There's too much. But hope this helps.
Best to you.
Bill
VonDad

 

LOL! The last time I had family and friends here from florida they were taking the garage tour. The only two questions I heard was "does this one drive" or "how much does that cost?"

It was really starting to piss me off.

I took them for a ride in one. They couldn't believe it. I think they were disappointed, they were expecting a chitty chitty bang bang, not a nice riding, comfortable, quick car.

 

ooo! I like that!

Back when I was a teenager, Pop and I were out in the '29 Sport Coupe when some older guy offered - dead serious - to trade us even up for his new LTD.

Pop just smiled. 'I can walk into any dealership tomorrow and get one just like your car - you can't get one of these that way!'

Hand a kid in diapers a toy car. Watch him/her - if he/she tears up the kitchen floor with it while makin' car noises with his/her mouth - that's a rodder. We're born that way.

I cna remember bein' a kid and just sittin' in the Model A for hours, staring over that short snout of a hood. I wasn't imagining anything - just being there was enough.

Fast forward a few decades...

I read tech manuals for inspiration.
I void the warranties on new cars.
I think about cars more than sex.

Why?

I was born that way.

 

A lot of this whole thing is about competition. Competition for the hot chick....competition for the bragging rights of having beat a competitor in a race or maybe getting more compliments from your peers. Some of us were born with a competitive nature but weren't good at sports so we found a place where we coupe still compete......cars. Oh yeah, there's the old "self fullfilment" argument too and I admit I get a lotta joy from just piddling with old hotrods but I believe most of us are driven by good ol' competition. I enclose a photo to illustrate my point. The old blue Pontiac is a 1957. I bought it while on leave home from the army in 1968. It had belonged to an old man who could no longer push in the clutch pedal...traded it in on a car with an automatic transmission. This car sat for a year and a half in my parent's back yard while I played games with uncle Sam in Europe, all the while dreaming up a build plan to make the car competitive with the newer performance cars being sold at the time. Oh yeah, I could have taken my "mustering out" pay and paid a down payment on a new GTO or some other performance car but I had another plan.
I found the car weighed in at about 3600 LBS, which was very close to what the new cars weighed and this was important because performance depends on a power-to-weight ratio.
It looked old and stodgy and that was ok by me....meant I could sneak up on the new-car guys with my "sleeper"
The new GTOs were hot stuff when I got out of the service in '69 and they ran 389 or 400 cu.in. engines. Well, while my old pontiac had only a 347 cu. in. engine, I found a 1959 and a 1960 Pontiac had a 389 engine and they would bolt-in my pontiac with no changes.....Heh heh..
I got a job at a service station and the owner would allow me to use the shop with the hoist after hours. I took an apartment a block from the station and slid my plan into action......worked during the day and built my car at night....
I bouoght a wrecked 59 Pontiac from a fellow employee and used the station tools and eauiptment to port the heads, scored a pontiac ram air III cam for it and was able to buy a 4 speed transmission for it....I was on my way to being competitive with the guys that prefered to simply buy their high performance cars......
anybody could do that.
The photo was taken on an afternoon after I had severely beaten a guy in a race on a Portland, Oregon street, earlier that day. He thought he was hot shit and it was he who challenged me while I was waiting at a stoplight. I had my girlfriend with me and he came idling up beside me in a '64 Pontiac GTO....goosed it a couple times and we came off the light together, tires smokin. I gained traction before he did and shot ahead...began pulling ahead while going through the gears until we both had to brake for the next light. My girlfriend was clapping her hands and screaming
"You beat him! You beat him!"
We did it again at the next light with identical results and he pulled up beside me at the light and hollered out...
"MAN! That thing screams! Whaddya got in there?"
I took great pleasure in hollering back..
"Same thing you got in THERE, only quicker!"
I idled away and felt really good....really good.
Later that day, we drove the car up to my uncle's apple orchard up the Columbia river gorge to look at some free kittens or puppies or something and I clicked this photo..
Hey, I got the girl....
I got the car....
I won the race...
I realized the dream I'd been having all the time I was freezin my ass off in Europe and I owed nobody a thin dime to do it..[no car payments]
as you can see by the photo, it was a warm, spring day and everything was absolutely perfect. They don't come very often but only hotrodders can lay claim to all these things happening in one day.....
Can't buy this feeling with any amount of money....

 

It's sad that I understand what he said.

 

I've seen a lot of responses and it would seem to the rational mind that there's no rational thought to this. What it truely was and has grown to be is a social niche. Some people live for bowling, deer hunting, fishing, golf...it's their social niche. I myself have always spelled kool with a K when it comes to cars, particularly hot rods.

I came from a background of do it yourself racer/hotrodders...my dad and his friends and family. He didn't have the funds, let alone availability of the "billet minded", he had ideas and skills. Now pushing a 1/2 century myself my skills and ideas drive me to this. I drag raced briefly. I got the most possible out of what I had to work with (parts and money) and did better than most with more. I use my skills daily on my job and that keeps me fresh minded finding a better way, cheaper way, less time, etc.

For some perhaps competition is one of the many facets. How does "mine " look compared to "yours". I've competed in shows with restorations. Did very well but does not drive me in least at what I'm currently building. To me there's a spirit and comraderie that exists in our favorite social niche. We all like kool looking things. Respect of your talents comes from sharing them with others. Respect as a builder comes from doing good buisness as well as good work. Most hotrodders look to "heros" like Ed "BIG DADDY" Roth, Barris, Von Dutch, Bill Hines, and more. Look to them as inspiration and as leaders of our niche. Heros who could "show us how it's done".

Why do I like hot rods? There's a small part of me that regularly wants to rebel against the norm, refuse to explain my actions or choices, and generally annoy the crap out of those that just don't get it and most likely never will. Rollin in to a local cruise with a primered noisey but kool lookin rod it just right for rebelling against the musclecar/billet n 'glass/wannabe/I bought mine types. But I respect the pedigree of where all these cars came from mostly more than the owners themselves.

I like building as much or more than using. It's the building that opens your ears to the sounds like someone described above. I'm driven to use my talents to their fullest, and to engineer the best modifications I can possibly do. I don't have a need to gain the respect of my peers...been there in my small piece of the world. Much of me does this from a level of self respect and respect for the craft.

But ya gotta know how to properly spell KOOL as well as what it means.

 

i like these cars becuase you see what you get

 

I'm just over the state line here at Pittsburg State University. Last year I wrote an article on Automobiles for The Encyclopedia of American Folklife. Due out sometime this year. Try squeezing in Hot rods, customs, low riders, monster trucks and art cars in 2000 words! But it was fun research.

I don't know why I love old cars so much. It's in the blood, like several others have said. I can't explain things like standing at the HAMB drags when two cars startup on either side of me - cacklefest in stereo - and I get a hard-on. Put that in your sociology journal! HAH!

Let me know if you need some help with your research.

 

Another one word answer............PUSSY!

pigpen

 

I went to a rich high school. There was a GTO and a Big Block Chevelle and assorted sports cars that daddy bought for them. I couldn't afford a new car but wanted to beat the pants off the rich kids. Had a '39 Ford coupe with a SBC then. I guess that started it.

I like that I built it and that it isn't the same as every other car out there.


Now I have a T-bucket that was licensed 8/25/05.
Age:58

Bill

 

When I went to my first car show at a very young age, I found two things incredibly attractive, the 1950s cars with their whitewall tires, chromed-up "Wurlitzer jukebox" dashboards and Buck Rodgers styling cues. The other was the spindly Model T touring car with it's mechanical simplicity. Later on, I discovered that some people, when those '50s cars were new, had used the older cars to build newer ones that were individualized and faster than the mass produced transportation that most people had. Something clicked and from then on I was a devotee of the 1940s and 1950s style rod. To me it is about three things, performance (but not that much, since it takes a back seat to what I'm about to mention), looks (even the looks of all those exposed mechanical components, remember the Model T) and individuality. Even if everyone here who was into old or modified cars drove a '50s style '30s car, it is still unlikely that my car would be like anyone else's in all or even most details.

For the record, I drive a 1968 Camaro. It's done true to my third favorite era (styling wise, the sociopolitical associations being a whole different conversation, the first two being the 1940s and 1950s), the 1960s and is definitely different from most. Still, being subtle in both modifications and color, it's an easy walk-by at a car show (I mainly go so that I can sit by my car when I get sick of walking, and take my drinks in with me), but not so on the street. As was mentioned somewhere above, I like it when complete strangers will talk to me because of my car. I'm a people person.

The girls thing, I think a lot of people were saying that in jest, because never have I had a girl/woman/whatever show the slightest interest in my car. It's a convertible, so it wrecks their hair, the vinyl seats fry their thighs, the exhaust makes your clothes smell after a long ride and the pipes are too loud. Still, I wouldn't change a thing, the car is an extension of me, however Walter Mitty-esque that may sound.

Sorry for the length, things got longer than I had planned. Sorry if I rambled, I'm not going to proofread because this keyboard is a pain and my computer is slow. Interesting topic. I'd like to read your paper when you are finished.

 

"...It's true, even my ex-wife liked hot chicks..."


God love her. I love girls who love girls.