Are traditional hot rods and Customs too perfect now?

Saw a program on Million Dollar Yachts, and something the yacht salesman said, struck me as appropriate for this conversation.

There is always someone that sets the standards that can not be surpassed and they will spend lots of money to set that standard.

It does not mean that every boat owner does that, it just means that someone wants to be the best, and have the best stuff, and show the world what the best is.

The ordinary boat owner can not, and does not, want to compete with the millionaire boat owners, they want to get out on the water and have fun in their boats, and don't care that other people think they should have the best of everything.

And , that, in my opinion, is a summary of what happens in hotrodding.

traderjack

 

I remember being in HighSchool in 1940 and seeing the first chopped top 40 mercury convertible. All it had was a Carson top, dual exhausts, and DeSoto bumpers, and we all thought it was the cat's nuts. Oh, yeah, it had torched springs.

Still think it was a nice looking car.

Traderjack

 

And Flipper Hub Caps. LOL

Traderjack

 

An accurate traditional hot rod must have at least one part that has been stick welded together out of angle iron*.(this goes double for anything with a drag racing style, but does not neccesarilly apply to anything done in a "show car" style)

*It is important for the traditional hot rod builder to recognize the structural limits of angle iron. Please use angle iron responsibly.

 

I like my hot rods the way i like my music.It has to be clean with a few mistakes to let you know the human factor.Jimmy shines work and others remind me of artists like Eric clapton.Super talented and clean at there approch,if you pay attention you may pickup on a mistake or two but its all good.Billet rods are like moby and techno,too perfect and somewhere in pluto.They have there place just not in the world i live now.

 

I wouldn't think so....

And therein lies the problem.....guys are getting so hung up on DUPLICATING, and overthinking the details, rather than just "making it work", if ya know what I mean...

There's a certain beauty in the "quirkiness"? or crudeness? of the original hotrods....

 

Build what YOU think is right.....not what you "think" (or others tell you) is SUPPOSED to be right.
If that makes any sense....hahaha....
It's gonna be cool Kevin.

 

Get the book "Cool cars, Square Roll Bars" It has many photos from the New England hot rod scene in the 50's....Today, I think people are getting away from what a "traditional" hot rod is....their are some ratty looking cars and some nice show cars in that book, but their are also Ford Model A's & B's that look like early european sports cars....You dont see anybody today taking a '32 and making it look like a Tr6??? So the word "traditional" is being uesed as a label today more than what traditional hot rods were back then in my opinion. Just think, in the early 90's, traditional hot rods were coined "rat rods"....Labels are just labels, build what you like!! Its not 1959 anymore and some people get really crazy with this traditional stuff, its almost as bad as the Easter egg crowd with who has the most expensive car!! Just build and enjoy hot rods! ~E

 

As a young guy in the 60s and the son of a sign painter I remember the first time I was driving down the boulevard in my 4 speed, three deuce, hopped up 60 Chevy and noticed a sign in a men's store window. I knew instantly it was painted by my father. It was just his unique style. Even though his work was not perfect it had character.

As an old-timer now I see our hobby as being in an evolutionary process. The first generation who started modifying their cars came up with the majority of the original ideas. These days it's all about refinement. I don't have a problem with that. I remember suffering through some pretty awful looking cars in the little pages in the 50s and I generally enjoy the quality of cars today but we Americans are always trying to outdo ourselves and I object to the fantastic sums invested in cars turning them into objects of art and ignoring their main purpose which is the joy of driving them.

We get way too wrapped up in the minutia. Let's do the best we can to make our cars look cool and attractive within our budgets but GEEZ - let's not forget to just drive the S.O.B.'s!

 

"when you're this passionate about something the littlest thing can make you nuts."

How true!!!

 

I have been thinking the same thing here lattely. I love the almost akward look of original period cars. You can build a car entirly from parts 1950 and older but that dosent make it 1950 period perfect in my openion, you have to build it with the same mind frame and purpose that they originaly built them for. People today spend intierly too much money and time to pretend they are a broke teenager 60 years ago. Dont get me wrong make it safe and use comon since but some things dont need to be perfect. Here is a car that I think says what I am talking about and my T bucket that I like to think has the same feel.

 

For as long as anyone has worked on cars,any generation,there have been perfectionists and guys who just want to get it done as fast as possible and all levels in between. Anything goes, anytime.

 

kcar

 

I build things I'm obsessed about, Bikes,boats,muscle cars,army trucks,chevy trucks,hotrods an jalopys too. all the same colors, two tone brown...some are brush rustolium,then buffed,an pinstriped,some are 30' spray jobs(look great @ 30'),for me paint is to keep the rust off the metal, not something that NEEDS a lotta rubbin. for pics, follow the links on vessel-assist-nw.com DRIVE FAST,CRUISE SLOW

 

For me, I love the little quirks and gaps and offsets. It say to me, "hey, this car was built by a person, in a garage, with what he had...and I bet he grins like a schoolboy when he drives it". It just doesn't matter to me what anyone else on this planet thinks of it, as long as the guy behind the wrench is having fun, and taking pride in his work.

Every time I see a 'perfect' car, I wonder what shop built it, where did they buy the fiberglass body, and how much the gold chainer driving it (or worse, trailering it) paid to have it built. 'Perfect' just screams "production built" to me, and for me, that's worse than driving yet another silver Prius.

My '47 Ford PU project has barely even started, but I will be building for me, and no one else. I have a loose vision in my head that I will be building from, but when it's done I'll be happy... and screw what anyone else thinks about it.

 

funny how this thread ended up the same way 2 years later...............

 

A few years ago, I was going somewhere thru a busy traffic area with my father, when we pulled up next to an absolutely gorgeous Model A. I told him "WOW check out that great looking Model A!" He said "Ya know, I remember when those were new and believe me, they NEVER looked THAT good!" I kinda stopped my train of thought right there and said What? Yeah, he said they were straight, but not really that shiny and pretty. It served more of a functional need than a looks contest. But to him they weren't worth much back then and sure as HELL weren't worth anything to him now! But that was the generational thing I guess because I told him I thought it would be neat to have such a nice car. He assured me I didn't miss anything by not owning one!!
So I guess maybe we do put more effort into making things look better than Henry did or any of the other manufacturers and the time. But isn't that the nature of us rodders??

 

I left hot-rodding quite a few years ago because I couldn't justify the cost (plus my ex-wife cleaned me out...) Another deciding factor was a certain hot rod mag with origins in the 1950's started running one too many articles on how to install IFS. As far as I could tell, this consisted of ordering one online and waiting for it to show up. The final straw was when this same magazine pointed out a 32 roadster and stated it "had all of the correct 50's parts on it". Correct?? What??!!

Quite a few 30's motorcycles later I've started looking again for a 36 5-window. I found myself having to ring an old mate and ask "WTF is a rat rod??!!" His reply was that it was like a 4WD with spray-on mud so it looks like it goes off road. Great analogy!

I notice too that there seems to be a lot more snobbery amongst the "We're living exactly like they did in the 50's crowd". Got the wrong haircut? You're out. No Sailor Jerry tatts? You're out. Painted hot rod? You're out. And these are young folks too, the supposed future of hot-rodding.

What am I ranting about? I don't think the question is are rods and customs too perfect, I think its more "why dont you build your car your way, the way you want to, and if anyone wants to pin a ratrod, hotrod, mexican blanket, leadsled label on it, tell them to #@* off." In a big way.

 

With really old stuff, no matter what it is...cars, wood floors, furniture...whatever... it's easy to see craftmanship. And I agree that less than perfect old things are widely more acceptable than less than perfect new things! haha, It's a societal thing.

Things made today are made to look perfect, but are usually made from cheap materials and with a computerized machine...leaving it with no personality.

Cars can be compared to fake boobs or music.... it don't mean a thing if it aint got that swing.

It's painfully obvious when you look at a car that someone has paid a shop to build...spent 1000's of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars on it. It's completely worked to the nines from every angle and you can just look at it at a glance and say..."nahhhhhh, i don't like it." Then walk around the corner and see a car that some guy built in his backyard in the 50's or 60's, or even today "obviously falls into the category of less than perfect" and instantly fall in love with it.

As a creator of anything, you have to move people and intrigue your audience, this comes from creating things that move YOU as a person.... and then others relate. You have to go beyond the technicalities, into the realm of SOUL. Hard to put your finger on it...and impossible to immitate because of it's very nature.

Amazing talent and skills of a builder are necessary to even become part of this discussion. But that's just the start. You've gotta have love, soul, style, passion, and determination as a person. All of that is reflected back into what you do, if you do it from the heart. That's how you achieve greatness, instead of just plain old run of the mill perfectness.

 

The term "traditional" itself is interpretive, just as all of our personal taste are. We all strive to create, what in our eyes, best suits are own taste (no matter where/how we arrived at that "taste"). For some people..they will push the envelope to higher and higher levels of perfection..not such a bad thing, works for them. Other people simply want to create a driveable usefull Hot Rod/Custom that they can enjoy, and be proud of. The extremes in both cases, typically are not the norm. We form our own interpretations, from both groups. We have a spectrum in which to gauge (just like "back in the day"). "Too perfect now"..in some cases probably, others not so much, but without the extremes in both cases we can't really be sure..can we?

 

LOL! I agree! I just like old cars done right. You either get it or you don't. I don't think it can really be explained, although many have tried. Also, everyone has a different opinion, no two people can agree totally on anything.

 

I,m a old shit head, when I was a kid hell I did not see alot of cars that had paint ,mostly spray can primer, not that there were not painted cars most were guys that worked at body shops seen a few was always cool stuff around,the thing that I noticed as a kid was the car names that did it for me plus my big bro was a gear head and worked at a junk yard, well by bros gone and the owner is workin at his sons yard every day I think he,s 87 now and my hero I got many of my first hotrod parts from him he would always ask what ya workin on if it was my hotrod what ever that was the price was always right it was a you pull it sort of a yard I did hot rods both ways I always had more fun with the low buck ones and there the ones I remember the most, I had good old Jerry W do a spread on my packard way back and he was more impressed with the out of the junk yard apperance of the motor that any thing else, oh back then no one was doin packards either, so that made it intriguing to him I had a blast with him that day learned from him in a short time I hope he gets a full recovery cause he,s one of the best my 2 pennys worth

 

I know exactly how you feel. The fact is, is that the soul of these cars comes from the circumstances of the time. There was an innocence to building a Hot Rod then. They were exiting and new. A young bright eyed man excited about the possibilities of life, maybe coming home from over seas, dreaming about speed or building his own, one of a kind modern custom. No matter how we try to pretend, we can't be that; but if we try to keep a build fueled by our own innocent drives we might be able to build something with a little soul.

Rat rods get a real bad rap. And for what they have become they should. But what started the whole thing was that innocent excitement. Guys who loved the history of Hot Rods but weren't 100% sure how to get there. I think you could get a glimpse of that soul in some of the cars built 15 years ago.

Sometimes when I'm at a car show, or reading internet threads I get that old feeling, like when I was younger and going to car shows like the street rod nationals. There was a set of rules about how to build a car. All the cars looked the same, and if they didn't they were criticized. Whoever spent the most money was the winner. Everything was trend driven. Now when talking to some people in the Traditional hot rod world it feels like they think all the Miami Vice, teardrop cars should be replaced with identical properly built, model As and properly chopped, Mercs, where everything looks the same and we give a trophy to the guy with the rarest intake. I'm starting to feel like the Traditional Hot Rod is becoming the new street rod. It's kinda sad.

 

I didn't read all the posts, so someone may have stated this prior. We try to capture the essence of a car from the past, sometimes taking years in the garage to do so. We don't consider that the cars which often impact us the most were built on the weekends because they were driven daily as must have transportation. If you couldn't chop, channel, lower, zee or whatever on saturday and sunday, you weren't riding on monday. We get so obsessed with seasoning the stew that we lose the flavor in the process. Someday (if I live long enough and can rein in my obsession), I would like to build a car from that very perspective.

 

Mine sure aren't!!!

 

The problem is that we are not building cars (well most people who build cars) for the right reason anymore. I had this conversation with an older guy who built his first hot rod in 1937. He said that back then they built hot rods ONLY to go fast, they would put together a car the best that they could and then drive the piss out of it, and see how fast they could make them go. Thats why they were so imperfectly perfect. Now a days its all about the "look" and not about the soul purpose of hot roddding. With the price of parts and how scarce some of them are, its hard to build a "traditional" hot rod and convince yourself to go out and basically try to destroy it. Everytime I build a car I try to do it the way I think that they would have done it back then, and with what I have to do it with. He has set my mental state about hot rods in a differant direction than most, I don't go to car shows to fit in, or try to be a part of any scene. He told me that his reason for having a hot rod was to go as fast as he could with his 30 A banger (that he made his own cam for btw) and piss of as many people as possible along the way.

 

To answer the question in the Title of this Post...not mine. I'm building it in my garage, it's not a POS (AKA a "Rat Rod"), and the only thing getting done by someone else is the upholstery...cause I know my limitations. If someone turns their nose up at it, who cares...it mine and I built it for ME...