Hot rods are a return to the past.Some are tributes to youth because the builders were there,growing up in the era while for others it's a build to celebrate the past.They are younger and remember a neighbor or relative who had a traditional hot rod and it made a impression on them. On some other sites I have seen interest in mid 80's G body GM cars.Those guys get all giddy talking about and collecting/restoring them as we do here. Why? Those were the first car to make a impression on them.They are the cars of their youth.It's all good as far as I'm concerned.Anyone playing with cars no matter the brand or style earns points in my book as they are in the garage tinkering and more importantly thinking about how to make that vehicle better. Someday in the future there will be the gearheads of todays youth remembering/chasing down/rebuilding todays muscle cars and educating themselves on how to fix them up by themselves.The idea of fuel injection,computer controlled ststems will not seem foreign to them as it is what they grew up on.Working on a car with points and a carburetor with a manual transmission is as much as a black art to them as todays cars are to many of us.
Personally, I wouldn't go out and buy a brand new musclecar, they just don't excite me much. That doesn't mean I feel a compulsive need to look down my nose at anyone that owns one. I just get sick of the constant "holier than thou" crap on here, especially when half the guys spouting it own so called "hot rods" that don't have enough power to pull a fat girl off a tricycle.
To answer the question directly, I don't think so. The key difference is, in the late sixties, most hot rodders that switched over to musclecars were relatively young guys, and monetary concerns dictated that one had to go, so when they bought a new musclecar, they got out of old hot rods. Most old school hot rodders that are going to buy a new musclecar now (and there are a few of them out there) are affluent enough that its not a question of "one or the other".
let's just leave the fat girls out of this. i believe the same thing will happen to the "new" cars that happened to the old muscle cars of the past. Real hot rodders will buy up wrecks and use them in the older cars
Agree! How ever there is one way that the new cars might have an effect on the older builders. The after market suppliers. A few of them are keeping their heads above water by supplementing the traditional stuff with speed products for the new models. If more of them had gone in that direction we might not have to pay over 2 grand for an old intake. Pretty simplified I know but I can dream can't I?
I think you are right on. It's one thing to mess around on a website like this, but another to be a jerk out in public like that dude did to you at the show, way out of line. I also have to take care how I deal with A-holes in public so my kids get the right message. I like all kinds of cars and bikes, respect peoples' hard work. When it comes to bikes, the "Harley only or F.U. Crowd" is a downer too.
Something no one has mentioned yet on this thread is the cost of insurance on this 2017 Dodge Demon. If he is a young guy and this Dodge Demon has 700 horsepower then the insurance premiums are likely going to be very costly. With the insurance costs and I am guessing the price of the car in the first place is in the $60,000 to $70,000 range, plus the registration costs and taxes, plus the fuel costs, plus tires, etc. etc., I would tend to believe that it would be doubtful that this young man could ever keep this car for very long. $10,000 might get him in the door but that is very large amount of money to pay off. With interest being added into the mix as well, this Dodge Demon is going to cost in the neighborhood of $100,000 by the time it is fully paid off. Plus you have to get a good place to keep this car in to keep it from being stolen. Maybe you could convince this young man to have another look at your great looking T, and that building a hot rod is the way to go.
I wish Plymouth had kept making the prowler, factory hot rod just like the good ole days...you guys never cease to amaze me.
I would like to drive one, to work and back. I have thought of buying a used C5 Zo6 just for driving to work, it has to be a blast, and I could get home quicker to go back to work on my hot rods. A while back I was at a friends party, by a couple decades my wife and I were the oldest of the group. A conversation started about stress relief. One guy has some kind of tank he floats in, some said vacation, some drink, some smoke weed. When the question was asked to me, I said the best stress relief was working in the garage on my old hot rods. I actually got called out, the kid said no way, he was not buying that shit. I was kinda shocked, wrote that guy off. The old cars are just a way for me to get out of the daily grind, away from modern shit TV and computers. Just me, my ideas, my time, my build, my heart and soul go into these old cars. I miss the old days and the way things were. when i am out there working, it's all i see or hear. Fuck the new stuff, anyone with money can buy one. Sorry for the rant, I am ready to get this work day over. The wore out door hinges are waiting at home for me.
It isn't young guys buying the Hellcats etc, it's older guys who have disposable income wanting to relive their use who aren't techical savvy enough to build their own.
At the end of the day you still own a car that anyone with a little disposable income can buy. My car wouldn't be worth $65,000 if I set a duffle bag with $55,000 in the trunk, but I guarantee I won't see another sitting next to me at the stoplight either.
UPDATE: Satarday night, I got a phone call from my co-worker. He nixed the Demon and got a Challenger T/A. Supposed to be the first one in Texas. That's what the salesman told him. Sunday, he had a BBQ for the Super Bowl and I got to see it and get a ride. Here's what they look like: http://www.caranddriver.com/photo-gallery/new-2017-dodge-challenger-ta-is-old-school-done-right It's a nice looking car, as new cars go. He went with the color, "Yellow Jacket" and the black trim really makes it stand out. The car does have some "get up and go". Throttle response is great, as it should be for a car like this. All in all, it's a great car, if your into these things. I'm not, but I can appreciate it for what it is. I didn't have my camera, but I'll get pics, next time I'm over. IMO, no matter what the factories come up with, they'll never replace Hot Rods. HOT RODS are a lot more "personal". That's one reason why I love them so much. I guess for the AVERAGE person with limited automotive skills, but a love of fast cars, it would be a good choice. But they'll NEVER be Hot Rods.
"To be perfectly honest I find it a little goofy to bring your new Z06 Corvette, Shelby Mustang or Hellcat to a car show, but people want to show off their rides, especially if they've made mods to the driveline, suspension and body. And people actually do that. I don't think you should slam a young adult who does his tuning with a computer instead of a screwdriver and vacuum gauge. Times have changed and while you fellows don't have to change with them (no one will shame you into changing) don't bad rap a fellow car freak." Okay, you find it a "little goofy" and some others "dislike" it. Pretty close to the same thing and no one mentioned slamming any young adults. New cars at a Hot Rod show would be like bringing a parrot to a dog show. Yea, it's a nice bird, but it wouldn't belong. To get back to the point of the thread, "Do you guys think the new wave of Muscle Cars, will have an effect on Hot Rod building like it did in the late 60's?." It's almost a "yes or no" question, but the discussions have been a very good read. Keep 'em coming.
First off, don't make me stop this car and come back there Fred! Stop calling them muscle cars...it's the equivalent of having someone call your hot rod a street rod or worse yet a r** rod (I cant even bring myself to type that one). Muscle cars don't have air bags, 20" rims, catalytic converters, computers, coil packs, mass air flow sensors, anti lock disc brakes, nav, DVD with 7.1 surround sound system and a 5 year warranty. It also doesn't take hard work and effort to walk into a dealership and drive a new car out the door with a whopping loan (or lease...seriously?) attached. Rant over...for now, but I'm watching you guys!. Second, and more to the point, I guess the answer is "likely". There are guys on here today running LS motors (gasp), EFI (OMG), tremecs (tsk), LED's (LOL) and so on. All of which are the products of the later generation of US performance cars. I suppose drive by wire throttle and steering boxes cant be that far away. If we stay true to our mission statement on the HAMB, the answer must be "NO". We actually have the ability to control it and do quite often. I don't always follow the "rules" but I respect them and those that do! Third (back to rant) if a SRT8 or a ZL1 is a muscle car then a Plymouth Prowler is a hot rod and PT Cruiser and HHR are classic customs. Accept one, accept them all.
Just going by the definition: "The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines muscle cars as "any of a group of American-made 2-door sports cars with powerful engines designed for high-performance driving."
Funny story about a "new challenger" guy. Last year I was bringing my daughter and my wifes niece home from school in my OT daily. Its pretty loud and has gears and a runkity solid cam. I was putting along a ways back from the end of a line of traffic on a 4 lane urban street, got the feeling the light at the intersection ahead of me was going to go yellow soon, and I was close to the intersection, so I downshifted and pinned it, only for a couple seconds, backed off and braked a bit as I cleared the intersection. As I got close to the back of the line of traffic and slowed down to about 40, this Challenger goes flying by me on the left, then brakes till hes beside me, and starts goosing the throttle! I hadn't even noticed him till then, I guess he figured when I'd pinned it to beat the light, I wanted to drag, IN TRAFFIC, WITH TWO KIDS in the cab of my little truck. I had to laugh...
I always thought that HAMB'ers were car guys....it seems that if it isn't HAMB friendly, it isn't worth spit. I think that the second go around on muscle cars is pretty neat. My Hemi powered Grand Cherokee quite frankly will blow off any hot rod I've ever built! I love my wife's Porsche, my ranch truck and every other car that's passed through my garage...including a dozen hot rods.
I'm not trying to be an ass on this point but I proudly own a nice little fleet of American muscle cars. The are built like crap, ride like shit, hot as hell, drink gas like a sailor on shore leave, but they define the era... Little cars, big motors, no luxeey options, typically vibrant colors, non traditional, 4 speed, bias plied, rattle traps that wouldn't be legal to build today. Sound familiar? It should. It is the basic recipe of every car we build on the HAMB. John Delorean, arguably the father of the muscle car, invented the genre. All he really did was copy what hot rodders had been doing for decades. Not rocket science. Put the big car motor in the little car...and sell cocaine to find it. Bandit Billy. 10-10 on the side
Had to chuckle when I read this. I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about how to make mechanical fuel injection work well on the street. Just recently scored a set of early hilborns and a Corvette tach drive distributor with no vacuum advance for my T-bucket project. I figure one of the real keys to making this combo work on the street will be installing a "computer". I guess I will just have to learn to live with its not having a "soul". And no, Im NOT converting it to EFI, that would be too obvious.
Most of that crap is just posturing. And to think I didn't like street rod guys in the eighties/nineties because I thought they were too pretentious...
New cars may be fast, but they're expensive and boring. I'd rather have cheap(er) and not boring, and when I pull into a car event, their might be another 40 Ford or two, but guaranteed there's not one like mine. And, I did build it, that brings a level of pride most don't get. Somewhere there's a sewing message board debating needlepoint vs cross-stitch. To each their own.
So....here's how I see it. We meet at the a+w on the hiway here in town, last summer a nice younger couple, 40's? were looking at our cars, so I asked if she'd ever ridden in a hot rod. Good looking gal, she said no, so me being the accommodating type, away we went, she was awestruck that this was a homebuilt truck, so.....I asked if she wanted to go faster, got the apprehensive...sure. Poked my old girl hard as she'd go, got out of it a few seconds later, you guessed it, wet spot on the seat. Hot rods have mystery and charm, it was a ride she'll not forget soon. In a new high zoot car, she wouldn't have known what it was, or cared, probably wouldn't have looked twice at it. Ours are fun, they're not mundane, those of us who love to build always will, those who like to drive may choose one of these factory hot rods, just like always has been, myself, I prefer to give a strange good looking woman an orgasm any day of the week in a car she knows is unusual.
Boring eh.... You obviously haven't driven one. Most of these modern 'muscle cars' are capable of low-or-sub 13 second 1/4 mile times off the showroom floor; something NONE of the original crop could do. For most of those, just getting into the 13s required slicks and open headers. If you get in a late-model and just mash the gas with no thought, you'll likely take a ditch tour... just like you would have 'back in the day'.
Nicely put man. If they have to ask they'll never get it. I'd rather take 10 years to save a car from the scrap yard than buy a 'factory hotrod'. But I'm kind of nuts so... Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I don't want to speak for Dan...but I'm going to He didn't mean "boring" in the sense that the new cars are not fast. Hell, a Tesla S has a zero to 60 of 3.8 seconds (you cant do that with a hemi challenger), but that doesn't make it desirable. I sold my 2011 CTS-V Caddy that pulled a 3.9 zero to 60, not that it wasn't fast but it wasn't unique. Every car lot I drove past had a CTS-V on it. Not unique can equal boring. That make sense Steve? Not a dis on the new, just a plug for the old. And isn't that why we build old hot rods? They aren't the fastest thing on wheels, probably not the safest either. Some don't even have seat belts, fenders, bumpers, defrosters, windows, adequate mirrors and lights but we can't stop building and driving them. I don't want to know the 0-60 for a flathead, if you raced a flathead roadster with your late model mopar you could probably have time for a smoke and cup of coffee before the flathead driver picked up his timing slip. But you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who calls the roadster boring.
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