Do the Primer Nats represent the H.A.M.B. taste?

When I joined the H.A.M.B I was under the impression that this whole hot rod deal was about the great people you meet while enjoying your car. Now it sounds like your ride has to look like the Hirohata Merc or the Dick Flint roadster just to fit in here. What the Hell happened? Now we're trashing primered cars and uncapped steel wheels?

I don't like the rusty, booger weld, skull covered rat rod garbage either but I love my primered car and I drive it every day it isn't pouring rain. I'm sure my car is too low and too havilly chopped for some people's taste, but I didn't build it for them. Someday I'll have paint, but it's just not a top priority. It's getting a little weird around here lately.

 

This car is cool. He's always at the local cruise night near my house. I saw him on thursday and they were showing me how it was striped by VonDutch. Its pretty neat. he said that he charged him and extra $20, and he signed his name just below the trunk lid. It was sooooooo small you had to look really close to see it.

 

lol. No, but I did get one of a dude passed out in the back seat of his car.

 

Yeah, that's Alan Kahan's car- he's Aaron Kahan from the Burbank Choppers dad. Aaron grew up in that car and there's a feature of the car in a 1971 Rod & Custom that has the whole family pictured with a 5 year old Aaron in it! Car once had a hot olds in it, but has had a Ford small-block in it for about 40 years- along with that paint and upholstery that's even older!
Cool car and even cooler people.

 

Yeah, me too...

When I first realized I could have an old car like my dad's friends and my friends' dads, without spending a small fortune, just by using old parts and skipping the full tilt paint jobs and lounge jacket interiors...

Long before I discovered the Shifters and they coined the modern incarnation of the term 'Rat Rod' (Sorry Jeem, I have the article and heard about the shoot when it happened and it was the first time I heard the modern term)...

My buddies and I would just go to as many car shows as we could... Good Guys, whatever... It didn't matter... Good Guys seemed super expensive, but we just went to the ones we could afford...

It wasn't about 'our kind of show' etc... We were different enough as it was... We may not have been real popular but most of us were ex-punkers so we were used to that... We just went to be around old cars.

We also always knew where we were and tried to be respectfull. I wouldn't have thought about confronting people with cars we didn't think were cool because I for one, knew how much effort went into them. I built 'rat rods' (Which basically just meant an old car without billet wheels, Harris Tweed interior, and a $20K paint job) because I couldn't afford to put that kind of green into a car. I also thought they represented the roots of rodding a little better.... But I didn't think I was better than anybody...

I was just trying to carve my own line and get my own piece of the cool-pie, the only way I knew how...

Then came the HAMB... And we were like a fraternity of outcasts... Or of broke-asses...

We made fun of cars that didn't belong because we figured they had enough places to go to feel accepted... This was ours... But to be honest, most of the bagging was on guys like us who chose to build crappy cars... Or just guys who didn't get it...

Now the HAMB is the cool place to be... HAMBers are the Cool Kids in High-School... Not a bunch of goofs that didn't fit in...

So for better or worse, our role has changed... I'm not always comfortable with it... I don't know how to act as part of the 'main stream' or at least a member of a group of 'trend setters'...

But I think it's important to recognize this and think about it when you start talking about 'HAMB Appropriate' cars and carshows...

At what point have we morphed into those same dicks that talked smack about our cars at carshows... 'Exclusivity' isn't 'Traditional'...

Unsafe cars, poorly build cars, cars built shitty on purpose to glom some of the 'Rat Rod' ethos, are all fair game...

But 'Boring' cars are up to interpretation... I garuntee you that the guy who drives or built that 'boring' car thinks your stuff is lame too...
And those guys are just trying carve a piece of the 'cool pie' the best way they can...

 

To quote a fellow HAMBer, "Whining about car shows is the new flat black"...

If you don't like it just pass on by, no need to even talk about it, I do it all the time. Life is way to short to worry about other people's cars.

T

PS search my name and you'll find plenty of pictures of my car, and yes, it's shiny.

 

Kilroy: Well said.

 

I'm probably digging myself into an even deeper hole, but I think some of what I said in the original post has been misinterpreted.

Here are a bunch of cars that are in primer, may or may not be unfinished, but are interesting/creative/worth a second look to me. I wasn't condemning cars of this caliber, and I certainly wasn't talking about cars of the Rodriguez/Kahan/Fisher level of finish:

(see my next post)

 

Maybe the pics I took are giving people a different perspective of the show than some of those who actually went. I took pics of the nicer cars there. There were many more that I would not have wasted my time taking pics of that surely I would have been blasted for posting such photos on here. Either way, I had a great time. And will go back again next year. Hopefully behind the wheel of my '57...

I mean do we always enjoy everything we see at these events? I think not. So we keep on walking to the next car that does catch our eye...

 

...and although I recognize the perils (not to mention bad taste) of criticizing somebody else's car in a public forum, I'd like to be clear that these cars ARE what I was talking about. If any of these are HAMBers' cars, I apologize for the insult:

 

Rut Roh... Now ya done it.

 

I wouldn't put Big Ricks car in that groupe..


A. He's a big guy
B. His car is a Hot Rod!! Loud, Fast and Ready to kick ass!!!

the rest suck.

 

haha, ricks hotrod is a bonifide shitbox now !! fuckin ratrodders !!

whilst i agree with 50fraud's opinions, i fail to understand how the hemi sport coupe is clumped up with the cars pictured?

 

Now, having offended a large number of people, I'll try to clarify what I meant with my original post:

- I have no kick with primered cars, unfinished cars, or cars that belong to guys with limited budgets. All of these can be great cars.

- I don't much like cars with really goofy proportions, primer spots, rusted out components, or Halloween detailing, but it's a free country. The guys who build these cars have every right to show them, and the spectators' reactions may or may not influence their future projects. And yes, I realize that I can just walk on by.

- I'm kinda surprised by the apparent popularity of shows that have a high proportion of cars fitting the two descriptions above. I was asking if this represents the taste of the HAMB in general, and I see now that there are as many different opinions as there are cars.

- I think the HAMB/OFC idea is kinda fun. I'll start it up.

Again, my apologies to those whose feathers I've ruffled.

 

"- I don't much like cars with really goofy proportions"
"and although I recognize the perils (not to mention bad taste) of criticizing somebody else's car in a public forum, I'd like to be clear that these cars ARE what I was talking about. If any of these are HAMBers' cars, I apologize for the insult:"

What goes around comes around.This is great taste!

 

I'm sure Rick really gives an "F" about what anyone thinks about his car!
On a side note; I do feel sorry for that 58 chevy though