History Feeling Nostalgic about Nostalgia or remembering the Traditional hot rod boom of the 90's

Wait, what? I seem to have missed the car, where’s the car?

 

Sure, it was awesome back in the early - mid 90’s. It was something new(revived) and it was sort of underground/anti- establishment. When I showed up here in the late 90's Ryan was still in college and trying to get his career off the ground. He created this place for a group of renegades that didn't fit the normal molds. I was just glad to finally find a place where guys that thought like I did could congregate.

My old T bucket by Roothawg posted Jul 7, 2008 at 8:45 PM

I built this in the late 90's out of junk I had in the rafters. I had less than $3,000 in it. Every bit of it was pre 1962. Stuff was cheap back then. Nothing fancy, just bare bones. It was what I had laying around. Cliche now, probably.

I grew up in the 70’s and I equate it to the Harley Davidson movement.
When I was a kid, bikers were the only folks that rode Harleys. Not accountants with Harley costumes. There were two dive bars in town and each one was ran by the local biker gangs.
You could see early shovelhead and panheads parked outside. Nothing that had a stereo or hard bags.

Stuff just evolves. The posers will move on to the next trend and there will be a handful of guys that stick around and basically everyone will look at us as the wooden spoke and br*** era guys….wondering why we care.

No worries. It’s about the hot rods.

 

Over here we had the" Low Flyers". Basic hotrods with a slightly disreputable look.
I read about them at the time and thought, wow, cars you can relate to at last. Old cars minus the junk you don't need, in an era when perfect paint ruled. I never built one, being far too into oval racing at the time as a young technician, but totally got where they were coming from. (Bear in mind this was the UK.)
So, hats off to you guys. A quarter of a century later we have Pendine, just fantastic proof that traditional is here to stay.
The rivet counters will get into every hobby, makes them happy i guess. At least there is something to get excited about.
Or buy an electric supercar..

 

It really was awesome then. It seemed like the "traditional" scene sort of evolved out of the street rod and restoration scene that was ultra-high dollar, and full of trailer queens. It was cool because it was a bunch of guys my age, and a bit older, putting cars together the best they could, learning as we went. There were plenty of transmission swaps with one bad trans for another, lots of driveway bodywork with 110v flux core MIGs, mexican blanket seat covers... and just generally using whatever parts and money we could scrounge to get the cars back out on the road reliably.


Here was my high school car, circa 2001


And then later, this 57 Ford, as pictured here in about 2003. I actually got this car the day of my senior prom, and have owned it now just over 20 years.


Neither were particularly nice cars at the time but it didn't matter. They sat outside, got driven, abused, raced, broken, fixed, and then we did it again.

In terms of the scene, it seemed like years ago the controlling premise was that the car was a driver, and that it was driven often. Now, it seems like the controlling premise is that the car is traditional, even if that means that the car is not driven. With the traditional scene revival being reactionary to the high-dollar, trailer-queen street rodders, the irony is not lost on me that in many ways, the traditional scene has sort of reverted back to the very groups that they sought to break free from. Funny how that is.

 

The congregation says "AMEN".

 

But the success of Pendine has brought in new people and hipsters that just want to be part of something new, as well as that success story meaning increased regulation, that means that mot of the cars are now being built just for Pendine as race cars rather than people who've been around for ages with hot rods just getting to 'have a go' on the beach, as it was the first 3 or 4 years it ran.
That's evolution though, same thing happened on the salt as the decades progressed.

 

In the 90s I put this little modified together. Body was my brother's cast off 31 chevy pickup cowl [I narrowed it 6 inches] and doors. Used an old 40 chevy hood for rear side pieces and a cast-off 50 chevy door skin for the center of the back. I ended up using a 230 chevy 6 banger with a u-pull-it S-10 5 speed trans. I made the front suspension from a cast-off 36 chevy pickup axle with springs turned upside down over the top of the frame.
I was still raising a family and paying mortgage payments. Money came real slow then.

 

Here's my 85 / 90's deal, is was a great time for those of us who lived the 50's, a cool do over it was. My Cord, 1st custom 39 Ford tub, and my chopped 40 pickup. I still have a tub and a 29 Ford roadster with a built Nailhead. We did cruise these on Van Nuys Blvd before it became Illegal. Our end of the world is around the corner, electric cars and bicycles is where we're going. I say Boooooo !!! to that !!

 

Paso ****ing Robles. I miss it. Our group of derelicts would make a road trip/camping trip/cruise your old ****/car show weekend. It was more than just the cars, but it was about the cars, if you know what I mean.

​

Now I've got three kids, a house and responsibilities. Today was an exciting day, after work I successfully snaked a clogged kitchen sink drain. WTF happened?!?!?

 

Yeah, now the exciting anniversaries for me are getting within 5 years of retirement and dates for my colonoscopy……

 

I think the traditional stuff will always be in style. Here lately you see alot of younger generation guys getting into this stuff also. Lets look back on the 90s, there was a sea of billet and tweed... The hold outs then were shunned as always since they were not on the FAD trend. 2000s came, a major resurgence of traditional came. Flatheads became cool again, oddball motors such as nailheads and rockets became the norm in traditional senses. The holdouts from before who were not trendy, now are cool, It all comes around cause the new junk just are appliances with different wheels and colors, and the traditional rods and cars have staying power, they are built to an era normally, and some people love those eras, or want to experience that again or for the first time...

Some people want to relive a part of their life or their parents life through a car, and do so quite well. Some people like me want to build a car like it was built in a era, and no deviation from that in any way. I am driving a late 30s style hot banger car, this would have put all the flatheads to shame in its day, my other is my shop truck, 60s style hauler about to be 50s styled soon... I'm 43 this year... Here I am playing with what some people call "old man cars" and as true as that is... I'm driving it, inspiring others, and keeping this thing going. Look at RPM nationals, Hotrod Hillclimb, Hamb Dirt Drags, and shows like Hotrod Showdown etc... Ultra traditional shows and events... Look at the recent resurgence in Banger cars at such events... Here is to having fun boys and keeping this vintage stuff alive and well...

 

I’m always late to the party. I was a poor wide eyed teenager in the 90’s when the trad movement hit. Every model car I built thereafter had white walls and Steelies.

It’s only been in the last 5 years that I can afford stuff, and now it’s too expensive.

Also, trends are cyclical. If I want to get ahead of the game I should start stocking up on true spokes and cowl lights, as the 70’s resto-rod resurgence is probably on the horizon, and then if we can still buy gas by then, champ 500 centerlines will be worth a mint as kids who grew up in the 90’s want to build cars they remembered when they were young.

 

I agree with the first half of your statement about the cars being built with whatever you could find, beg, borrow or steal to build a car that was driven often.

However, I think the cars were far more traditional in looks and running gears. I remember my first Rockabilly Rumble 2000 (two weeks after my H.S. Graduation) Every car looked like it could have been built anywhere from 1949 to about 1962. Every car had a flathead, an early over head or a period correct S.B.C.
Almost every car had a 39 Ford transmission and a banjo rear, those that didn't had some other period correct running gear, bias ply tires on almost every car, and they were driven long distances, and every car looked differant!

Yes, there was more primer and more Mexican blankets 20 years ago then in the 40s,50s or 60s but I think the builders 20 years ago wanted the cars and running gears to be pure, and period correct.

 

The cars were 40-60 years newer back then.
There was much less reason for primer or covering seats with blankets.

 

This comes up here a lot. I see the OG was '19 so not quite full zombie, but I digress.

Reality check, this **** isn't a "movement" and probably never was. Those come from your bowels (your ***hole in hoodlum speak). And as always the admiration and snark about quality, talent, fit n finish or lack of gets into word salad territory. "I'm better cuz I got my own foundry and cast my own heads!" Ridiculous, I know, but I'm trying to jackhammer a point. If you grew up in a car family (I did) there comes a deep-rooted ideal of what's what, who's who, why is, and more. Depending on which way you faced your prime interest a heavily faceted outlook may have developed. I was fortunate (maybe) to have been exposed to the best of the best, the not-yet-new (prototype), preservation (restoration), and all the peripherals like process, tools, artifacts and historical do***ents. So, back to a "movement" idea I've always had this background ideal that some things never go away. How come an American Racing natural finish wheel still looks as good today as it did on the recently featured Cheetah in the blog page? Why do finned aluminum Cal Customs still make you stop and look even if only for a moment? What makes tuck n roll vinyl so inviting? How come the Ford raw material still has the upper hand as the car of choice to **** with? Does this sound like Capt Obvious? Hope so.

I never thought having something done was a negative. I can't sew, so do I ****? I can't grind my own cam or design it's lift and valve event timing. I have run a head surfacing machine but its not in my daily wheelhouse. I'm a finisher 1st by trade but I'm not going to refinish my 39. Am I lazy? A hipster? Unable? Or is it a choice. I might have looked upon the new billet injection tweed graphic cars for just a moment with tempered admiration but can't say I ever wanted it. Ever. Gimme a carb or 3, even points over something that needs standalone control. I do like O/D but who doesn't. And yeah like our founder I drag raced for a bit. Had a trans brake, MSD, and even a delay box (**** off box haters) and those were great years. Like an old hot rod you wanted Zero to Hero as best you could. I hate LS-whatever motor conversions. I think its silly to tune with a laptop. I don't much care for computers invading the simplicity of a hot rod, track or street. Am I better than others? Nope, go for it if you like it. Hide it under your traditional dash. I also don't eat sushi or raw oysters but I wouldn't try to have them banned. So where this started, a movement, no. Maybe now and then some get the track dust or junkyard rust or fog of daily life outta the way and they see what just looks right or has that unmistakable vibe, and never really went away. It's an easy line to blur especially if you never noticed it before or didn't have the opportunity. And really that's only if you need lines to begin with. Raw thoughts...

 

Let's look back at the 1980s and early to mid 1990s how many period correct car do you remember seeing at shows or in magazines?

Period correct was not wanted! Or at least not accepted!

Yes, there were some diehards, building and driving period correct cars but they were few and far between.

If someone showed up with a period correct car it was shunned and met with sharp criticism about not being modern.

My I remember in the early 1990s when I was about 9 or 10 my dad showing me a 58 Chevy mild custom did in an early 60s style that he said was very similar to what he remember in the magazines of his youth.

The rest of the people his age were talking about how the car needed billet wheels, a modern tweed interior, to be tubbed etc...

At Ford Motorsports show/swapmeet about the late 1980s two guys had vintage speed equipment flathead, Y-block, etc. and a barn fresh 32 Ford coupe I remember my dad tell me what I was looking at saying the price on the coupe was very fair I don't think they could enough to pay for their space and not even a nibble on the coupe, on Sunday when the guys left one of them said "They should call this 5.0 Liter F@ck Mustang show and be done with it!"

It was a movement a rebellion against check book writing, sit lawn chair behind there billet laden pink and teal splash graphic crowd.

These cars had their shows, people formed clubs just for these cars.


I come from a racing/car family as well.

My Great Uncle Weyl crew man for Sam Craft's AAA Big Car (Indy Car)


Great Leslie Kellerhouse (R) Steward Fonda speedway and Lou Lazzaro


My Father Ch***is builder

 

I drove this to my '75 grad day:

We ran that truck for years even in the snow. Never shunned. I did an OT rod for a guy recently and happy with my work but I wouldn't want it. Never did. And still got wood for early muscle, day 2. My someday car is a fairly far along 65 GTO. 389 with trips, but if I had a G for everyone who told me LS it I could pay someone to finish it for me. No thanx.

Get it?

 

Ha ha...

I'm glad I was able to fly out from the UK to attend what was the last Paso in 2007, with my old mate from the UK, who had emigrated to California 5 years earlier. Loved that show, and is still the one I look back fondly the most of all the ones I've been to in USA before and since. Ironically, my old friend now lives in Tracy

 

Hello,

Nostalgia is a wonderful thing. Everybody has their “go back to era…” The time period plays a part, but noticing some admiration status builds from the named hot rod/custom guys goes a long way. The early hot rod creations from the 60s, into the 70s showed what some hot rod builders thought of as a cool hot rod. Functional style, maintaining some resemblance to the original body styles from they factories pleased everyone.

Admiration for the “named” builders goes a long way in the home built hot rod/custom cars. But, once the 80s and 90s started, people with hot rod tendencies were influenced buy odd ball customs and styles that only appealed to those that admired and followed the trends.

Jnaki

What was once a performance and handling trend in tires/wheel combination turned into a awful style that resembled covered wagons we saw in the movies as little kids. Huge spoked wheels on skinny tires. The performance builders needed something to make handling better for the cars they were putting together for the road races and speed courses. So a 14 inch standard tire/rim was sacrificed to a larger size, 15 inch, but wider tire and lower profile status. In the performance tire speak, a “Plus one” choice.

Then as testing proved a Plus 2 (16 inch + lower profile tire in addition to the wider rim) made for even better handling. In all, it lowered the car somewhat, made the track wider and handled better, overall. (despite the stiff feeling of road bumps with the lower profile tires) The factory accessory packages from some manufacturers allow a Plus 1, Plus 2 and reaches into the Plus 3 category, as dealer applied extras.

So, since the trend caught on with other name hot rod and custom car builders for the final look, we now have modern wagon wheel size, spokes, circles, angles and what not, that makes the styling weird and not good. What good is it to criticize the “Donk Generation” with the similar style larger wheels that now show up on even huge family SUV/trucks and in the “mild” custom cars…YRMV

The best trend started in 1960 when American Racing Equipment Co. brought out the 5 spoke mag wheel for all to enjoy, first at the drags, only. Then a newer similar look 14-15 inch version for the street. That was a traditional hot rod boom that somehow has lasted into the 2000’s as pure traditional look for hot rods and mild customs.

 

Stolen from the Road Agents Rockabilly Rumble Facebook Page

From 2000

I am in the background
-

Me

 

I dont think it ever went away I had a cl***mate that drove a flat black chopped fenderless 31 model A, and a chopped 48 Chrysler Windser coup taildragger that he built to school, He had the James Dean look and was in a rockabilly band this was 1983.

 

I am not going to say no to the high ground clearance, however in all the research I have done talks about using taller wheels to rise the gear ratio, that doesn't mean that they weren't also used for ground clearance as well.

Therein lies the problem people, many of people who have come into this "scene" aren't willing to listen and learn. They don't realize that many of us young guys live, eat and breath this, it isn't a trend, or a hobby for us it's our life, but we were and are always willing to learn more!

We have studied, and become friends the real deal 40s, 50s, and 60s racers and hot rods heard their stories learned their history when we quote history it is from the people who did it. (Many of these "Old timers" would test us young guys and make us pay our dues before letting us in.) What a guys in central NY did was different they what guys on Long Island did, what they did was different from what the guys in New England did, and the west coast.

Over the last five to ten years these style cars have become popular and the people who they have become popular want to paint all hot rods with the same brush and have a "This is how it was and that's all there was to it" mentality, they are not willing to listen, or learn, and have an at***ude that the young guys don't know and are arrogant when we are sharing what we learned from the real deal guys that contradicts their preconceptions of period correct hot rodding.




My friend of over 25 year "Bud" LeRoy Hinman (Hot Rodder and Oval Track Racer 1969 Mid State Speedway track champ, 1972 Watertown speedway track champ, Central NY Stock car H.O.F. ), my father Willard and myself at the 2022 Mid-State speedway reunion and Central NY Stock car H.O.F.


Bud's Hot Rods


Bud built his first stock car in 1960



Bud even drove Super Modifieds in 1963 Note square tubing Zoomies



Bud's 1969 Mid-State Track Championship winning car, which is the 34 Ford body from his first car mounted on his super mod ch***is.


Bud in victory lane at Mid-State speedway.


Bud in victory lane at Watertown

 

People are most nostalgic about their teens and twenty's.
Yours overlapped with that period of car building.

I'm 46, was drag / street racing during late teens and 20's. Totally missed the revival-nostalgic scene of that time period.

 

I don't just view as a period of time in my life, to me it is preserving, and continuing the history/legacy of the 40s, 50's and 60s hot rodders.

As I have said have been lucky enough to know and became friends with guys like "Bud Hinman, Pat Cramer who raced the Rebel Rouser dragster which was a U.S. Nationals record holder, Harry Eckers who raced open wheel cars, Midgets, Sprints, and Big Cars pre and post war, and @nickthebandit.

These guys have shared their history with me and taught me a great deal about the history of how and what they did in period, I view it as my duty to preserve and defend their history!

Pat Cramer's Rebel Rouser

 

Tradition is just peer pressure from dead people

 

Tradition is honoring and respecting the past, and our forefathers. However, I prefer the term period correct because you can use very untraditional parts and build a car that is 100% era correct.

Twenty to twenty-five that's what it was about we didn't care about trendiness, trust me there was nothing cool or trendy about going to high school in the late 90s and early 2000s wearing cuffed jeans, engineer boots, slicked back hair, listening to Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent, The Clash, and Social Distortion, while tiring to studying early hot rodding and collect parts to build an era correct hot rod.

The cars were raw, aggressive, and pure! Today it's more about the look then the substance.
So many people have come in over the last several years who just put flat paint and whitewalls on a billet laden tech-no rod and then proclaim it as a traditional.

I am purist but that doesn't I can't respect someone want some modern part in their car, @57JoeFoMoPar is a good example he runs modern some modern parts in his cars (master cylinders), but he will be the first to say they not period correct, but he respects and knows the history of early days of customs and hot rodding and his cars still have the overall look of a traditional custom.

My build is a good example of being untraditional but being period correct, modern safety to meet the rules.

-Early Ford body and frame
- Inline G.M. 6 (261 Chev)
-Early Ford transmission
-Halibrand 10 spline (Champ) quick change

By building my car this way still I am paying respect to the past.

 

I see above that the words "scene" and "nostalgia" appear again, and the reverence to one's own time of their life. Mine is actually OT, but I'll stand firm that the spirit within was that which I learned at a very impressionable age. Summers of 64 and 65 I got to spend time at Dad's welding shop in Lincoln Park, MI. He raced circle track late models. I recall some pretty kool stuff coming in and out. The 1 day a pretty radical 65 Mustang (forgive me mods) drag car was in. Big slicks, I wanna say Cragar mags (maybe), stuff in the engine bay I didn't know much about. I was rapt, taken, "Dad can't we do something like this!" "**** them drag cars..." was always his mantra. So my scene or nostalgia gravitated to drag racing almost naturally. It was a heavy focus in his monthly hot rod mags of several ***les. I'd wait watching TV in the evenings from behind his chair when the next one arrived. I'd promise not to tear em and got to look when he was done for the night, put back where it belonged after. I combed those pages and took it all in. I'm old enough to recall green pages, early Rod n Custom, and yes also the early little book Hemmings Motor News. Being a 57 model my damn self I guess that could be why it isn't a movement to me. It probably also explains my affinity for real muscle. By the time I was road legal all the big block 4spd stuff was cast aside in the name of mileage. SIGN ME THE **** UP! But alas those days for me came later. Dear ol Dad knew what I'd do, he'd seen him do it!
And I did. Street racing, bracket racing next, and learned that the best way to make a small fortune at it was to start with a big one as told by (insert actual quote here, I fergit). I've been shameless about this before, that "we" didn't end in 1965. Not my site, and I love this joint to be sure and respect it. Still "we" got cast aside by impact bumpers, catalytic converters, disco, and more. I've always tagged getting cast aside at the same time Big Daddy Don changed drag racing forever. That was such a good thing and change is inevitable, but it put an historic mark on a calendar that made "us" less important in the name of performance and safety. We needed it but damn. As Jungle said "Drag racing is faaarr out." and much of what we love always seemed to emulate straight lines, drags or lakes. My take, or more raw thoughts...

 

For the record, I never meant to imply that hot rodders used the 18" wheels for ground clearance, I only referred to them as "high clearance" wheels since (I think) that is their proper name. There was a lot of confusion 10 or 15 years ago about what a "Divco wheel" was since they never actually came on Divco trucks.

The story I heard is that there was a surplus of some high speed tires (possibly Firestones, like the ones in your picture), and those 18" wheels were the only ones around that would take that tire and weren't wire wheels, and also had the early Ford bolt pattern. So lakes racers who had early Ford bolt pattern and wanted to utilize this surplus of 18" tires only had that one option for a solid wheel.

Even the tires in that picture aren't very large diameter, they don't look much bigger in overall diameter than the 6.00-16 (I'm guessing) on the front of the car.

I think it was less about mechanical advantage of the big diameter and more about the desire to use that specific tire on that specific bolt pattern without having to use a wire wheel that lead drivers to adopt the so-called "Divco wheel".

 

I like a little bit of everything, my family's history is in oval track racings everything from crewing on Big Cars (Indy Cars) prewar, Track officials (NASCAR) in the early 60s to the 70s, Writing/reporting, Track P.R., some driving and my father crewed and built ch***is.

I thought this was the direction I was going to be heading, but by the time I got old enough what was going on the short track level was so much different. The cost exploded; the days of a homebuilt race car were over. It was after market everything.

Yes, he and I could have built a car but when everyone else is running commercial built ch***is and can just call up the manufacture to get the newest and latest set ups and come right out of the box fast, if bent or break a part you can just go to the speed shop truck and buy a new one. Where it would have taken su serval races to get the car dialed in, these guys are putting on new tires on every week, and infinitely adjustable shocks.

It had always been a working man's sport although never cheap it was a least affordable and to have a racecar you had to be able to build a racecar.

My dad worked as a like mechanic in the local Chevrolet dealer (How he met my mom her father and older brother were body men at the same dealership) in the late 60s early 70s so he worked on the Muscle Cars during the day and stock cars at night.

He also had some interest in drag racing, when he was in school would go to Fonda on Wednesday nights for the (NASCAR) drags, (Saturday was stock cars)

So, I was exposed to a little bit of everything growing up, for me the history is as important as the cars and parts themselves.

My dad often jokes "Robert is much older than me, he remembers the things from before I was born."

When I became interested in period correct hot rodding it was a very small close-knit group of people, we would help each other out share ideas, trade and barter parts.

As it got "Trendy" the comradery when right out the window, these "invaders" care no more about traditional , period correct call it what you will hot rodding it is just one more trend for them to chase.

For me and many others this isn't just a trend it is what we do, I don't care if it's a hot rod, a custom a muscle car, a stock car I like and will build it period correct weather or not it is cool with other people.

Where these new people have come into this with no understanding or respect for where or how it started, and in five years if the magazines tell them covering a Tesla with rainbow colored adult novelties is the cool thing that's what they will be doing.

 

You might be a little extreme but I smell what you're steppin in. If these "invaders" you speak of are to carry the torch it's in***bent upon us to p*** it correctly. Til then I don't mind the increased values of things and it helps with this addicti... I mean, affliction