How about an early Billet appreciation thread...

I don’t have anything to add, but heck ya. I love the early 3 piece wheels and one off valve covers and dash inserts. Before they were mass produced.

 

Lil John's "strong arm milling machine".

Gary

 

I'm sorry, but for some reason, I can see @Moriarity just cringing at this.

 

This pic doesn't really show the billet goodness of this car, but my dad owned this in the mid 90s. Built by Boyd and Lil John in the early 80s, it had valve covers milled from a solid chunk. Billet dash insert as well. I'll hafta dig for those pics.

 

Damn that's cool Dan!

 

Dad wanted to "update" it so when he had it, so he polished the wheels and put big stock 32 headlights on it. Always thought it was a mistake.

Chris Coddington sent me the build pics of the chassis when I asked him about the car.

He let me use it in my High School's homecoming parade!

 

And he’s not alone.

 

This is the off topic forum you don’t have to click on it. I dig it because this is the era I grew up in.

 

Honestly I'm right there next to him lol

 

Me too, didnt like it in the 90s, dont like it now.

 

Don’t avoid the Boyd.

 

I completely agree, a good life balance includes some cringe time.

 

It is also the timeframe that I somewhat grew up in, but I am still trying to forget it... The only good I can say about cars built during this time is that they can sometimes be bought cheap and turned into something cool. But, I know this is all a matter of opinion just like everything.

 

Hell yes! I love this stuff. I'll see if I can dig any pictures up of the 'chrome shop coupe' Its been a favorite of that era for me, so much so, I started building a model of it, complete with carved styrene front nose panels.

 

My post was made in jest, yes I realize this is the off topic forum, I said nothing derogatory toward billet or the billet era.
I was very young but I remember this era, I am not a fan but that doesn’t mean I don’t have respect for the craftsmanship.

By the way at lest one East Coast car had billet headlight/dash knobs in the 1950, made by the owner on his lathe!
@nickthebandit could give more insight.

 

Although I dont like the style, I do like this thread. Its a part of hotrod history, and kinda fun to look at. Its like parachute pants and teased hair.

 

The Dennis Varni Roadster and my conversation with him is the only thing I remember about the 2015 Roundup. Drove that sucker from SF, with a bunch of other cool roadsters.

 

I gotchu fam.

 

Lil John Deuce

 

I could really do without the sunroof on that one.

 

Oh man. Yes thank you!

 

While the styling on some of them is lacking, you can’t argue with the workmanship on most of them. The fit and finish always amazed me. In a way, it was like making a custom from a hot rod body, everything that wasn’t smooth was shaved off or leveled out. The attention to detail was off the wall, hours spent whittling down a chunk of aluminum for a bracket, unreal. Much more patience than I got.

 

Contrary to what some will claim, machining did happen in the '50s, as did fabrication.Some on here have the idea that "traditional hot rodding" is reassembling stock early Ford parts in different ways, and nothing more. I don't think early hot rodders gave a damn about that; they were always wishing they had greater technological capabilities than whatever they had, aspiring, figuring out ways to work around. "Billet" was what you did when you were technologically ambitious and didn't have a foundry. Nobody said, "Can't do that, because then it wouldn't be hot rodding any more."

Even as a look, machining wasn't unprecedented. I think of engine-turned firewalls and dashboards, entire Bugatti engines, Voisin's "cocotte" radiator mascot. But somewhere in the '80s somebody gave it the name "billet" and turned it into a thing, and soon people were looking for excuses to make machined parts in place of whatever they'd been using before, just to have stuff that qualifies as "billet". There's a parallel to modernist architecture in what happened there; those infamous superfluous I-sections on the facade of the Seagram building, when "functionalness" became a kind of ornament. I think it's when "billetiness" became decoration that the whole thing fell apart.

I'm not one to see a machined alloy part and go, "Ha! Billet! Bad!" But I was never a fan of going to town with the ball-milling, and machined flames always seemed pointless (if you'll excuse the pun) — especially on steering wheels. And that had already been well established by the time diecast stuff with a "machined" look began to appear.

Billet needs to give me an argument as to why it was necessary, or better, to machine the part instead of making it in some other way. I need to see that; it has to make sense.

 

Larry Murray 1985 AMBR. Not my favorite, but dad worked for Larry at his concrete business as a fabricator for a while. I think the squared off top bugs me. Should perhaps lean forward.

Also in the same vain, another Boyd built phaeton for Bob Kolmos