hudson 41 coupe, sled or gasser

And Hot Rod is not a "theme"!

I would built is as a nice mild custom... nice lowering job, bit more in the rear, some chrome removal, perhaps some different bumpers. Nice paint.. then drive it for a few years. Then possibly chop it.... but I guess that would be a Theme as well!

 

Well, it wasnt when I started using it when I was a kid, It meant a car that was modified for increased performance by the owner, hence the ***le of Hot Rod magazine. Remember, back in the day, when they used to cover drag racing, customs, rods, Pikes Peak, ect? Before it all became so fragmented, and we had all these "niche" magazines, and guys were just into cars? No, probably not. I guess it probably is a "theme" now. Sorry, I guess I am kinda out of touch. See, I am building a Chevy II, its not an L-79, so its not a muscle car, its not flaked with bags, astro supremes and 1" whitewalls, and it doesnt have a straight-axle from speedway with ET 10 spokes and a moon tank zip-tied to the grill. I know, I am HOPELESSY out of touch. Anybody wanna fill me in on what hot rod now means, as opposed to what it used to mean? Just so I know.

 

I kind of like that "g***er" wagon.

 

sled

 

Since the majority wants a sled, I'd say go g***er! It'll get way more attention if it pisses people off!

 

I say hotrod!

 

There are so many ways a guy could do this car without ever limiting himself to g***er or tail-dragger sled. I could see nose down, early cad or olds motor, wide whites,Fiesta caps or Lancers, candy red with white T&R, red piping. Or late sixties feel BB Chevy or 440 sixpack mopar, TTO's, redlines, silver with a red interior. Moon discs with a hudson hornet motor, chop, and lots of lightening holes, to outline 3 right off the top of my head, all drastically different form each other, all hot rods, none of them g***er or lead sled. Or how about heavy rake, 2x4 401 nailhead, black with flames, scavenger pipes and chrome reverses...on & on, just let the imagination flow. G***er or lead sled, how limiting and how predictable. But then you wouldnt wanna do anything different, that would be risky, might stand out from the other sheep rodders.

 

My vote for taildragger

 

taildragger for sure

 

I wish this whole g***er **** would just go away. It's childish and has no basis in reality, kinda like what falcongeorge is sayin. Now I freely admit it's my opinion and I just don't like it as a build idea for anything from the inherited 4dr Biscayne to now this lovely 41 Hudson. Early 40s cpes beg to be kustoms of some kind. "Taildrgger" just seems to be a novice way to describe it. I'd take a cue from several low n slow 40s cpes that are right here under your fingers. A kustom need not be slow ya know. While any source of HP would be fine, even a later Hudson Twin H would do. But ya got the Chev so I say have at it like many early rodders did. Rikster did ya proud. Good ideas there. Can it be done? I always admired the vision applied to that kandy red Mopar cpe from out west. That Hudson is almost there on it's own.

 

the only points makes me scared about the sled solution, is the big height of the hood ,and the grille shell, the hood need to be sectionned or pancaked in lower end side ,but ,for me ,it's not the easiest things to do ,the grille shell need to be changed ,and my idea is to fit a 46-48 oldsmobile grille (hard find)........!

 

Sled is my vote! Nice car to start with. I in vision a kick *** Custom, but really matters here is WHAT DO YOU WANT?

 

Definitely an Art Deco Mild Custom Sled..... Traditional based.

Awesome car!

HC.

 

How about a "Sleeper Sled"? That speed equipment wouldn't stay dusty, the lines and flow and vibe would be all low and smooth, but that thing would be ready for warp drive at all times...

 

Vonstripper,
I asked the very same question as yours some month ago witch route to go with my ’47 Olds, sled or g***er. I really like both style. Well the majority of the answers where “go for sled”. “The Olds is too big for g***er” etc. and I buy their argument and start building it in a sled/taildragger style. I think your Hudson is a great candidate for a sled.


As it was when I got it home.

 

Maybe an early '40s musclecar, with Twin-H intake, 7X cam, overdrive transmission, a slightly raised and level stance, blackwall tires and small hubcaps.
I'm astonished at how solid that car is. Very best of luck with it, whatever you decide.

 

And yet I still like the Agent Orange car, too!

 

Don't think you could go wrong either way but i'm down for a sled.

 

Build a kustom,girls love them!

 

Just not true.

 

Sure it is. I'm being very honest with my opinion on the idea. I've looked at drag cars for decades. Mile-high unstable suspensions in a car that tops 120...yeah right. What some percieve as such is just not true.

 

You know, the real irony is, I actually LIKE (liked?) straight axle street cars, when they are done with a little taste and restraint, But so much of the stuff that is being built now is ugly, tasteless, garish, over-the-top, non-functional in the extreme, not even REMOTELY "period", basically hot wheels for grown-ups. They are running the same course as Pro-Street did. At first, it was pretty cool, a few guys actually building some very nice, and functional cars. Lisks Challenger, Kollofski's '55.Then it became a fad, and the over-the-top circus wagons started to appear. The "g***er" movement has followed the same pattern. on the "g***er" side, Fators Chevy, and others were REALLY nice, and looked like the street cars I saw in the early seventies. Then everyone jumped on the bandwagon, and the gawd-awful **** started appearing.
As Ryan mentioned on the thread of the young machinist with the chopped T, the key word is restraint, and its a quality that is sorely lacking in all aspects of the hobby, but really GLARING in the "g***er" side of things. But hey, we are just a bunch of stupid old "haters", we dont "get it". Two or three years from now there are gonna be partially finished, badly built straight axle cars for sale all over the place, just like there were all kinds of tubbed project cars for sale in the nineties.

 

Sled!!!!!!

 

The fact is there were gas cl***es and quite a lot of the cars had the nose high to try to get traction in the rear. Just because you think it's overdone now doesn't mean that it isn't based on reality.

 

I agree that it is based in reality, I was there. I'm talking about all the cars that are nonfunctioning, unsafe, over the top cartoonish pieces of ****ola....which by the way is way over the 50 percentile. You could in theory make any any vehicle you want into a g***er, it still won't float my boat.

 

Why don't the people that don't like "g***ers" start a thread and/or social group called "I hate g***ers!"? Frankly, I'd like to see all of these g***ers that are sprouting up all over the place.

The difference between Pro Street and g***ers is the style. Pro Street looks dated to the 80s and 90s, whereas g***ers look dated to ... the 60s and 70s.

But, for the record, I think the Hudson would be better as something beside a g***er.

Edit: Here it is. I wonder if it'll get closed.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?p=5861786

Edditional: Ha ha, closed in less than two minutes.

Even more: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/group.php?groupid=589

 

I actually LOVE g***ers (note, no quotation marks), and I even love SOME solid front axle street cars. And I will bet that the majority of guys that are so DISGUSTED with where the faux "g***er" thing is headed feel the same way. Probably, alot them have been g***er fans a lot longer than most of the guys who are building these flavour of the week abortions that are so popular now, and are such an embarr***ment. Its just that those of us that are "haters" know the difference between a g***er, and the non-functional, over the top, circus wagons that are so popular right now. The guys that dont get this wouldn't know a g***er if it ran over them, thats the problem. Not only that, they are self-rightous in their ignorance, and are actually dead set against learning anything about g***ers, as the facts and reality interfere with the popular "interpretation" of what cons***utes a g***er.
They want to build cars with the springs on top of the rear axle, non-functional moon tanks bolted to the grill, faux spindle-mount ten spoke wheels, ridiculous ride hieghts, wide whitewall pie-crusts on ansen wheels with tunnel-rams, faux plastic injector stacks, and they not only expect to be taken seriously, they expect to shout down, or dismiss as "haters" anyone who dares to mention that this has NOTHING to do with g***ers.
There are even a couple guys on here that OWN solid front axle, or "g***er" style cars that can see the situation as it is, realize that the whole "g***er" thing has ruined its credibility, and is rapidly heading towards rat rod status, and have been trying to get these guys to stop calling these cars "g***ers" and start calling them street freaks,(Meatball and Groucho, take a bow) and I for one, am 100% behind what they are trying to do, and I commend them for it. Unfortunately the majority of "g***er" guys are hostile to their efforts.
Most likely, this thread is well on its way to being locked, and thats a shame, because this is a discussion that NEEDS to happen. There are a LOT of guys on here, a LOT, that know what a g***er is, and are really sick of the name being mis-used the way it is.

 

fix it up and drop it, thats it! i vote SLED!

 

Anyway, good luck with whichever direction you decide to go with your Hudson. I am looking forward to your build.

 

No, the difference between Pro-Street and the current "g***er" movement is that Pro-Street was flavour of the week in the early eighties, the "g***er" movement is flavour of the week today. The majority of the current "g***ers" do NOT look like sixties cars to anyone who knows and remembers what those cars look like, they look like they have been built in the last ten years. I was there, you did NOT see cars with Edelbrock tunnel rams, ansen sprints and wide whitewall pie-crusts in the sixties, because by the time Ansen sprints and cast tunnel-rams came on the scene, wide whites had been dead for years.
Guys did NOT run Fenton Gyros on the front of sky high willys g***ers, Gyros came out in '69, and Ohio Georges Mustang, Maz's Football, the Goldfinger Anglia, and dozens of other cars had reversed the sky high trend three or four years earlier. This was driven primarily by the introduction of Goodyear wrinkle-wall tires, starting on the fuel cars in late '64, and slowly spreading to the other cl***es over the next couple years
Bolt-on faux spindle-mount ET ten spokes didnt exist in the sixties, they are a recent arrival, you do NOT see them on g***ers from the sixties.
G***ers were RACE CARS, and as such, they were not built with the axles mounted underneath the rear springs, as this is completely non-functional and results in parts breakage if the car has any power and hooks.
You actually seem to be sincere, just unfamiliar with your drag racing history, and I am NOT trying to be a smart-*** here. Go back, and study the history of the gas cl***es, as I have said before on here, get Don Montgomerys g***er book, read the info on the g***er madness website, and it will start to become clear to you just what it is that bugs some of us so much about the current g***er movement.