In Your Opinion...Where Is the Cut-Off Date???

I used to say that anything after 1970 was crap..........The 70s proved that.

The old rule was

Hot Rod...pre 49
Street Machine....post 49

 

1948

 

I'd say 1954

 

You'll never please everyone with cut off date, everybody has their own date. N.S.R.A. PRE 49 K.K.O.A. 35 - 64. Whats the difference in year between a hot rod and a street rod. My 37 has enough body mods to be called a custom. People will call them what they think they are and don't care what anyone else thinks. I'm too old to argue, I'm just going to drive my old car.

 

perfect!!!!

 

I think one could make a case for several scenarios with slight variations to what Rogue posted. I would cap the muscle car era at 1972, despite any post gas crunch big block Firebirds and such.
I simply can not understand any arguments that include the word "Classic" with a post '72 car. It's simply wrong on so many levels, and most car shows seem to agree. That is, if a car show does list a year limit, they cut it off at no later than 1972. Many are much earlier, I'm unaware of any that are later.
(Now watch everyone point out car shows with post 1972 cut-off dates....but do they call themselves "Classic?")

 

Jesus owned a Hotrod, and a Custom.

 

a real hot rod is a car that someone built the year is thier choice but to put cars in class i never got you can go to a nsra meet with a bone stock 48 chevy and thats ok but a 55 chevy gasser with a bbc and a 4 speed no why?

 

This like trying to define Class or Style and the difference them

 

Thanks for putting classic in there. Modified 49-64 cars aren't all customs, and can be hot rods. But, 65-72 cars aren't all musclecars. So I think you gotta call them eras. Pre-war and post-war eras pretty much cover this forum. Then there are the musclecar and smog eras (73-79). 1980 probably isn't old enough to be considered an era.

Check out what Wikipedia has to say at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vintage_car

I tried pasting the chart, but it doesn't come out formatted correctly.

Thanks,
Kurt

 

any year you want it to be.

 

1948, the last year Ford had bolt on rear fenders. It's been the accepted cutoff forever and there's no sense changing it. However, if you youngn's want a different date wait till you see my obituary in the paper then change it to 2000 for all I care.
BTW, the '55 Chevy hasn't been out THAT long. At least wait for some of the newness to wear off.

Frank

 

My guess....64

 

1964, after that its seems they are all just musclecars

 

FAB 32 is right, I think this is the most sensible answer, however I started reading about this thread because of the chicken pot pie... where did it go?

 

Hot rods are pre 49, fenders etc as others have said..... nothing else matters ...lol .

Rat Rods are a figment of your imagination...or somebody elses , probably the editor of a dodgey East Coast. magazine.

BTW I have been known to tell people that 30-31 Model As are late models, 32s are common as mud and 33-34s are futuristic!

 

up to 48, HOTROD
48- 66, CUSTOM
67 to now, Muscle car
If it don't fit into the traditional Muscle Car genre it is regarded as a piece of SHIT!
Wasn't the organisers of the AMBR that decided in the pre48 cut off date to keep entry numbers down??

 

Rat Rod - Any car that Jethro and Granny look good in, no fenders, and no body finish. Must be at least 80% rust. Model-A era or earlier, and has a Grapes of Wrath look.

Hot Rod - Any car that doesn't have fenders but has primer and/or paint. I think 1954 was the last year body that could be made into a hot rod, as after that they would be called a dragster.

Classic - Any car that has fenders, glossy paint, and stainless trim and costs more than $90k at auction. And it has to be at an auction.

 

i list it as around 74 when all the smog crap took over and did away with any horse power.


any car to 1934 fenderless is a hot rod
any fat fender car slammed with skirts up till 1960 is a sled
any thing 64 and later to about 74-76 is a muscle car.

 

oh god.... I actually read your post this time. I regret it.

 

Actually, a "classic" has a definition, generally high-end cars of the 20s, 30's and into the 40's, 1948 is I think the newest. Just like the NSRA definition of a Street Rod is 1948-older. I think the 1935-up definition on customs is because that's about the earliest cars you saw customized by guys - much before that and you had customs, but they had complete coachwork bodies, as opposed to cars with altered factory styling.

As for a cutoff date, it all most likely depends on your age. Some guys think 50's and 60's cars are too new. I like most anything 1976-older. Why 1976? 1977 is the year GM downsized most everything and did away with the 455 engines. It's the last year of the big 5000-lb Chryslers, too. Some of these cars aren't that remarkable, but they can still command a little respect.

As for what to call them, I don't care about labels - I just like what I like.


Hey Seymour, whatever happened to getting this '49 Ford ragtop, anyways??

 

To me, there's no particular cutoff date to call something a hotrod. But basically to me, it would have to be around '72, because that's when most manufacturers started to make ugly cars. That's when they started with 5 mph bumpers (big boxy square ugly bumpers with rubber pads and the bumpers stick out about 6" in front of the car with jacked up ugly lumpy flexible plastic filling the gap). And it's when they started putting on side markers, ugly plastic dashboards, ugly interiors, ugly sharp cornered body styles that look like a brick, cheap ass painted plastic grills, crummy vinyl side moldings, windshield wipers hidden in a huge gap between the hood and the windshield, and cheap looking glued on vinyl "landau tops". That's also when they killed the compression ratios so cars could run on junky low octane unleaded gas. Then they started adding on tons of "afterthought" badly designed smog controls that just killed performance and put horsepower ratings in the toilet.

When I was teenager, cars like a hopped up '67 Camaro SS with a 396 or a '69 Pontiac GTO "Judge" with a 455 and super loud exhaust was considered a "hot rod". I mean that's the kind of thing you usually saw on the cover of "Hot Rod" magazine in the '60s and '70s. I guess a lot of magazine writers used to call them "Muscle Cars" back then, but I don't ever remember anyone watching a guy do a burnout and saying "oooh... cool muscle car". But I guess nowadays they consider those "Muscle Cars". To me the term "Hot Rod" kind of implies that the car's been "rodded" -- bigger engine, headers, loud exhaust, fat tires in the back, bigger/more carbs, a radical cam etc. Some car doesn't get to be a called a "hot rod" just because it was made in some certain range of years. A bone stock '32 Ford isn't a hot rod.

To me then, a "hot rod" is anything pre-~72 that's been souped up to go fast. It should be loud and obnoxious and it should scare the hell out of your passengers when you stomp on the gas.

I think you can have Customs in any year up to about the mid '60s. Like a '64 Riviera makes a pretty sharp looking Custom. I've seen customs attempted on a few early '70s cars, but it's tough to make one of those big sharp cornered bricks look too nice. Customs are all about looking cool. They're like rolling pieces of art or sculpture and not so much about going fast. But to me they should sound cool too with glass packs or straight pipes and a good rumble.

I like 'em both. Rods and Customs.

 

To me Pre WWII cars are antiques, Pre 1915 are TRUE Antiques. The true Hot Rods were pre 1943 cars modified before 1965.

 

My 2 cents up to:

Hot Rod: 1934
Street rod: 1948
custom, kustom, Gasser: 1964
muscle car: 1974

 

On February 23 1972 the last cool American product was introduced......... me.

 

naaah they had rear fenders on their stepsides until like what? even up to now

 

In my humble opinion I think a hot rod is anything 1934 and older. I think a hot rod is a car that looks as good if not better with the fenders, aprons, running boards, and hood removed. Anything newer than 1934 looks incomplete if there's no fenders etc. As far as a classic, I'd have to say late 50's probably 1957.

 

Actually my daily is an 86 ford stepside, the last year with a wood bed floor, single panel stamped tailgate, tailgate chains, and bolt on rear fenders. So that settles it, 1986 it is! LOL

 

Now this is just my .02. I think the things most of the folks on this board truely appreciate ended around the time of the Rear Engine Dragster. Think about it for just a bit. What does almost EVERY hot rod have in common? DRAG RACING. How many Nascar looking hot rods have we seen beyond the occaisional "tribute" car? Then there was that fucked up era of IMSA cars with goofy 'glass (is this right 'rash?) body kits. All of em, right through 1971, emulate drag cars in style and performance, as well as desire. This completely excludes kustoms. They come from an era all to themselves that blessed us with our current icons of talent and style. Some things just end and thanks for that, huh? Those IMSA Vettes were disgusting.

When the Front Engine Dragster got sidelined, things changed pretty fast. I too hate the term "rat rod" and have met many people that think anything in primer is such. They don't, and never will, "get it".

Many of the traditional practices hung around for quite some time and it's a natural progression for things to come back, I.E., flatheads, early hemis, early OHV motors. To many it's the current vouge to have an old hot rod. To many others it's always been a way of life. Where it ends is as simple as what you like. Board subject aside, it always goes farther than indicated. Change is good at times, like the R.E.D., and it saved lives. It also put a period on the end of a time when it took massive drive and determination to go drag racing, as well as nerves of steel. No wonder most hot rods emulate such things. Again, this is just my .02.

 

Actually, getting technical...anything up to 1934 (that was stripped down and hopped up) was a "hot rod"...from the 1920's thru the beginning of WW2 (remember such things called "speedsters"?). After WW2, kustoms became prevalent on the scene...and "hot rodding" became "dry lakes" and the year lines blurred...kustoms were the rounder body styles of the late '30's and '40's...in 1949, a "new body style" emerged...no bolt on rear fenders...and the first production OHV V8 appeared (Cadillac)...

In 1970, NSRA determined that "street rods" or "hot rods" were anything up to and including 1948...and still retain those years today...anything else after was a street machine...however...by virtue of horsepower, in 1958, Chevrolet introduced the FIRST of the "factory muscle cars" by bringing out a 348" engine...and the legendary 409" followed later...and to backtrak a bit, Chevrolet also introduced a fuel injection engine...and a 4-speed into production cars, available to the public in 1957 ! In 1962...Chevrolet introduced the 327" engine...so technically, the muscle car ERA started in 1958...and ended (for all intents and purposes) in 1969...

So to modify johnnykck's list a bit:
Pre 1948 is Hot rod/Street Rod
1949 to 1964 is Classic/Custom
1958 to 1969 is Muscle car
1970 and beyond is late model (there are exceptions to this rule but they do not fall into convenient categories)

R-