Hot Rods is building a tradHOT ROD or CUSTOM easier or harder now,compared to the 40's,50's???

..i was working in the garage tonight ....

it got me to thinking ,,is building a TRADITIONAL styled HOT ROD or CUSTOM easier now or harder compaired
to the old days (40's,50's,into the early 60's)




what are your thoughts on this?

 

as far as finding parts, no... not even close, although it wasnt necessarily cheap back then either

but because of the internet... its easier than it should be..

we should still be hittin junkyards and swap meets..

 

I'd say harder to find the parts. Easier to put them together.

 

i wanna add to my statement..

getting the knowledge is MUCH easier now i think

 

Dunno wasn't there. But my dad was getting into cars in the late 50s..........he admits many of them were "car poor" to fuel their passion. When he got a Factory Olds ride in 70 was like hitting the Lottery. Free Pickup from a sponsor, free trailor, budget, and an F85 ordered to spec, just cross out windshield wipers and add HP (Mash reference)

 

I would say to build a hot rod today is easier. If you want to be REALLY true to that period, 40's, 50's and early 60's, using original parts from back then, harder.

Bill

 

good point! i should have said that in my original post!

i will edit it!

 

I would guess it's the same, not harder or easier, but different.

Less old cars to scrounge from, more parts on the internet, yet more people buying them.
Harder to gather a group of friends to help pull an engine, yet easier with better tools, hydraulics, etc....
Harder to paint your own car at home, yet easier to buy an affordable MIG or TIG welder.
Harder at my age (43) to get filthy greasy with a couple of friends after work with a beer, but easier to surf the HAMB in my underwear with a coffee.

 

I think it's easier...

Overall it's easy to slap one together....because it's so formulaic. People know what parts they need to build a car. If you want to know how to modify a certain part chances are there's a readily accessible magazine article or a thread on the internet on how to do it. In the '40's, someone was the first to adapt hydraulic brakes to a Model A spindle. Someone was the first to figure out how to put '56 Olds headlights on a shoebox. Now all you have to do is follow directions to get it done....you don't have to be original to build a hot rod or custom. You can build a traditional '32 Ford from all brand new parts off the shelf, might as well be a kit car.

Everything that used to be really really hard to find or expensive is still hard to find, but there's usually reproductions if you want them. E&J's, Desoto grills, intakes of all kinds, Strombergs, etc. Ebay makes some of it easier to get a hold of too if you can afford to pay.

Edit: Yeah, if you want real original parts, I don't think harder (ebay, internet, etc.) but a lot more expensive.

It's harder to do something and get noticed for it....but not hard to just get done.

 

It's probably easier to find (find, not afford!) the vintage parts needed to build one today...but it's probably harder to actually BUILD the car today...since back in the 50s there was no internet full of 'experts' to tell you what you're doing 'wrong'!!

 

Tools have gotten better, alot more info available via publications and of course the internet and the HAMB. Google provides info in milliseconds. Seems like, in my case, it takes longer than it used to take my Dad and my uncles...it seems like they would finish one of their cars over the winter and be ready for Spring with their a new rod...life is more busy now and I know in my case it takes alot of my shop time with it...so I guess it's easier and harder...the internet has sure made it easier in the last ten years to find those hard to get parts (though the prices seem inflated)

 

I was not there in the 50's but was in the mid 60's on. It was easier then and more affordable, I paid $50.00 for my 39 and sold the 16 tires for $40.00 and the flat head for $25.00 so I started $15.00 ahead. In those days you did your own thing and no-one told you your wheels were the wrong color ,or you must do this or that, as per a specific formula like cars are built today.

 

To customize a 50's car in the 50's meant starting with an almost new car, so that part would make things easier. You wouldn't have to restore it first, then cut it all back apart.

But the wealth of knowledge availible now has it's advantages. Not to mention a wealth of reproduction parts and kits to do whatever you want which weren't availible at the time.

The cars we love now were more plentiful, as were junkyard pickin's. But the technology of tools we have now makes things easier. Imagine welding quarters on with a gas torch or a stick welder.

I don't know for sure since I wasn't there, but I'm going to say the difficulty was the same, but for different reasons.

 

Ill say it was simply less expensive due to the availability of parts. The knowledge and how to is more available, but the parts are not. sure you can find stuff, but is it as easy to find and affordable as, lets say, fender flares for a 92 blazer? (first thing that came up on Craigslist)

 

Today- you know what you are looking for.
Back then- you installed what you could find & had no idea it would be the holy grail of today.
JMO

 

Way harder today!!!!!!!!!!

 

I was born in the 50's so I wasn't there. But my dad was and he was part of that scene being from Glendale, the birth place of the speed industry. I also am lucky enough to have a friend or three that were very involved in the 50's in the San Gabriel Valley area of LA. We have talked about this and here is my interpretation of their take:
Much easier back then - raw material was available in the way of old cars (that weren't that old). Speed parts were everywhere for the stuff they were building - remember the speed industry was new then, so it was just like what many here like to bitch about with store bought or 1-800 parts (only there weren't any 800 numbers). It wasn't cheap but you didn't have to go hunting for Evans Heads or a Navarro manifold or 97's that weren't junk.

There also weren't all the so called "experts" like today and while they did the absolute best they could (and these dudes I'm talking about had magazine featured Hot Rods) the standards for the cars were in some ways lower, especially when you take into account door gaps and that kind of thing that so many get bent out of shape over today - although these guys also shake there heads at the crap rods that are somewhat common. And there wasn't all this "wrong year or style parts", all the stuff was current.

I don't think the knowledge for these guys was hard to come by as there was a real "community" of rodders that shared and worked together on cars - at least here in So Cal. But I will agree that part is a lot easier now for a guy in Po Dunk where he is the only rodder for miles thanks to 50 years of magazines and places on the net like the HAMB.

I also think that because rodding was pretty new back then and there weren't that many cars on the road, they didn't try so hard to be different which is what has led to a lot of the goofy stuff we see today. Like one of them said "We wouldn't run E&J's on a serious hot rod back then and won't do it now either, Hell we didn't like the big commercial headlights either - looks out of proportion and just trying to slow the car down". Form what they tell me there was a lot of cookie cutter type stuff.

And so you know, these guys are still into Hot Rods into their 60's and 70's. One has a 40 pickup with a flattie that's a mildly rodded parts truck as well as a cad powered RPU and an AV8 roadster with SBC that runs solid low 10's and he recently sold a pretty famous roadster. Has 2 or 3 other "Get to it" cars too. Another has a car that many of you know and drool over as it's been discussed here many times, and yet another has a Lobeck built 32 as well as a restored gas light era huge sedan.

So if you are talking an absolutely correct 40's-50's cars I think it was easier then, but if you are building a Street Rod or a car that takes some liberty's then it's easier today.
JMHO

Oh yeah, I'm only talking Hot Rod cuz I don't really know shit about Customs

 

It was harder when I was 15 years old because I didn't know anybody or where to get stuff.Now 45+ years later its a lot easier because I've done it before and know where and who has the parts I need.If I were still 15 years old it would be just as hard today as it was then , except I went to wrecking yards not eBay to buy my parts.The time spent looking and traveling to get parts was greater than ordering today with UPS delivery to my door.So the answer is?............

 

Obviously I wasn't there being that I am only 27 years old, but I would say it was easier then. I think Steve here hit it on the head. They just did what they could and what you thought looked cool right. So they were shaping what we try to go back to today. Even though it may be easier overall now due to technological advances in different areas we have the pressure of trying to make our cars look like what they created back then.

 

i say harder the one im doing is real hard . billy

 

all they had to do back then is cut the fenders of with a chisel, and ad tractor lights..... = hot rod

 

that's a little easier than building one good car out of 5 rotten ones, like I'm doing.

 

Exactly..... try and recreate a period correct traditional hot rod, not ordering one thing from a catalog.

IT'S HARD !!!!

I've been walking swap meets for years looking for the rarest parts that make the car completely correct, this is just factor that makes it harder today.

The expense may be the same, but by the 40's parts coul dbe ordered or bought locally, there were no rare speed parts to be hunted down.

 

TODAY! Just look at the tools the adverage guy has in his garage. Look at all the real old stuff that was Hot rodded in the day, they used nail sets or punches because they didn't have drill motors. Ever look at the welding on an old build?

 

What's easier to go out and buy in town....... 5 brand new airflow sensors for a 2006 Ford Truck or (5) 1952 Hydromatic transmissions?

Parts were a block away in every single town then for these cars, now you just about have to have the internet to source the less than 20 being advertised across the country at the moment you are looking.

ANY time period correct car in it's time period is easier to build.

As far as customs...... Last I checked it still takes an english wheel to make a nice curve in metal, we still use cutting torches and welders to do most of the work, and wrenches still turn left and right. Tools work the same today as they did then. They just had a million more options for parts within a block of them.

 

Easier and cheaper back then. For hot rods anyway.
1) You could buy the basic car for a week's pay.... cant do that now.
2) V8 Ford parts were lying all over, you could hardly give them away.
3) There were no rules, no tradition, to confine the builder.
4) There were no internet critics to tell you that using angle iron for a crossmember was'nt a good idea. If you study pics of rods from the 50s, you'll see a lot of what today is regarded as pretty shoddy workmanship.
By the 60s things had changed a lot. Workmanship started to become an issue, rods started having a lot of money invested in them.

 

Aside from the obvious stuff being easier now, one thing I know to be true, is back when we had manufacturing in this country there were good fabricators and machine shops on every corner. Thats how guys were able to build front drive midgets in the thirties, just for one example. These places have been fading away ,and seem to now be replaced with specialists, who can do astounding things, as long as you want to spend the money. That being said, would have to say things were easier, or at least better ,for the average guy years ago, if you were trying to build something unique,you had some pretty cool resourses around.

 

Depends.

I bought my first car, a '56 Chevy in running condition, but needing brakes & tires, for $15.00 in 1962 when I was 16 and making $1.25 slinging tires & mopping floors after school at an auto parts store. I could go to any one of a half dozen junk yards (yep, they were ALL "junk yards" back then) and walk thru and pick my parts as needed for not too much money. In those respects it was easier.

It was harder back then because I had very little in the way of tools, place to work or knowledge. Today, if I have a question, I pop on HAMB and get an answer in about 15 seconds. When I was a kid there were lots of different hot rods around, some really crappy, some better and very few of "little book" quality.

Better? Worse? I guess it all depends...........

 

Easier today, because back in the 50's, I was just a stain on my dad's sheets.