Is the HAMB the place for muscle cars, VWs and Toyotas?

My thoughts exactly.

I've said this before and it bears repeating, but it seems like there are a lot of guys here tailoring the definition of traditional hot-rodding to fit their own biased agendas. A lot of guys like to believe that they're on the cutting edge, but for the most part they're just a bunch of fags trying to be cool.

Me personally? I'm pretty much OK with whatever anyone wants to post about anything car related. Since I have no financial investment here, I don't feel like it's my place to say "you / your car doesn't belong here". I think that's the moderator's job.

 

When I was growing up in the '60s,Hotrods and customs were everywhere.I lived in Bell,Ca.Home of Bell Auto Parts.My best friends dad worked there,then at Craegar,and finally for Centerline.We used to go with him to the drags and hand out Craegar stuff.I knew Linda Vaugn,Shirly Muldowny and many others.I was a kid.Now that i'm in my 40's,I can enjoy this stuff with my two sons.I'm a Kustom FANATIC! I grew up with the Roths,so this Ratrod thing goin on is like being a kid again.I don't "Bad mouth" other guys interests.Maybe that's all they can afford.My first car was a '67 Bug.My favorite car...no.Just my first.Now I own my favorite car,Chopped Merc.HAMB is the closest thing most guys can get to living next door to Ed Roth,or Don Garlits,or any old hotrodder.It's about passing the torch as I see it.We never really own a car anyways,we just enjoy it until our son or neighborhood kid gets it,right!HAMB ON!,while you still can.

 

Another thing.After the Sideshow,Queen Mary weekend,do you ever wonder if those guys with tattos everywhere will wake up one day,about 60 or 70 and say "what the F**k was I thinking!I look like an old Armenian rug".Sorry,just popped in my head.

 

Yeah, second that. I grew up in the SGV in the 60's and for my 0.2 I'll say that there were, in those days two kinds of rodders, the "greaser" types that were pretty much on the fringes of everything and the slide rule totin', fashion eschewing, experimentalists like Isky, Keith Black and my godfather Tony Capanna.

Each group made an indelible impact on the "scene" in those days in dramatically different ways but both groups made it what it is. The "greasers" more for their contribution to popular culture, styling and media and the guys like Black, Capanna and Isky for the advances in pure technology.

For what its worth, neither group would be caught dead in some of the clusterfuck rust buckets I see in magazines today.

 

My lesson learned reading though all the answers to my question: When you have 15,000 people, you can't make them all happy, as people are different.

Instead, we just operate by the rules of Ryan and the moderators. That is an easy answer, and makes things much easier to comprehend.

Do you think it would be cool to have a separate section dedicated to OT threads to keep clear separation? I'd read through it when i had the time and was in the mood, and it would keep clearer lines between what is the HAMB and what is chit chat.

Thanks,

-scott

 

muscle cars are fuckin LAME!!! haahaha

for real ,,they are,,seriously,,,...i just did this one recently to
re-sell...hhahaha

 

Miller|offypower.......... opinions are like assholes, everbody has one!

"For what its worth, neither group would be caught dead in some of the clusterfuck rust buckets I see in magazines today."


A lot of the cars being built today are trying hard to emulate what might be found in a barn. The young group is tattooed, and steps to their own beat. It wasnt like that back in the 50's , but at least they are building some interesting cars and keeping somewhat faithfull to the Tradition.Id much rather see what the young crowd is doing than watch a parade of "Boydsters" or "gold chainers" with there 'dont touch" trailered high buck , never driven, " i have it you dont " creations.

Hell my first 'rustbucket " i only paid 45 bucks for, course in 1957 that was a fortune........LOL

 

damn skippy.i think you are the only one who hit it on the head. thanks.

 

Well, I have lurked for some time, and only officially registered a few months back....so WTF do I know ??
Maybe we should all buy a babbitt pot so we can pour our own main & rod bearings.....a brake riveter and grinder to reshoe our DRUM BRAKES with organic linings ( and remember....only single pot master cyllinders !!) Oxy-acetylene only may be used for any welding required,and all bodywork must metalfinished, or be done with lead, cuzz bondo is just too new a technology to be trusted.....and then we will prime it with nitrocellulose laquer primer, followed with a hand rubbed laquer paintjob........
Do you see where this is going ?????
The whole idea is that the car should have a traditional appearance, but why would you punish yourself babbiting bearings, riveting organic shoes ,etc. when plain bearings will outlast them, metallic pads will outstop them........building a car that can be driven, reliably, safely, and OFTEN is the goal......so if a guy decides to drop a Toyota Hemi in his ride and drive it EVERY DAY, he gets my respect over another car with a banger that sees the light of day a half dozen times a year. ( but the banger is still BITCHEN !!

Every Thread has a subject line..,..if the subject line doesn't float your boat.....there are other threads just below !!

And now, I must find my asbestos coveralls !

James
(a well preserved 1961 Model)

 

Exactly. If you don't like the O/T post, don't read it, don't reply to it. it will drop off the page faster if you don't reply with "I don't like your O/T post."

 

i wish we could all see-saw on rainbows ,pet unicorns,and eat off gingerbread houses,,,wouldnt that be great!

 

very well put

 

the bigest problem is people want to bend the rules and ignore them .OT's should be to a min.esp about car types that dont fit this board?

oh ya the answer to scotts question, HELL NO!!!!!!!!

 

No one posting here has the answer as to what is correct or traditional. We all have opinions. Back in the day there were cars that we liked and cars that we thought were junk. Nothing has changed. Having said that, I continue to come here for the input from people all over the world that love old cars and I enjoy most of it and try to ignore the rest.
I want to thank those who bring honest input and sharing of information that we all can use, not just tech stuff, but experiences from over the years.

 

You mean we don't have to open every single post?

Wow, I'll get my life back.

 

Wow! I want the 30 minutes that I just spent reading this thread BACK! I would feel smarter had I read a thread on something traditional!

 

OK,Guys[and gals ]......
I was just gonna ignore this post,but hows this for a dose of reality?
We all should look closely at our OWN projects [and our cars] and grade them on their traditionalism or lack thereof........
I ,myself personally have NO trad cars I guess.......

I and a lot of others here, are long time hotrodders.
That in itself is a good reason for being here.

If we shut out all innovation we are not traditional hotrodders.

THEREFORE...... we just cannot say that a flathead motor IS and nothing else CAN be a hot rod mill.

I believe that if the hotrodders of "the day" would of had more choices there would have been ~more~ engine SWAPS in their cars than there were[and most early mags show lots O engine SWAPS]....
Therefore they were in fact admitting that the flathead was at the bottom of the list even THEN.... "in the day".

Nowadays we are often told that a chevy small block is not traditional [in a lot of folks minds].... well .....
They were the replacement for a many a flathead in the fifties and sixties -so I beg to differ there....

As to chassis-
I see a lot of things here that are only as trad as the nearest catalog allows .......I think that an early Ford I beam is a thing of beauty- but I will be honest with you all.
[I am personally damn near the very LAST]..... I beam and drum brake car I will ever build for myself to drive.....they are -"in their prime"- a piss poor setup to place in use in modern traffic situations.
I realize this board is dedicated to that principal but to say that it is that or nothing is maybe a little unrealistic.

Another subject that may not be worth mentioning is the fact that a good segment of the "traditional" rodders are very little more than restorers in disguise.....I mean a 32-or 34 Ford is cool and all but isnt a 32 with a flathead in reality a restored car?
Although I may seem to come off kinda harsh here ..... I only did so to incite THINKING...........something real early hotrodders did as a result of having very little else to move the "movement" forward ... they as a lot of us are today- were not made out of money -instead they had ingenuity and drive to build something different that the average guy was driving.

WE can learn from that generation and apply the same mentality and methods that they sucessfully employed ,even today on our own cars.
So what do we do?

Do we insist that the NEW/young hotrodders stick with the tunnel vision of traditional only drivetrains?
This can be very expensive as we all know nowadays......plus the cost of fuel is now more than tenfold what it was "then".......

Would we rather they go 100% that way and end up selling off a collection of non functional cars/ part piles OR let them come up with the best damned thing they can as a 2nd choice/substitute -so they can get their cars running and driving [and maybe keep them] and drive them.

It's a tough call........ but it IS something to think about.

 

More to the point, if you wait a second before clicking, your hovering cursor will reveal part of the post beneath and save you the grief of having to reply to a hated post.

As for your single resivoir master cylinder, you can keep that! I'll tell you what's traditional... "the safety of steel from pedal to wheel!"

-Dave

 

I've learned a lot from the threads on here, and every now and then I have a little more to share than my sarcasm

Keep those silly threads coming.. breeder seems to do it the most and all of his threads are cool.[/quote]
HEY. theres nuttin OT about what HAMBERS wear bunny slippers!!!!!
i dont consider all my threads 'SILLY' but ive never had the chance to build anything from the ground up to talk about.. i have learned tons on what to do when the time comes..ill keep chuggin along on my driver [53 cheb] and build my c-dan later this fallish!!!with a little help from freinds, beer, and choprods!!! man , i hope kenny dont read this breeder>>>>>>>>or as kropduster calls me THE POST WHORE!!!

 

Probably the most valid point thus far!

...and when the owners of those STREET RODS hidden under flat black paint and rolling on red wheels show up at the same five "events" every year to park their asses in a lawnchair and preach their own personal line of bullshit to everyone, you begin to realize just how polluted the "traditional" hot rod scene has become.

These street rodders got bored with their own generic creations, so they dressed 'em up all "ol Skool" and now they're self-proclaimed experts on all angles of the whole vast spectrum of "traditional rodding" and propose to play judge and jury as to what is or isn't "acceptable".

In reality, you'll find that these losers have very little to say, apart from talking shit and kissing their favorite asses. Sadly, though...they ruin it for everyone else by pissing all over what started out as something great. You never see a single tech post from these guys, yet they seem to have all the answers. They never post a single photo from any gatherings or shows that they drag their same old dressed down street rod to every year, yet they find the time to spread rumors about other people's personal lives. They're leeches feeding off the "traditional craze" and slowly sucking all of the life and fun out of it. When, at last, they've succeeded...they'll go back to their billet-laden street rod world until the traditional style cycles back around to being "cool" again.

It's too bad...but that's what happens when something grows as big as this has become...it gets watered down with wannabes and posers, and loses some of what made it so cool to begin with.

Just do your own thing and if it happens to fall within the realm of what the core group here might dig...post about it. If you're into other cool automotive pursuits...more power to ya! Do what you do and enjoy the living hell out of it, but try to resist sharing it here. It's cool that there are so many people of diverse backgrounds here, because that knowledge base provides a fantastic resource for folks doing the trad thing, and having these people available to answer questions and offer genuine help is what keeps this place from completely degenerating into an on-line lawn chair street rod fest! Some musclecar or VW guys may be the very ones who can answer your questions about bodywork, engine tuning, etc...while some of the street rodders who happen to own flat black Deuces on red wheels are stuck in a world of the past and have nothing to offer as far as building a hot rod in 2006 goes, except for more snide remarks and useless drivel. There's plenty to be learned from many different folks here...and at the same time, some of the ones proclaiming to be "traditional" actually have the least to offer, so carefull who you exclude and who you accept!

 

Hack that was beautiful.

I nominate you for employee of the month.

Seriously, that was one of the best responses I ever read here.

 

Hack, well said. I am a fairly new member that joined mainly for the technical advice and help. I have been a car freak for my entire life and just love cars period. I have built several from a 32 Ford to a 64 Chevy. I like the traditional style as that is what I grew up with. I do however also like some of the muscle cars and presently own one. I limit my postings on this board to my vehicles built before 64 as I feel that is what this group is all about. I drive American cars and especially the non computer type that you can work on yourself. The young kids of today have their rice burners and actually do some good things with them but my point is keep the board traditional. Keep in mind that everybody doesn't have a 28 to 32 Ford. Some of us have a 49 Chevy or whatever. To each his own. Enjoy this board for what it is and what you can get out of it and give to it.

 

Fat Hack, you are on target with your post, so the medication must be working.
If I may add, if a person buys a vehicle that falls within the accepted years, and if it can get to the fairgrounds under it's own power, is it traditional regardless of it's condition?
The original post was about VW's and such. I remember sitting on the curb at the 1972 Nationals and talking with Tom Medley about his famous VW powered T roadster. They were accepted then and should be accepted now. Any of you young folks that don't know who Tom Medley is, let me assure you he was there at the beginning, he and Stroker McGurk.
Innovation is traditional. If you stick a toyota engine in a bucket, I want to look at it.

 

Scott I don't think we are evolveing into a non trad board. At least i hope not. I do think we have a lot of new blood and that blood hasn't found its place yet.

I don't normally post on anything that isn't the real deal but i'm more of a '60s style of guy so I consider it trad if I remember it. does that make sense???

That said I'm not talking muscle cars here, I'm talking my earliest recollection of hot rodding, the cars and bikes that ruined me for anything in life but being a grease ball. I'm gonna guess that my current project will ruffle a feather or two, its a european body and not an Austin, Fiatt or English Ford, but I remember it being raced back in the time period I'm trapped in so it'll do me just fine.

Anyway maybe if we don't give too much to the OT topics we won't burn too much bandwidth with 'em and the newer more broad minded guys will figure it out.

 

FWIW I came here for the experienced people that can be able to help me with flatheads & front engine diggers. I have muscle cars, I know about them. I assumed this was a place for older style hot rods done in the fashon of the day & it really seems that way. From what I recall it wasn't about any one thing, just a guy making the best machine he could with what he had on hand. I personally do not look down on anyone, even the ricers, that's at least trying. Well, maybe the exception of the bling bling guys.

 

As usual our man Hack has been able to condense the essence of a thread and put a perspective on it that shows us the way. He is able to do this because first of all he has the ability to use the language to express his thoughts very well (a skill I've envied since he has joined here).
The only thing I might add is my personal distaste for those who seem to be able to judge the thoughts and expectations of others without even interacting with them or openly refusing to interact even when given an invitation to participate. Instead, these individuals can, from the comfort of their computers, decide the true intent and content of an individual and put it on the internet for the world to see and never have to expose themselves to the scrutiny of "one on one". It's truly sad when someone like this is not only accepted but somewhat idolized by the rest who have no idea the true make up of the individual. I guess I'm of the opinon that a swimming instructor should know how to swim not just talk about it. I dislike trophys but they are at least they are an outward sign of acomplishment that says "I've done it". That's why I like the HAMB get togethers at the various events. It not only puts a face with an internet personality but the "one on one" is usually far more revealing than any type written impression.
To keep this OT My feeling is that most everyone who takes the time to join in here, regardless of their background, is an asset to the whole. If their experiences can add to a topic then so be it. It seems that this place is really self policeing in that regard as evidenced by how little the moderators have to intervene. After all we're talking about cars here. Most all have 4 wheels and an engine to propell them. After that it's just variations on the basics. I like seeing the high dollar cars just for the fact they might contain a small bracket I can utilize and the lowbuck car can contribute the same way. The muscle car era, for the most part, just put a lot of stress on parts and tested them in a way that's hard to duplicate, so if a particluar topic is relevant then I'm all for it.

Frank

 

Same here...except I also have a '75 Monte Carlo. Nobody sees me on here looking for charcoal canisters, miles of vacuum hose, or talking about styling of the mid 70's. I'm here for the traditional rods and kustoms. Traditional to me means building something with what you got laying around...if something doesn't fit just right make it work. You can't find this or that bracket...make one. Imagination. Ingenuity. And we're not talking about Jap cars, little no-style junks with big wings and fart cans. I guess no one ever told these guys that aerodynamic aids such as a wing don't come into effect until around 80 mph.

It's all about putting old American iron back on the road. It doesn't matter the condition of your hot rod...just the fact that your cruising in an old piece of American automotive history makes you cooler than any Joe Blow in his jelly bean lookin' boring car.

Ways to know you're in the wrong forum:

1) You ask about body control modules, sensors or other items of electrical curiosity.
2) When talking about 4 bangers you're NOT referring to original Ford 4 bangers
3) Hemi on the HAMB refers only to those engines commonly known in the 50's as double-rockers.
4) I saw somebody had to ask what a fedora was...I mean, come on.
5) If you post in the wanted add anything about needing plastic body to bumper fillers...then you'll probably want to pop in your favorite Poison cassette and cruise your keystone classic ass over to autozone.

Anyway...that's my .02.

Please do not send me hate mail if you now or have ever a) listened to Poison or b) owned keystone classics. Poison rocks...I met C.C. DeVille at a bar in Lansing, IL.

 

Frank I guess you're talking about me becuase I don't bother to give a muscle car or a tuner the time of day?

I was around for muscle cars even owned a couple, but I always wander back to my roots.

hell I even built a highzoot car for a guy the year i joined the HAMB. Nuthin against hoghzoot cars if you won one more power to ya. But i can go to any car show and scope out a highzoot car. I can even sopeak the language of the highzoot car owner if I'm a mind to.
That's not why I or probably the highest percentage of the rest of the HAMB members are here.

If someone has an idea that i can apply to my ride i'll look at it if its a good idea I may even try it and give it a thumbs up. I'm just not that interwested in burning up bandwidth with things that don't pertain to what I'm here for.

Anyway I guess I just burned up the bandwidth that I haven't been burning discussing the finer points of the proper X in crayon on a fender well or nitrous on a banger.

I don't have a thing against someone else haveing other passions different than my own, in fact when we get together we might even discuss them. I just don't think that the HAMB is the place for it.

Now while I got your attention the other day I found the coolest set of blue willow plates, I think I'll post a picture. I mean it is about hotrodding right, a man's gotta eat.

 

This is a great attitude. We all have differnt automotive passions, and why we're here is one point of commonality.

I just hate it when, instead of merely saying, "there's a better place to talk about that," certain members decide that they need to insult other people's automotive passions. I love vintage tin, and have owned and worked with it for decades. But I also love sports cars, exotics, and late model stuff just as much. I love the original spirit of hotrodding, taking what you have and making it faster. Preferably something light. Model Ts and the like were economy cars when new. They were great hot rod fodder due to being light economy cars that you could buy cheap and cheaply make fast. they weren't built BECAUSE they were old. And most '50s customs were pretty close to being brand new cars going under the knife. Insulting those who still live by those tenets, just because the actual cars are newer than you'd use, or from a different country, is just sad. Unfortunately, there are many here who would do just that.

 

Hack, yer a fuckin wordsmith. Well put. Here's dad's ol truck from the early 60s, his racer from 64-65, my racer from the early 90s at Detroit Dragway (now that was a traditional place!), and my current project. I think they're all relevant to the HAMB.