Traditional Rodding a FAD??? Some thoughts....

Howza Bruthas,

tradition >noun 1 the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation. 2 a long-established custom or belief passed on in this way. 3 an artistic or literary method or style established by an artist, writer, or movement, and subsequently followed by others.
-ORIGIN Latin, from tradere 'deliver, betray

One can stare at a photo that was taken last month at El Mirage by one of the staff from Garage Magazine and compare it to one that was taken by Dean Batchelor in the 40's in the same spot.

The spirit of the moment is there.

I am not trying to get my "Zen" on anyone here, but some things live on.

Van's, Pro Street, Rat Rods.
Pro Touring, Resto Rods, Mini Trucks.
Rusto Rods, Graphics, VolksRods.
They have appeared and have gone.
Beneath it all, there lies the real spirit of Traditional Hot Rodding.

Carrying on the beliefs/customs of someone that has passed them onto you.
Especially if it involves a hot rod or custom.

Even in the dark ages of the Terrible Resto Rods and Vans, Pete Jacobs restored the Niekamp Roadster.
Rod and Custom did an article on building and Arden.
And Pete and Jake let their Coupes grace the cover of Rod and Custom magazine stirring the pot again and resurecting the true heart of traditional Hot Rodding.
When I was in high school, (1982-1984) my treasured magazine-while my pals read the latest Muscle Car Review-was a Custom Cars magazine put out by the publishers of Hot Rod. The magazine was from say '81 featured the Jade Idol, an article on Dick Dean, various Mercs and Chevs and an article on the R&C Dream Truck.
While my pals dreamed of squeeling BF Goodrich TA's, I was thinking of wide whitewalls.

My Daughter has been given a '49 Ford Coupe from me.
It will be done as it would have been say in '54 by a Rodder.
My Son's ride is coming together and will NOT be a Rat Rod, but finished with details and finesse-i.e. you won't need a tetanus shot to get into it.

 

I've always felt that a traditional rod is a timeless car that never goes out of style. If you see a "fresh" car, and it looks good. Ten years or more go by and that same car still looks good without updating. Timeless cars are void of fads or trends, no ugly wheels (billet, Cragar SS, slot mags, really wide chrome wires, etc), funky looking interiors (diamond tuft, crushed velvet, tweed, sculpted leather, velour and high back buckets) and trendy paint schemes (graphix, murals, curly cue pinstriping, flake, candies, Mike Lavalee trufire, ohio flames and neon colors). If you look through the street rod publications of the 70's about 1 out of 25 cars featured would still look good. Thats what I call traditional. It involves style, proportion and attention to detail.

Every time I see a heavily chopped and channeled car that someone labels as "traditional", I cringe. True, its "old school", but for a long time you couldn't give a channeled car away. Thats how I got my three window body, the goldchainers wouldn't touch a car that had no floor or subrails even though the body was in relatively good shape.

I know that I'll probably get flamed for this but channeled cars went out of style because they are just not practical. Don't get me wrong, some are pretty cool. I think people got tired of being all cramped up after a long trip of being shoehorned in one of those things. The current generation will find out for themselves.

I don't mean to pick on the channeled car guys, I'm just trying to make an example. Don't get me started on the death rod guys. Tradditional rodding existed before the resurgence of the rockabilly tatooed hell raising lifestyle and it will still exist afterward.

As far as drivetrains are concerned. Run what you can get. Put a hood on it if you don't think it fits the period. As long as its fast and it sounds cool, who gives a shit. Most people can't tell the difference between a 283 and a 350 anyway.

My typing is so slow that I've forgotten what the point of this is. Anyway, build your car the way you like it. The labels don't matter as long as you enjoy it. Just don't build any ugly shit, unless it was ugly to start with!

 

The only fad is using FAKE SHIT, like the pro street guys used to do...

lets see, hiding disk brakes under buick drums, fake fuel injection, fake strombergs with EFI, olds valve covers on chevys, hemi valve covers on the same, fiberglass patina or any fake finish. fake quick changes, you get the idea.

If they had hondas and toyotas in 1955 hot rodders sure as shit would have been tuning them, but they didn't. And they didn't have full syncro'ed T-5s or crate motors.

 

i think the popularity of shows like pimp my ride, overhauling, etc., are all very indicative of this attitude. people wanna have the ride to show off and for people to compliment them on but they don't want to put the work into it. recently my friend told me about a reality show similar to overhauling/pimp based in hawaii, to which he asked man wouldn't that be cool if they took your car and made it all new?

i replied: no, if someone stole my car and redid it without me having any hand in it, i'd be effin pissed.

 

It's building what you want and doing it the best you can with what you got.

 

who is Gorege Lucus ????? a russian hot rodder????

 

he's the guy who made lights for british cars.

trey

 

I've been holdin' my tongue on this thread, but you touched on something very important here. A *huge* part of what we do is the satisfaction of making how *we* want it. There's tons of cool cars out there...but not very many of them are done exactly the way I would do them. I think the same holds true for most of us.

Which is why I like Build or Bust...someone should do something like that with cars. Now *that* would be cool...open bank book and a well equiped shop to do it in...and ya get to do it yer way.

Olson

 

I understand that it is of GREAT value for you to call your car traditional.
Please go ahead and do so.
Dont let me mess up your urge to fit in.

I am very sorry for beeing so narrowminded that I in my ignorance and dumbness have other visions of what "traditional" are,than you have.

Can you ever forgive me?



Z

 

Aha so it was a blessing growing up in his town????????
lights out!!!!!