What is it about patina ? A question for the masses....

It's TRADITIONAL, correct?

So while the gold chainers and clueless mags try and emulate, it is the style of the blue collar masses who, back in the 40-50's, put the little money they had under the hood. Or into back yard customizing.

No need for a long winded analysis.

 

the reason i like patina is that it shows the scars of life, id rather look at cars in a junkyard than a carshow! i thinks it beacuse of the potential of the car or body, its neet to look at old junk!!, thats what made me build my pu, i started to locate parts to fix up the cab (the back panel is beat to shit) but changed my mind, the cab and grille are original paint but the box is brand new! the car fools alot of people which is fun cause they always ask me where that place was (it says East Side Speed Shop on the door) and i just chuckle! I guess thats why i like it, because other people do!!

 

Patina = History.....plain and simple..... HRP

 

I don't feel comfortable in new clothes, fancy resturants, nice neighborhoods...or shiney new cars!

I like old stuff...old cars, old guns, old houses, old clothes, old music and old values...driving and messing with rusty old cars is just a part of that!!

 

What is it that make this car cool?

 

I think this is 'patinariffic.'

 

I have patina on my car and I didn't know it. A spectator was checking out my car amongst a field of high end, perfection cars. He says to me, "I like that part of your inside door panel, where the vinyl is worn through to the fabric backer, right there, next to the arm rest".

He goes on to say "that shows your car is driven alot, you can't just go out and buy that".

That was enlightening, guess I will stop trying to patch that area up every season.

 

I think it has to do with accepting age and wrinkles instead of repaints and fussing with something that inevitably will age and fighting that process. I took the picture of the ModeL T at the last Long Beach Model T meet I went to back in the late 70s.
The "Hippy" in the middle showed up with this pile and ran it up the hill for I think the second fastest time of the day, and the only car that was faster was a Fronty dual overhead cam conversion in a track sprint car.
This was 25 years ago!
So what's so new about "patina"?
Yes he shocked the hell out of a lot of people, actually pissed off some for having the audacity to bring a pile of rusty shit like that out to a meet, but I know he had more fun than most there.
He said it was just a pile of pieces three days before the meet too.

 

Its like comparing a raw recruit with a grizzled old veteran that stormed up the beach at Normandy. Which one would command your respect?

Frank

 

I like the patina on my new bike..... leaving it "as is" will be a great cover for my increasing laziness.

 

Oh, I'll show ya's some patina....

 

So Dr. J are you the Grizzly Addams lookalike in the picture?
Hey Hatch, laziness is the embryo of enlightenment and the LA-Z Boy is the temple.
Snooze on Grasshopper.

 

I think its the fact that when somthing is done or painted
its time to start something new. My truck is primer and when co-workers or people that don't know me see it they say
"what color are you going to paint it" I reply I like it just the way it is. I think it all depends on the application. I think the older it is the cooler it is. Meaning just what I say. I like the fact it fruff, people
don't ask "who did the work" they know I did. Ruff is fun.
I think painted rides are nice too. But most off them are
cookie cutter its the one with no paint that makes me realy
look. Just my thoughts! PS Mery x-mass

 

[ QUOTE ]
when somethings cool, it's cool.

when somethings cool, but a little fucked up (ie; unchanged since the 50's, unrestored, not painted, rusty, take your pick and add if you want), and STILL cool, you know its really cool.

so, yeah, it kinda boils down to "when it's finished it'll be REALLY cool"... but, when its really cool, who needs REALLY cool.....

fake "patina" on the other hand, is bullshit.

fake vagina, well, we won't go there...

[/ QUOTE ]


This is my favorite post in a long time. Both right on and hilarious. I may steal that "when it's really cool, who needs REALLY cool" part. You should tm that, Marty.

 

Hey, you wouldn't strip the Mona Lisa back to canvas and whack a perfect computer generated copy on there, using modern 'health and safety' approved water based paints and a coat of thiiiick epoxy laquer, even though it would look a lot newer and a lot better, would ya????

That's what patina is all about: Looking original.

 

I wanna offer up two examples of cars that were ruined by restoration. One is the John Athan built Elvis' 'Loving you' roadster, the other is that Caddy powered Deuce roadster owned by Kurt McCormick. Both of those cars would have been better served by leaving them alone.
At the last Winter Park Concours was a '59 Alfa Romeo coupe that was left just as the way the owner found it in a barn. I was gushing over that car and the dude that owned it was tickled pink that someone understood what leaving an artifact well enough alone really means. Despite the fact that civilians gravitated towards the shiny and overrestored.
I used to be a dealer in mid century modern artifacts and back then I used to restore pieces and now the truth of the matter is is that untouched pieces are worth way much more.
My car isn't historically important so I don't feel too bad about fixing her up a bit, but I still hear some folks saying I shoulda left it with the blue paint and rust.

Yo hatch, didn't you do that doll photoshop of my car?

I still love it.

 

I gotta mention.....Patina without a cool canvas sucks....my 87 toyota winter beater is rusty and crusty...but visually it sucks.

 

hatch if it was a '67 Toyota 2000GT that would be cool.

 

I look at old cars that obviously are old and have earnt that patina and think to myself, boy the stories that old car could tell. I think it is a real mark of respect to these types of patina'd cars that guys and gals are building 'new' hotrods and customs and do their best to emulate that patina'd look. It really shows how creative we can be.

 

If our cars really do have soul, it comes from history. Patina is proof of history.
I still can't help but think of it as a stage. I gotta rebuild, restore, improve. I don't know if I could build a car without planing to "finish it". Cool thing is, when or if you ever do finish one, the whole thing starts again. Now your part of the cars history. Your in it's soul...or maybe it's in yours.

 

Ok Im gonna open a whole new can of worms here. I think petina is cool if it comes natuarally. If you build your car out of old parts that are petinad thats cool. My coupe has mostly new or NOS parts (i.e) shiney. And being a new build it will be finished shiney. And itll have to earn its scars.

 

My 62 Belair Wagon has a lot of Patina and most guys love it.Sun faded,door dings,little rust shows that she was used and enjoyed and still is.Lot easier to drive every day and not worry about Big $$$ paint.Kind of a custom by nature. PATINA

 

grezzy,thats what i was just gonna say.

i really like it if it really IS a "barn find" car
or even parts put together to look like a barn find...but when people start airbrushing rust,fake bird shit and patinad paint on a glass car or brand new brookville then that is pretty GAY in my opinion..

or ,IMHO,let me even say this,PRIMERING OVER A 'nice' original paintjob to give it that rockabilly look is just as gay!!!!!

 

No Nads, I'm the one on the other side of the instamatic. But I have looked that hairy at times.

 

Patina can make things better, sometimes, and other times not.

Take a well built rod, lets say a 32 roadster, first built in 52: Then it had Washington blue nitrocellulose paint, black or maybe dark brown leather interior, a nice detailed chassie, a hot flathead. Stored in a dry garage since 1974 and then found, intact but very dusty in his garage a few years after he passed away 2003.
Case one: let time go... It did remain with the same owner through the years, was used a lot but well maintained. Dings and nics filled in, everything still shiney and working. Several updates since 52 but all well made, like the 283 with powerpack in 57, the ET magwheels in 64 and of course the injected 401 that replaced it 1n 1963 and came in good use when it did run at the strip in the mid 60´s, the cromed Olds rear end did work well then too. This is patina with a neat history! But you can see that did car had seen use, steering wheels well shows it, well worn leather seat shows it, the paint might show some thin spots and minor crackiing but is looks good... In my book this is "a dream" and not a thing to restore, just keeping using it and take care of it.

Then case two: The very same car. But in this case it did change hands in 1958 and after a few years the later owners that did care less about it. The 40 Ford steering wheel was changed into a "foam" cheap one in the late 60´s, the 40 dash cut away and a new one was made of wood. No more quickchange as in 52 but a 10 bolt Chevy instead installed in the late 60´s. The seat and the inside of the doors was redone in diamondtuffed vinyl, about 1965. The steel wheels changed into Cragar SS, it was in 67... A few years later new fashionable additions, some rake and murals of The Flag on the gas tank ...Then in 73 the front wheels was changed into slotmags and the early 283 did make its last breat and a already wornout 350 found a new home. 74 the owner did put it away, to be stored into a leaking barn. Interior did rot, paint did crack, a lot of rust too... 2003 a rodder found it and say he will drive it just like it is, cause it have "rodding history". If the "barn find" had that history, and for sure it have history as well as the first "case". But, well in the second case I would not think the history and the patina have added anything at all, I would rather see it redone as the first builder, in 52, did intend it to look. Or built into something else... Yes, I would not mind a single second to earase all of its "history" and build something better from it.

To build a car that looks used from the beginning? Never!
Trying to be cool will just end up being a fool...

 

every time i hear a story like that it hurts? its almost as bad as the old man telling me back in the day they used to try and find 3-w 32s "cause they were stronger when they rolled over" sends chills, dont ever let them show you pictures either it'l make you cry!!!!

 

Yeah, Made me chuckle too.

 

When I put this together- I was shooting for some kinda paint- I found three scrapped model A's that were'nt all there...[in a pile at Brother Reggies salvage yard].... I took a peice from each and made the rear panel-them bought the bed off ebay from Utah.... it had the tailgate twisted shut with 4 layers of fence wire from the 40's [Id bet]. I sat that bed on the frame against the red rusted Missouri A parts collection-backed off and took a look- and said 'what a shame it would be to sand that perfectly matched rust down and paint this truck1" I left it as it was and for a year I drove it every where... I then sold it to a fellow in Columbus Ohio- and guess what he said when he picked it up/ He said'Im just gonna drive it like this! "he'd had two others in the "buiding stages "for 20 years and never got to drive either one so this was exactly what he wanted-"A car he can drive"!

 

My old 40 HAD PATINA......

It needed glass, running boards, paint and a bunch more...



And then some fellow talking on his cell phone ran ALL OVER IT !



I almost cried........because I knew the charm was gone. I HAD to paint it.



Now it needs upholstery, new bumpers, and bunch of work...

Before it was just right.......at least to me....





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