Ryan submitted a new blog post: The Goofy Shit On DiBiasse's '34 Continue reading the Original Blog Post
The bumpers are for parallel parking downtown - forward bang, reverse bang, center it, go into the five and dime...
If Bob is still around, he would probably agree with you; moreover, he would have been amazed to know that his car would become the subject of an historical analysis on hot rod styling in the future!
Keep in mind that all our builds have "goofy shit" on them that at times even the builder thinks is goofy. As we are all aware we are constantly changing our builds over time and a lot of the goofy shit gets replaced with whatever is currently acceptable. Fads have to start somewhere. I'm sure the first time someone chopped the top on their hot rod so low that they put permanent kinks in their necks and they were so bent over they had to look up to see out... someone said "That's some goofy shity right there" ... yet that caught on... Long live "Goofy Shit" !! and the hot rodders willing to push the edge of the envelope... Good or bad...
I actually think those Guide 903J headlights are the perfect lights for any hot rod...especially if they have the brass tags.
I'm curious if there was a law saying he had to have some sort of bumper- maybe some harassment by the local LE forced him to install something the keep them off his back and keep the car on the road. It's different, and honestly I kinda like it.
Why would he build a 34 5-window, when he could have built a 3-window.?.. Come to think of it, why didn't he build a 32? and on top of that, everybody knows that only true hot rods are roadsters... Black ones... With bias ply tires and a flathead. What an idiot.... With all that said, where did he find 1970's RV side marker lights to use as taillights in 1960?
I wonder if its still around? I'd like to have it. I like the head lights, the interior etc. etc. I don't think the chop is 5" however. Having chopped two coupes and a sedan, all 3 1/2", they look about the same as this car. But, it really doesn't matter.
I think the coupe is right on! I hope someone is inspired to clone this one. In this age of "traditional rod"/rat rod absurdity, this car would not get as much attention for its "goofy shit" as the ones we see at most car show we go, or in publications. I am not gonna' let go of my goofy shit though. The plastic beagle hound on the package tray of my 46 ford, Dixie Delux, is gonna' stay. What is up with the DNAEIW lettered head?
Ryan: I appreciate your comments. It is easy to start picking other people's ideas apart. What hard is getting off your ass and actually building something. I think too many people forget about that and your post puts it in perspective.
I think there are rightly two forms of goofy shit.... 1. The wholesale goofosity that just kills a build no matter what, like horrible (the tire store/Walmart closes in five minutes so I have to make a decision) tire and wheel combos, the badly done chop, the Vega tail lights, etc. All of which aren't tolerable. 2. The goofy crap details that can make you alternate from "That's cool" to "Why in Hell did he do that". That's the kind goofosity that I can get behind and truly celebrate! Weird little hand made details sometimes rock, even if your eye has to kinda "get used to them".
This was my first thought as well on the bumpers. I think it's a cool hot rod even with the goofy shit. It was also built right around the time a lot of other goofy shit was showing up on hot rods and customs.
folded down as I planned,never like the big pile stock "A" top had. by dana barlow posted Mar 21, 2014 at 10:51 AM I really love that coupe just as it looks. Local law,ya,some places it can be real local=like the cop that is asigned to your home trif is a asshole. In Miami Fl. in 1959 I had to put up with one ass cop that would get asigned to my naberhood a few times each year{they moved that ass around I think cuz even other cops know he was a butthead,didn't have probs with others. Anyway he kepted trying to give me crap about no fenders,to the point I had made MC type so I could add them with wingnuts,didn't like'm,but better then his BS. As for Googy Shit,I too had some of that, is still on my old 28 A roadster. The 28A when I got the roadster body,it had all the back trunk n frenders crushed flat from a tractor run over it from left rear to right rear wheel as it was in the muck up to its axle center. This was too much mess for me too repair at 16 years old an I just cut mess off n used what I had to build my hotrod{ I've left it that way all these years cuz,I now like it. Sure if it was not crushed,my hotrod would not have a bobtail.
I kinda dig the car, and it's goofiness. If you look at the pic with the front end, I see some more goofiness. It looks like the lower shock mount is drilled through the I-beam out board of the perch... I would think that would make it weak, but what do I know. Also, it looks like the lower radiator hoses go outside the grill and then?? Maybe the lower outlets faced the sides of the car because the crossmember was in the way of the radiator.... that's pretty innovative.
What if the east coast had better magazines, and the east coast look stuck as a tradional hot rod instead of the so-cal look??? That's a lot of the issue with that car, that and as meantioned before, laws dictating bumpers, ect. Look at so cal magazines around the 1958 or so era when the headlight height laws were enacted in california, again the government can fuck up anything.
Cool car I'd say. But with a 9 " channel could he even get inside the thing? He must have been the size of a Wizard of Oz munchkin.
I think alot of goofy shit on old eastern rods happened due to state laws at the time. Those bumperettes might have just skirted the Jersey cops? I know alot of uglies had to be comitted in Pa.; just to get em on the road. I always find myself drawn to looking at that kind of "infractions" whenever checking out real mouldy oldies. I'm probably just a little goofy myself! I think that coupe looks great.
In 1960 that car would have been magnificent. People built with what tools and parts they had or could get cheap. I look back at some stuff I did on a 32 coupe I built in the 60's and think what was I thinking. At the time it was the coolest. I like the car!
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