Hot Rods Does a Hot Rod absolutely have to have chrome ?

i like shiny. here is a mix of polished aluminum, stainless, chrome, brass, paint and ceramic coating.

 

Great Im glad the checks in the mail I need more parts to finish the car!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Don't hold your breath Rusty, you may turn bluer than the car
C'mon guys how about some more input and maybe a few more examples of limited chrome.
In the meantime, I'm looking into building a nice powder coating oven to get ready.
Larry.

 

"I'm looking into building a nice powder coating oven to get ready" - maybe make it like a drive through car wash and do everything at one time. View attachment 3064783

 

Here Enters the age monochromatic rides.

 

Chrome any part that will fit into your pocket.
Especially if you work in a plating shop

 

LOL I was doing monochrome before it was cool. I always preferred good paint to rusty and peeling chrome.

Actually a lot of things that are cool today I was doing decades ago, not because it was cool but because clean was better then decay.

 

Yep! And painting the bumpers is way cheaper than chrome, especially if you have to fix them mud doesn't take chrome well.

 

hot-rod
Noun
(plural hot rods) or hotrod

1. Typically a passenger vehicle modified to run and/or accelerate faster. The term may be used generically to apply to any car, truck, or motorcycle (et al.) modified for increased speed and/or performance. It may also be used to specifically describe and refer to modified cars from the original (traditional) era of "hot rods", post World War II and prior to 1960.

 

My build is almost chromeless. Only a few pieces like radiator shell trim, rings on headlights and hubcaps. I like the mono-color look. My headers are going to be black ceramic coating soon. Things that I did not want to draw attention to turned black and things that I wanted to highlight turned body color

Each man to his own. Do what you think looks good.

 

my car is blue ! Other than chrome air cleaners, chrome hubcaps and polished aluminum valve covers, it is all paint......and upholstery

 

Come on Larry,
Isn't the reason you're questioning your hotrod's chrome because that damn truck is expensive. And if you did some of what you really want the chrome shop bill would rival the sticker price of that truck.


Snicker snicker

 

Built our car over a couple years and didn't once go to the chrome shop....

 

I love shiny,so I polish anything that will shine up well,alum,brass,cooper,stainless,but paying for chrome was hard,so have used it mostly on stuff that came that way ,used or other. Balance of shiny paint an shiny other stuff is what I like best. If I see a ton of chrome on a car,often think its less cool then if I can see someone worked ass off polishing stuff vs buying stuff,its all good but thats my thoughts.

 

Yup the truck was expensive, but damn is it nice. I love it. As a daily driver it's great. Heated seats and steering wheel and all the other bells and whistles on the Lariat package. LED headlights and tail lights the thing is loaded.
Nicer than a Cadillac
Studded winter tires on her now and a Borla dual out the back exhaust that are not in the picture. Makes winter up here more bearable. 4 wd and away we go

And no I don't want to spend that much on chrome so there you go.

hrm2k , your coupe looks good.

 

All a Hot Rod needs to do is to make you and your family happy. Screw the haters. It does not need chrome or paint for that matter. You sure don't need the approval of some grouchy neckbearded keyboard warriors. If you are building a car to impress strangers. I would suggest that will almost always fail. Your time, your money, your hard work. Do want you want. Just my 2 cents.

 

Now that's a traditional hot rod, I don't care what anybody else says. I love it!!!!!

 

I like a Few chrome goodies, not a show chrome trailer queen that gets cleaned more than it gets driven.
It's like salt and pepper on your food, it's a flavor enhancer, not the main course.

 

On my T modified I didnt use much chrome. I did small things like shackles, jamb nuts on the tie rod ends, air cleaners . I did quite a few home built brackets made from aluminum that i polished, and quite a few polished stainless nuts and bolts .

 

I like that modified. Looks good.
As pretty as my new truck is, it obviously was way off topic for my thread so they deleted the picture

 

That's it. Paint and powder coat it is. That little modified and the other examples I have seen show that a minimum of chrome limited to a few pieces for accent looks fine.
I think with that I have saved myself a pile of effort and expense in finding a good chrome shop.
I have 2 good powder coat shops local to me here and I also plan to do a bunch of my own.
Keep some more examples coming

 

Chrome??--Depends on whether you're gonna drive it or polish it.

 

Actually a real hotrod only needs two things to be right, a stout mill and nice tail lights.

 

Po' boys "back in the day" couldn't afford chrome, but some of them built great rods.

 

Someone said "If it doesn't Go, Chrome It!"

 

I have very little chrome on my 32.
It started because i simply can't afford to have the plating done even if i prep it all myself.
So i used very little. An oooold chrome mor-drop, stainless grill trim, hood strip, and latch handles, chrome door handles and stainless tail light bezels. Thats it.
Personally i really dig the look on my car. Its all business throughout and nothing draws your attention away from the overall car.
Even under the hood, the only chrome are the air cleaner tops, the rest is natural aluminum with a few bits of polished aluminum here and there and black.
Eventually this car will probably end up gloss black. I did the body work for it already so it'll be a break down, scuff and shoot to do it but i just wanted to get it together and drive it a few years first. But i'll still keep the same overall look with little brite-work.
I personally don't think a hot rod needs chrome. Just needs some heat between the rails and the back bone to handle it.



My last 32 i was quite different than this one. There was a ton of chrome and polished stainless on the engine, and throughout the car.
However, i still couldnt afford to chrome the suspension so that got a silver-ish powder coat. It looked ok, but i was never happy with it.
It just looked blah compared to the rest of it.

Tony

 

Tony, your coupe is lacking NOTHING. Love that car.

 

Tony, You Said it!
And your Coupe's Killer!

 

Did you hack into my webcam? How do you know what I look like?

Chrome is nice, but I'm too cheap to pay for it.

 

@DDDenny and @340HilbornDuster,
Thanks guys!

Tony