man I havent taken a pre dawn drive in years, but having a little kid kinda cuts into that sort of thing. But yes, I love the stillness of that grey sky time.
LOL I learned that as a little kid. Wake the girl and bundle her up and teach her the finer things in life my friend.
Once I get the '39 done, I think I will do that, but it would have to be on summer holidays. Pre-dawn top-down summer cruise on empty streets, yea, thats livin' large... Not sure I would take the wife though, waking her up at 4am to "go for a drive" would be taking my life in my hands...
It's been a while since I've driven just for the pleasure of it. I spend a lot of time driving to get someplace, and I've kinda lost my enthusiasm for the joy and satisfaction of just driving for its own sake. I'll attribute that to aging. Two cars that I had in the past were very fast, and driving them on the edge of scary was a very exciting experience. Everything I own now is larger and heavier, and driving them fast gets noisy -- tire squeal, exhaust blat -- and that takes away the coolness for me. A blast of acceleration still feels satisfying, though.
When I was really little it was the ol' Man and me. Sometimes two wheels some times four, always a treat.
I've said this on here before, but I LOVE rolling along in light traffic with the solid lifter noise rebounding off the car beside me, downshifting and giving it a real good poke. I just LOVE that, it just makes me smile from this place way down inside.
"As an aside: It’s my observation that guys of my generation chose a personal style, or presentation, early in their lives – teens or twenties. We decided how to comb our hair, whether to wear a beard or a tattoo, whether to wear shorts or pants with cuffs, and basically stuck with that style for the rest of our lives. Everyone did this – even the people who looked scroungy, and didn’t appear to have any style at all. At the time of those decisions, we conformed to the style of the people we hung around or admired, influenced to some degree by our work environment (blue collar/white collar). For me, at least, the same thing applies to cars – I choose to drive cars that look like what I wanted to drive 50 years ago. I’m certain that I’m not alone in doing that. " I'm not sure how I came to like hot rodded '30's cars. I was born in 1966. I didn't have any family who thought of cars as more than transportation appliances. Guess I just like the lines and curves, their simplicity (puts them within my abilities to build), their novelty (in modern times), the sounds they make and mostly, the thrill of speed. Others have posted about impressing women or other guys with their cars. I understand that but it's not much of a motivation for me. If someone says, "Nice car." Well, that's just a bonus. But I know most won't. I hold no ill will to those who are more interested in their own cars or lives. Everyone puts priorities on different things. When I start thinking they are dumb or bad for having different priorities or tastes, I know it's time to reel in my ego again. Nothing kills friendships or makes enemies like a big fat ego.
I have been called socially awkward, actually socially unacceptable when I was younger. I never know what I am supposed to say when someone says nice car or nice bike. These days I just say thanks and leave it at that. It always surprises me, my cars and bikes are usually not that nice.
You'd fit in with the young guys, they are wearing red and white sneakers and shorts even on a long run. LOL I never could wear flip flops but I am good at bear foot. hey while I am at it let me hijack this thread, did you ever get the Vincent running? have you even looked at it?
Must be something in the air..... for most of this week I've been feeling contemplative and reflective about where I came from (car wise) and where I'm gonna go. Then 50Fraud goes and starts this thread. Maybe its turning 66 this week and signing up for social insecurity. Maybe I'm in mourning for the Model A sedan I just traded away - I didn't realize how much I liked it 'til it was gone. Maybe, at this point in my life I realize I need to thin the herd and concentrate on one good ol car, but can't decide what and I can't let my projects go. I haven't changed much in my style of dress and cars since graduating high school. In hair styles and music I've been all over the map though; from long hair to short, back and forth - from rock to jazz to punk to country to swing, I like it all on any given day. My Dad was a world class tinkerer, I learned mechanical stuff from him. He never followed fads, just did what he liked. I do the same. I build what I like and I'm pleased when others appreciate what I've done. Always been a working guy, never made gobs of money but always been careful with my money and mostly comfortable. Never been a social butterfly or a party animal, I'm most at home in my own shop working on something - tinkering. I've done the midnight rides on bikes and cars. Speeding over the Grapevine at 100 mph at midnight in my roadster made me think of the early hoodlum hot rodders. I've sat in my roadster looking up at the sky on a warm night at Harper Dry Lake listening for echoes of the old lakes racers, and thanking God - one of the best nights of my life. Raced at Lions. I guess at this point I'm looking for that next unforgettable moment, hoping to make a new fond automotive memory, but I'm thinking that maybe you can't force it to happen. Maybe it only happens to the young. I guess you just have to get out there and it will happen in it's own time. P.S. I'll bet the young'uns here on HAMB read this and think - WTF? They will get there....if they are as lucky as we are.
What? Naw, man. Don't blame me for you feeling your sensitive side. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Think this "Cowboys live smoky ol pool rooms and pure mountain mornings . . ." I have never really liked cowboys, at least not drugstore cowboys, but he pretty much nailed a lot of us in that song.
two unrelated things: 1. Today a local car guy asked me if I'd sign his copy of Hot Rod mag with my car in it. gotta watch the Ego thing 2. mine too....best of all, he encouraged us kids to explore all kinds of things, and see what we interested us. We're all doing neat stuff these days, probably because of that.
LOL no one ever told me not to take something apart, I did get told to put it back together a lot though. Hey off base here but someone please tell the Boss ( @Ryan ) that we need a laughing smiley.
Its sold Benno. I just have too much stuff, and we got a good offer as-is. I did keep the Ducati, I will put that together at some point.
Judging from some of the responses to this thread, some think that I wrote that I built my cars to impress others, and those people said "I don't do that; I build what I like." Well, so do I. I build stuff according to the aesthetic decisions I made 60 years ago, when I actually was trying to impress the girls (well, guys too). A car on a low rake was cooler than a taildragger with skirts (in WLA in 1956), so I still act as if that's a great truth. Today, who's gonna be impressed by a 75-year-old guy driving a car in a 60-year-old style? Not many people who are still alive. The point I was making is that a lot of us make those identity decisions in earliest adulthood, and stick with them until we tip over. YMMV.
I was 5 years old and just started Kindergarten and my Grandpa was teaching teaching me to shoot a 22. I guess I was asking questions too deep for the situation. He took off his hat looked me dead in the eyes and told me "Look kid. At the end, it will only be you, a box, a six foot hole and the worms. Everything else is negotiable". I always will remember that.
I am. I had a good idea of what you were saying to begin with but when I see a car built in that style, I am impressed no matter the age of driver.
Heard you loud and clear and totally agree with you 50 Fraud. As for tinkering Jim; Most who knew him said my Dad could fix anything. I'm proud to say that my friends and family say the same about me. The sad part is I'm afraid that trait in my family stops when I'm gone. Not one of my nephews, nieces or my step kids are so inclined. It looks like it's gonna be a strange, mostly electronic world in a few more generations.
I guess I didn't get that out of what you wrote, I just tapped in what I felt like saying. But you are correct I like cars and bikes and have been around them all my life. Well I got to fly. It was fun fellas.
I see a lot of me but about 10 years younger in that lead post. A fan of "cool cars" from a very early age and growing up with a dad and one step father who liked interesting cars, Second step father thought if a car started, ran and got you from point A to Point B without breaking down it was a wonderful car. He wasn't a car enthusiast in the least but he was good to mom and my younger siblings. I went though a lot of phases over the years including a street racing phase, the change it to the latest trickest item phase and now after several years hiatus from having one on the road the "looks like it was built back when but doesn't look dated phase". I hit burn out a few years ago after constantly trying to keep up with the trends but never actually keeping up. I said to hell with it and bought a sailboat and played with it (and still have it) Then a few years ago while poking around on a hot rod board I saw mention of this board of ornery old car farts that catered to the traditional hot rods and customs from times past. A little investigating showed that "Holy Crap these guys don't give a rip if you have the latest trick crap on your car it just has to look right for a traditional car or build" A bit more to it than that but you never see anyone here knocking a guys "rims" because they are so two years ago. All the sudden I had some enthusiasm for building my long suffering truck and I could build it the way I had always wanted to so that it looked like a custom truck that might have been built by a custom shop owner in the mid 50's as his personal truck. The Model A hopefully will end up looking like someone took a pretty decent original car and made a hot rod out of it even though 99% of the "restorers" out there wouldn't look at it for a parts car now as it sits.
Tony, great job at provoking a bit of thinking by a lot of us. For me the building of an automotive style aesthetic started in the late fifties and continued through the mid to late sixties. It started with the little pages custom car magazines, with Hot Rod and Car Craft added in along the way. I was not really self aware of why I had this interest in both aesthetics and mechanical performance. It was just there, and it consumed much of my thoughts. I was far more car obsessed than almost most all of my friends. By 1968, the draft and the rest of life took over. Since the mid nineties, when I could finally get back to experience the intense love of modified cars I had as a young man, I build my cars from that narrow but evolving earlier period's perspective of what looked right. Most of the folks who see and comment on my cars are usually seeing them at a hardware store or gas station, so I realized a number of years ago that virtually no one understood or appreciated what my style was, or what the influences were. At local car show, it is not much different except for a very few of the older guys, but most of them are more into muscle cars. In not too many years no one I see will get it, but maybe I'll be driving a Tesla and have Alzheimer's by then and not remember myself. But until then, I will build what like and not worry about anyone else because beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and it's primarily my eyes that are looking. ...and I like what I build!
Excellent post Tony @50Fraud! I'm a little younger and from half a world away, but I think you're right about a lot of tastes being formed early on - I was 11 when i first saw American graffiti, still have vivid memories of cars at local shows from that time. I remember thinking I was going to be a social outcast when i bought a '37 Chevy with a 350 & pg cause no one I knew at the time in my age group was into old cars. I had to satisfy that itch regardless - and it turned out people dug it - icing on the cake. The cars i'm working on now, or planning, may not set the world on fire, but the 14 year old me would love 'em!
Great post Tony, and thanks for inviting everyone's reflection on what got us all where we are right now. I've been reading along through the week, but waxing philosophically while trying to actually keep my job prevented me from weighing in earlier. This seemed best composed on a quiet Friday evening with some tunes going and a beer in my hand. My formative years conspired to make me a lifetime car guy. My dad was a casual car guy (I was driven home from hospital in a '68 Pontiac Beaumont SD396), my grandpa was a terrific mechanic and able to repair anything, and a close family friend had a '36 Chevy pickup project. Dad was always very OCD about keeping his cars detailed to the max, and I have carried that on. Grandpa was the greatest teacher of all things mechanical, patiently showing me how to do everything, from the stupid-ass left-hand thread lug nuts on an early Mopar, to rebuilding carbs. And the family friend, Lee, had that hot rod project, and a huge magazine collection that he gave to me. And, when his lil truck was finally on the road, I was one of the first, besides him, to drive it. Running a chopped, channeled, primered hot rod around the block, slipping the 'glide into gear with a screwdriver at age 13 absolutely set the die for me. At age 12, I talked the old man into dragging home a '37 Ford Tudor home, and we spent the next several years turning it into a roller. We never finished it, but I learned a TON of stuff that is second nature to me now from getting it as far as we did. I gotta hand it to him for diving into a massive project like that for his son, but I didn't do sports, or anything else. It was all cars, all the time for me. Like George, my tastes have evolved over time greatly. I wouldn't say they've changed, but they've definitely expanded. I got into muscle cars, and leaned heavily towards Mopars, getting into the "Chevys and Fords suck" mentality. Before having an epiphany of sorts, and remembering that I'm a car guy first and foremost, when muscle cars became valuable and collectible, and, consequently, no fun. I got back into hot rods, and eventually, discovered the HAMB. I was always a jeans and T shirt type, still am, and likely always will be. The T-shirts have changed from rock concert shirts to rod shop shirts from places I've visited, but the spirit hasn't changed really. I've learned the merits and shortcomings of all carmakers various designs. The overall brilliance and simplicity of the small block Chevy (except the stupid fuckin starter setup, lol). The availability and interchangeability of the Ford flatty in its glory days, the raw torque of an FE Ford, how right an early Olds, Cad, or Poncho looks in a period rod. Yep, I still listen to Motley Crue and Iron Maiden like I did in school, but I also listen to Sinatra, classical, and outlaw country. My hair has been half way down my back, but now it's mostly half way back on my head. And I still love cars, and everything I build is to a certain era, mostly early 60's, and I'm anal as hell about getting shit RIGHT. Although, due to exposure to 70's magazines and the first rods I ever saw at local rod-runs, there is likely at least one fat-tired, muscle car powered OT rod in my future. Things come full circle I guess. We like what we like. This site has been great to me. Again like George, it has opened me up to actually talk to people. I don't typically, I'm very introverted, so I need to make a conscious effort to engage someone at a show or event. I drive my '63 Dart daily in the summer, and it forces me to talk to people, but I don't show it, cuz it's ass-ugly. The Pontiac in my avatar will likely see a few shows when it's done, as will my A rpu when it gets done. And I'm well aware that I'm likely the last, or close, generation to drive an old car on a regular basis. Sometimes that bothers me, but time marches on.
The Jalopy Journal
