Hot Rods Who would rather start with a truely "rough"car?

Yep. Its Like saving a dog fron the pound that no one else wants to take home because its too wild or has some thing wrong with it....you get it home and it takes you a while to tame the beast but it turns out to be a damn nice dog.

 

Some day when I become rich and famous I am going to take a perfectly restored car and make a hot rod out of it . That way there is no body work and no interior work. Until then I will continue to pick up peoples cast off's and re do them seeing as I am poor and unknown.

 

Hypothetically i would rather not, but sometimes there is a car i think someone needs to save. Sometimes it ends up being me, despite my "no more rust buckets" pledge.
Next one will be from a dry, no salt area, hopefully.
Current OT convert being worked on was not. but it seemed to need "a good home".

 

My '59 Ford was dirty and missing parts, but close to zero rust. I'm 62 and got no time to piss around with a lot of fab work. I'd rather work with something better even if it costs more up front. We used to buy the rough rusty ones for stock cars. Anything that needed to be fixed didn't have to be pretty.

 

I get it. I feel the same way when doing collision repair. You stand back and say " I fixed that" and your workmates are slapping you on the back. It definitely aint about the money on those wrecks.

 

I can only afford hopelessly shot stuff!


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Sell the best and fix the rest. I've been known to do just that.http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=760691

 

Sell the best and fix the rest! I like it.

 

Anybody can fix a nice car.

 

My 28 came to me as a ex chicken coop,all the seams rusted out,no sub frame,entire bottom 4 " of the body gone due to the chook shit and the dash/tank had been axed out in a prior life as a shooters wagon.Nail holes around all the windows where the wire netting had been nailed on to the body,overall it was rooted!Funny thing was the 4" I cut out of it was the best part of the body.
3 yrs later,I had a straight bodied car,no show car but one I used daily for nearly 4 yrs and one I learnt my meager skills on.The 30 coupe I'm doing now is made up of 3+ hacked up bodies,another nightmare.I got to admit sometimes I wonder ,but what a buzz to get over the line and driving around in something that would otherwise be land fill.

 

Compared to what some of you guys their together in a weekend I'm sure my car would be a cake walk, but I'd rather take a crusty old car like mine and hot rod it up, then cut up an easily restorable car.

 

I like to build starting with trash. I tell myself its because I've seen so many guys pay premium dollar for nicer, more complete cars, only for them to start picking at them and they start falling apart. I think I really do because I'm cheap. The '36 in my avatar was a mangled 5 window that would be a questionable parts car. This '40 sedan, will be reborn as a '40 deluxe coupe, using parts from many junk piles. That being said, there does come a point when I'm in the garage surrounded by chunks of rusty vaguely car shaped pieces when I think "Why the f*ck don't I start with better cars?"

 

Ability has to be a factor in the equation. Jim has much, so his cars can be ROUGH!! I have little, so I am much better off starting with nice, rust free, unmolested, already finished, possibly only needing waxed examples.

Jim, please continue to do what you do. Some of us like to watch from the sidelines and wish we had those skills.

 

I need a tetanus shot after reading this thread.

 

Yeah -- right in the eyeballs.

 

Well here in Australia rough is all we got! Hahahah

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Wow. Nice work. Another example of someone with serious skills. I think those late 30's Stude Coupes look great.

This was for sale here locally for next to nothing, with all the missing body parts, grill etc. I think it was actually a '38 Commander Coupe. The only thing I know is that it was gone within hours of it's posting.




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I've gone the crusty rusty route and would rather start with the best body I could afford-usually that takes me back to crusty rusty

 

The metalwork is the fun part for me, but I don't like to do the mechanical stuff. I'd rather rebuild a car around a running drivetrain than start with a rust free shell with no engine in it. Play to your strengths, I guess.

 

Bbc no jug ii8777in 77queue ii4 in

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I would like to have a nice car to start with just one time, but I doubt that it will ever happen.

I am happy enough with rough, I am not as good as some at making a rough one nice but rough is normally what I have to play with.

 

I like to start with the best I can find, haven’t built a ground up project yet, might not get it accomplished, but I have one in the works. I would consider it rough. Jim provides plenty of inspiration, but I don’t think it will influence my skills any. I keep my tetanus shot up to date.

 

The "nicer cars" usually have shoddy work when you dig in, so you end up doing it all anyway.

 

To many times I see the cheaper cost 3 times the nicer when finished If the rough car ever gets finished. I see rough projects that are 20 years old.

 

Knowing my limitations , I would start with the best body/ sheet metal that I could afford. Although I did buy 2, 1933 Willys coupes that were formerly ice racers in Vermont. They were very rough, but also hard to come by. I sold them to people that were better body men then I could ever hope to be.

 

^^^^^^^ Thanks for the lead on that MG-TC body Nick, wonder what that looks like today.

Bob

 

Bob, that was many years ago, but I am glad that you remember it.

 

No Thanks Good Projects Are Hard Enough To Finish......

 

My skills are never going to equal yours but my budget says I can only afford rusty shit so I stay with vehicles they
make somewhat decent patch panels for, such as my 50 chevy truck. I can weld a patch panel well enough to make it look decent, but would never be able to fabricate some of the panels I bought. I am in awe of the talent you and many others here have, and thank you for inspiring us reach higher.