Hot Rods What are 5 of your favorite TRADITIONAL hotrods of all time?

What are your personal top-5 favorite hot rods of all time? Or better still, what are 5 of your favorites, knowing how difficult it is to list only 5?

@Jive-Bomber s JJ feature on the Spurgin-Giovanine hotrod got me to thinking (once again) . . . what are my top five favorite hot rods of all time? (S-G is one of them).

First I thought about bringing this thread https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/all-time-roadsters.309053/ back to the top, but the "roadster" limitation is too limiting . . . there is no good reason why a closed coupe or a gasser should not be among YOUR favorite hot rods of all time, if that's what rings your bell.

Edit Dec.28, 2017:
Old School HAMBers please take note:

Why the hell start another one of these threads? There have been many of these over the years, true.

The problem is that the vast majority of the pics are gone from these old threads! The great old threads are no longer first-rate archives because of this photographic deficiency. They are still good resources for the historical information, but these threads lose most of their punch when most of the pics are merely red X's now.

My goal here is to establish a good resource thread in which the vast majority of the pics will remain permanently. I will ensure this happens by periodically reposting pics of the cars mentioned in this thread, but these reposted pics will not be hosted by a third party internet source; rather the pics will be uploaded to the HAMB from my computer - they will remain on the HAMB servers as long as these servers remain viable (decades, we hope).

I'll start it off, knowing it is hard to pick only five:

Mooneyham & Sharp


Spurgin-Giovanine



McGee


Spencer


Pierson Bros.

 

One of my top 5 would be Fred Steele`s purple 32 Ford Roadster.

 

Dean Lowe's old roadster pickup for me.

 

Now if you ask about 5 cars that didn't belong to me. I would say Dean Lowe' roadster pickup is one of my all time favorites. Markleys roadster is another along with Tony Waters drag roadster. The Peek Bros. roadster was another. And Ivo's T roadster pickup. Kind of a pattern here. All of these rods were Hot. These cars were not built to look like the fast cars. They were the fast cars.

 

Cripes
I hope you don't compare this with the previous "top five" lists

Jim Ewing


Gary Kessler


Cotton Werksman


Larry Roller


Mark Westrick


Alan Button

 

That's 6 DDDenny!! Now which one are you going to take out LOL

 

I was told there would be no math today.

 

Gee-- not to sound like an Arrogant SOB, I'm partial to my own followed by the Spencer roadster.

 

Here goes.


Pete & Jake's '34

Jim Busby
S-W-C ( Black Widow Car)

Yeakel Bros. Roadster

 

I'll do three leave me some room for the other two. In no particular order.

Jack Carroll's coupe

Collegiate Coupe

Andy Rafferty's 32 roadster

 

Top of the pile Spurgin/Giovanine '25 Chev roadster


2# Bob Rufi Streamliner


3# Ray Brown T roadster


4# Paul Schiefer 1925 T


5# Ken Crawford/Jerry Stroner 'Look' Magazine roadster


Hmm, there all from the Forties

 

Tom Prufer's '34

 

15oz coupe would be up there

 

^^^^^^X2

 

The Spencer Roadster has always been one of my favorites along with the Neil East Roadster. I'm pretty sure I got to see the Pierson brother's coupe run at Bonneville in 1988 when Tom Bryant was racing it and that one has always been a favorite.
I also got to see the yellow Pete & Jake coupe at the NSRA street rod Natonals in Tulsa in 1973 that was the first event I ever took my 48 to. That car was all too cool sitting out back with a group of guys around it. Not power parked, just parked where they stopped to talk to someone with their other rod at the time alongside it. That was just after I had had a go around with the gate guard at that gate over the year of my truck and his concept that it shouldn't be allowed inside even though I had been running in and out the front gate for two days. I came pretty close to ending up in jail for thumping him right then but calmed down after someone else interceded. Some where in my photo archives there are some photos taken with an old 126 Instamatic camera of the coupe.

 

My top 5 looks like this for the curious it’s half ‘47 diamond-t truck and half ‘37 Ford sedan delivery.the graffiti coupe. ‘Nuff said.the Doane Spencer roadster.Did I mention I like FEDs?It’s number one cause my father and I built it. Any objections?


Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

This is exactly why I started this thread, I want to learn from you guys. I have many of these hotrods already saved to my personal files, but too many of them I don't know that much about. So, please feel free to educate us about your favorites. In my Fred Steele file I have many pics of his white T-bucket, but only one of his purple Deuce.

 

Bet we get a lot of votes for this one, especially from you guys who are old enough to have drunk the magazine Kool Aid back in the day. Dean, please chime in, and yes it is perfectly fine to have your own ride listed as a favorite, we wouldn't expect anything less. That should be why you own it (or owned it) . . . it is one of your favorites.

 

Beautiful. Damn Rich, I've always admired the fact that you have been steeping in rubber and gas fumes for many decades, but these are some great hotrods. Please tell us a little something about them if you get time. I especially love the Rambler (it is a Rambler, right?), but the salt cars are also dripping cool. And you must tell us about the mill in the red model A.

 

OK grab your notepads folks, class is in session. I absolutely love the fact that Go-Fast is your number one criteria for inclusion in the hotrod category. And if I may offer a sidebar opinion, I would say that, generally speaking, the older guys would all agree that speed is the number one hotrod ingredient, whereas with the younger crowd not so much. Please, let's not start a shitstorm over this comment, of course there are exceptions either way. Just in general.

Allow me to illustrate Rich's opinion. We have already seen Dean's bitchin' RPU.

Markley. Correct me if these are not the versions of these cars that you had in mind. I lifted this pic from @HEMI32 s great tribute thread https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...special-roadster-a-pictorial-history.1068746/



Tony Waters


Peek Bros.


Ivo's T RPU

 

Haha! Tell me about it, this is probably a moving target for most of us. Thread title should be "What are your top-5 favorite hotrods today?"

Oh man, so perfect that you included @3wLarry s gorgeous Deuce. Love it.
Class continues.

 

Nope, don't sound like that at all. Some beautiful iron there. Just love the East coast cycle fenders from a guy in Connecticut.

 

Love it, more speed. And more education. And here you go, an iconic gasser in the favorite hotrod list, just like it should be. But please tell us about the blown Hemi T-RPU.

 

Holy shit, those are 3 gorgeous hotrods, especially the Carroll A. Need to take a timeout to catch up on my homework!

 

Awesome. Two more that I know nothing about, but will learn: the Schiefer T and the Ken Crawford/Jerry Stroner hotrods.

 

This class' guest lecturer roster is impressive, I appreciate all y'all who were there back in the day chiming in. A model 40 hotrod is as good as it gets, IMO. This one seems to have it all, love it!

 

He built it in the 50`s then proceeded to drive it from his home in Mass to California. Wow. Won a trophy and drove home. He owned it until a few years ago when he sold it before he died. Still unchanged from when it was built. That`s the cool part.

 

Black Monday

Thanks for the reminder @Speed Gems

Now class!
Pay attention here @BrerHair

Did you get this?


Now class, the color for Tuesday will be RED

 

The McGee Roadster for sure. I'll try to narrow down the remaining 4.

 

It's a '59 Studebaker Lark. The red '32 has a twin turbo 270 GMC in this picture, Junkyard Corvair Turbos. At different times I had a 354, 392 and a 302 twelve port Howard head GMC in it. Paid $75 for the body and frame.