Hot Rods ***Hot Rod Idiosyncrasies (What are your favorite things about old cars?)***

Tailgate chains, crank-out windshields, cowl vents, closing a slightly-out-of-adjustment truck door, REALLY having to crank on a manual steering wheel....oh, and the whooom of a q-jet kicking in the "other" barrels!

....these are a few of my favorite things......

(Did I sing that out loud?)

 

I like that this:





. . . can be made into this:

 

I agree with Bloody Knucks I like my old car to "feel" like an old car, not just look like one. Thats all part of the spirit of what we do! It provides a little more challenge to hang in traffic with a 216 3sp, but it dont keep us from driving from Dallas to Kansas, Austin, Oklahoma and everywhere between. Just like they did back then, its all part of the fun. That your in something different in a sea of the same, and imagining the stories past and future these cars hold...and the "smell", thats my favorite things about old cars.

 

I like looking out thru the split windshield of a late 30's to early 50's car (that heavy chrome bar in the middle).... and the sound of the 'thru the floor' clutch and brake pedals as they smack the floor when you release them quickly... and the smell of the interior....

 

I love old chrome and paint. I love tiny imperfections in simple things like hub caps. People think I'm wierd when I wanna buy a set of orriginal hubcaps with a few dents and dull shine over a set of "perfect" ones that are brand spankin new.

I also love BLC's. How does a simple headlight look so perfect on damn near anything?

I'm with ya on the hoseclamps JJ, I have coffee cans full of em.


Nothing I own is perect...but it is all perfect to me.

 

Got my first 55 chev at 19 yrs old. By the age of 25 I had also driven a 56 and a 57. I LOVED the sound of the doors closing. Strangers would also come up to me in parking lots and gas stations so THEY could listen to the doors open and close!! peace

 

I like vent windows: they bring the outside experience in. It's so much better than just rolling down a window and each side is different.
And the smell. It's like each old car has its own. You could blind me and with one whiff, I would know which of my cars it was.

Conor

 

I gotta love the craftsmenship of the way things were done,

Like old instrument clusters and guages...


















.

 

there are special pliars that damn near do it for you, they arent hard to find either

I'd have to say the sqeaks and rattles that old cars make i'm a young guy but i grew up in a 67 ford p/u and the way it rattled, and the hum of the truck gear box i'll never forget

I like a certain sound an a warm sbc with glass packs makes, i damn near have that sound in my daily and it sends shivers down my spine every time i get on it

Also i love modified stock parts, i will go out of my way to make a stock part look like a factory piece after it is used in an unorthodox fashon

Squeal of bias, also the square look that fat bias has, like old g-60's

 

You were able to tell them apart..... Now days a 4 door sedan looks like any other one on the road and they don't do nothing for me....

 

i love my cowl vent and wing windows on a hot summer day-and the diistinct sound of a flat head ford starter motor turning over

 

I like the the extra time it takes to warm the engine up on a cold morning. Always time for that extra cup of coffee and enjoy that V-8 Purr!

 

X2

...and like vent windows, they're really effective!

 

I like the sound of a Ford flathead starter. 6 or 12 volts.

 

i like it all . Real steel, no plastic allowed. But iam really digging the thread and all the pix.
thanx j.j.

 

I love a manual choke, thumb screw hose clamps, Rajah clips, Packard 440 plug wires, home made headers, starter buttons, Ford column drops with the on/off switch, glass sediment bowl fuel filters, any old speed part that is not reproduced and can not be had with a credit card, old chrome that it's obvious that it was once on an old hotrod, add on old turn signal switches and the arrow style turn signal lights that they feed, banjo steering wheels, add on hotrod aluminum breathers on the valve covers, vacuum powered defroster fans, flashlights clipped onto the lower steering column.

The distinctive sound of a flathead growling as it is starting, the high pitched sound of a mid 60s Chrysler product starting and the "whump" sound from the AFB when it catches...skeel, skeel, skeel whuump..., a stock flathead with glasspacks and 1 3/4" tail pipes gurgling at idle and of course the sound of a 327-365 idling with the noisy valves clicking away.

The smell of any interior that has sat in a junk yard for several years, 90wt gear lube, Cam2 from the tailpipe of a thumper car and nitro from a AA fueler.

I get goose bumps just thinking about how these things affect my senses. I'm just a hotrod idiot and I wouldn't change a thing.

 

The smell my truck's engine makes after I finish beating on it.

 

Yea Heathen,I can relate!! When I smell one of those chrismas tree air fresheners I remember my buddies old 67 Camaro,292 4-speed....man it's a friggin wonder we survived....hahaha...

 

Cowl vents
The cool things I find under and in the cracks of the seats when I acquire a new car
bumper jacks
The old owners manuals and advertising brochures
The Dashes in late fifties and early sixties cars
The whine my dynaflow used to make
Period correct add on accessories
The crackle and hiss as an old tube radio warms up

 

great thread..thanks for getting it started

 

amen!!

 

The fact that the guy next to me at the stoplight isnt driving the same car I am.

 

x2

 

I think the floor vents combined with the wing windows on my 59 Chevy work almost as well as A/C.

I like the flip out window on my Model A too, it's just refreshing to have that air blasting into the cabin.

 

AMEN! That's what I've been thinking this whole thread, a Flattie starting up, especially with a 12 volts!

I also used to like the sound of the 239ci Y-block in the t-bucket when you were off the gas and coasting down a hill. It made this bubbling, popping sound that made me smile every time I heard it.

All of these little bits and sounds are what make us love OLD cars. New cars are so generic and boring, they have no soul. Even old cars when they were brand new had soul. Like for example, I'm working on a '32 sedan that has the original interior in it. There are initials under the arm rest of who worked on them. How cool is that?!?!

 

Flathead starter rolling over is the cats ass, especially while your finding that sweet spot with the manual choke. Cloth wiring is killer too!

 

They do make a set of pliars for this, but you still have to remember not to tighten in the wrong direction or they'll loosen. =o)



Hood ornaments, hub caps and trim levels keeping me busy for hours.

 

This is a tough one can I say all of the above. Nothing beats the feeling of working on and driving these old rides.

 

the first memory i have of hearing a flat head stater rolling over is 5 or 6 years old on my grandfathers truck (my truck now)

 

the simple BONK of the brake pedal hitting the floor leaving a stoplight.