Features **Model T buckets/RPU's/Roadster/Tourings official photo thread**

Some early 70's pic's from OZ

 

Based on Project T built by NZ Hot Rod mag in 1974. Mine was first on road in 1978 and has had a few changes since but is still the same car of course.

Changes include
engine 396 to 454 to 454 & blower to 540 & blower
box a whole herd of powerslides now manual shifting with transbrake
rear Ponty diff to 9 inch
two bodies (one burnt in fire)
two chassis
a few front ends
various disc brake setups
too many different wheel & tyre combos (now on centerlines)

But still the same old car. Hoping to run in the 9s this year, because hot rods deserve a day at the drags

 

why did all sense of style disapear from hot rodding and especially t buckets by the 1970s? I'm serious. I dont get it. where any of you guys around at the time? what did you think? Did you actually consider them as stylish?I would love to hear from any one that was bulidin cars at this time?

I'm not tryin to be rude. Im just a 26 year old dude trying to understand what caused such a dramatic aesthetic shift.

 

It wasn't just cars; it was fashion, architecture, and everything else. The aesthetics of the 1970s took everything that had been going on in modernism since the 1930s and took it to its tragic extreme.

Something was going on culturally at that time that I don't fully understand. A kind of post-Vietnam malaise that we're still dealing with to an extent.

-Dave

 

It started getting weird in the mid 60's. Look at the show rods that started popping up then, no proportion, little "taste", many cars built then were just an exercise in "being different." The fallout continued through the 70's, but like was said already, everything got weird. Look at advertising during that era, everything was "hippie" styled.

 

In fashion, I've heard it referred to as "the Peacock Revolution"; when conservative men started co-opting the psychadelic themes of the previous decade.

-Dave

 

Yes, the seventies sucked on many different levels. As big Cheese said above it was across the board and included music as well. But the question was T-buckets, and I have another theory as to this. A common name is "Fad T"... For a reason. In the late sixties and early seventies every auto motive magazine printed had an advert or ten for T-bucket kits. They were every where. Whe some thing is entry level, people that are not nessarily the most knowledgable about things throw their hat in the ring. Soon, much like the mini truck boom of the nineties, or the VW boom of the eighties, it settles into a game of one upmanship. If you don't have a solid grasp on tradition, then what you see around you sets the bar. If his top is 24" tall, won't yours be cooler if it's 26"? Won't your car be more eye catching if you have twice the ribbon graphics running around it?

In the more mature world of Street Rodding at that time, The resto rod movement had cars becoming more tame, and more refined. Rear tires came under fenders, stance became more practicle, wheels and tires fit the cars. Whether you like to think about it or not, some the early "high tech" cars that Buttera and Coddington were doing then were cool as hell, another fad that went way over the top.

There was several good things about our hobby in the seventies, just not t- buckets for the most part.

 

Thanks guys! I get it a bit more now.

I Suppose its like the shock value rat rods people built with to be the rattiest or lowest or least safe that we have today. they do not neccesarrilly represent all hot rodders, just an attention grabbing one upping bunch who are chasing (and recieve) attention for being the wildest/ most ridiculous.

Makes sense to me. Anyhoo, T's are awesome

 

The attention-grabbing bit is certainly part of it, but the rest of what Need Louvers? said is very true also: Rat rods, like T Buckets, look affordable to outsiders and attract a lot of guys who don't really "get" traditional hot rodding, but want to be a part of it.

In that respect, I'm always nice to rat rodders. I figure their hearts are in the right place, they just need some guidance.

-Dave

 

I've been around the "Roddinghobby" a long time. Seen many "fads" come and go. Seems like when a fad gets ahold, it gravites to the extreme and then back to center.The one thing or type of car that always garnered attention was the traditional rod. Think of all those cool late '30's tudors that where smoothed out and painted PINK! LOL

Ron

 

As usual, Quinn nails it. Now, who in the hell said "Hey, wouldn't my hot rod look really cool if I painted ribbons on it?"

More importantly, who was the guy's buddy who said, "Hell yeah man, DO IT!"

That trend never should have started!

 

That trend started with Jerry Stich's T wrecker built with Andy Brizio. I believe Art Himsl did the graphics on that one. I guess most figured if it's good enough for Andy, ......

Ron

 

'Zactly! And if that's good, more must be that much better! and I think you are right - blame it on Himsl. Talent, hell yes! Taste? HHHHMMMM!!!!

 

Accually the ribbons showed up on bikes a couple years before. Himsl did some terrific fad jobs on his "Alien" and some customs. Very talented Painter for sure.

Ron

 

bumpa

 

I hear you Chip. BUT, I love a lot of Himsl's work. I think much of it, whether we're talking hot rod paint or modern furniture or anything at all that deals with design, is that when you have crafted something that is right on the edge of cool but edgy and even slightly uncomfortable, copiers of said style have little to no wiggle room. Typically, someone who tried to pull off a Himsl style paint job would come up short, even if only by a few degrees. Just enough to take something edgy and make it something much more embarrassing.

 

Ya, I gotcha on that one and understand what you mean. Back to Himsl though, I can sit and look at technique and craftsmanship all day long, it's just when you stand back and take in the whole... And I can agree too that those that imitate easily go WAAAAYYYYY far over the line, But Himsl was the master of the Bay Area bucket painting thing for a couple of decades, and I think the constant "what's next?" pushed him over the line himself, lots...

 

Sure, it happens. Something admirable about the very few who DON'T color within the lines though.

 

Absolutely!!

 

a couple i've messed around with , never finished one yet !!! ughhh!!

glass bodied bucket


Shot at 2007-05-30


Shot at 2008-11-28


and a steel bodied one that a friend and i are currently putting together to sell


Shot at 2011-08-08


Shot at 2011-08-08

 

Here's not the greatest pic of my T from B'ville this year (let Dad take it, still cleaning it!). Early '50's Olds motor, hydromatic tranny, cut-down phaeton body w/ an A bed, '33 Chevy Master Deluxe gas tank, '40 Ford frontend, split 'bones, A frame, '40 Willys steering box, Hurst Cheater slicks...fun, very powerful, rides like a hardtail! If I can figure how to load more pics, I'll post them!



And one from Billetproof, WA from '09...

 

A Wisconsin guy by the name Stan Johnson designed and built this car utilizing the smallest Chrysler V8 at the time.

He set some records at 143 mph in the Quarter.

The car was sold to a gent in Europe and went on the "Show Circuit" for a while.

After a short period of time the engine was taken out and the car sat in pieces and was sold to a HAMB'r in Kanada who's presently gathering parts for restoring it back to it's glory.

I"ll see if I can find that thread!

 

Saw this nailhead T at Bonn. this August. I'm willing to forgive the disk brakes on back because it doesn't have fronts and all the other kool stuff on it.

 

Some T's from the Vancouver, BC area.

Early 70's, but a 50's build


Ernie Koverchuk's T in 67. Was built in the early 60's


Stu Braddock's T from the 50's redone


Carl Jacklin's T featured in the early 60's


Another 50's build in the 70's Notice how 26-7 bodies seem to be the favorite. Maybe because they didn't have all the wood in them.


Gary Cooper's T roadster


Jim Winter's bucket that he built in the 60's while in high school. This pic is from the early 70's but he still has the car and drives it a lot.


Gary Lang's T in the early 70's


Carl's T in show form


Same car on the poster for the BCHRA reunion

 

Great pics, thanks for posting them. Not a glass car in the bunch!

 

Kinda Kool! Driving on the salt a real Kool +.

 

I really liked this one.

 

Holy cow, he's alive! Where ya been???

Also, thanks for those B.C T's photos. Dig the Canadian content

 

Hate have to quote all the pictures again, but I wanted to point out that the first car shown (with the gold centered Americans) is actually a later version of Jacklins car a little further down the page. Jacklin's version of the car differs little from Roger Melenchuck's version before it, and he credited HarryMuller as the original builder. The car was fetured in Hot Rod annual #2 a couple of pages down from Dean Lowe's RPU... Always been one of my favorites. I have a feature in a Street Rodder magazine from the early eighties on this one, and it wasn't looking so hot then. Does anybody know what happened to that "T"?

 

Never left Graham. You just ain't lookin' in the right places.