We have been building the new roadster for about 4 months now but the idea was in my head for over a year.The plan was to build a channelled 32 roadster along the lines of the Tom Branch car.See the trhread here. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=615030 In the last 20 years in Australia there has only been a handful of channelled cars done.We headed off to the Yamba hot rod run on Thursday(there will be a separate thread on that later). My heart sank when the first thing I saw was "my" car drive by. Same look,same colour.It is like someone picked my brains.I feel like the girl going to the prom in her new dress and when she gets there the first thing she sees is another girl in the same dress. Apparently the car was built for one of the rodders girlfriends who saw the Branch roadster and wanted "one just like that".They have done a good job on it too.Different wheels and steering wheel to my plans and thermo fan and disc brakes whereas I am using 40 Ford front brakes a 50 Ford steering wheel and 57 lincoln wheel covers on gennie rims. Anyway can't cry over spilt milk.Have to put the brain back into gear and come up with a different colour but all my other plans stay the same. Maybe a candy red or blue?The hot rodding community in our area is too small to do the same colour and we would both be turning up to the same runs all the time. Now I am off to cry in my beer!!!
That Roadster is pretty cool... Although I still prefer Tom Branch's! http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh98/MalcolmIsNick/2009/GNRS/Show/IMG_5311.jpg Any photos of yours? Malcolm
That sucks, well there's always "Plan B" I'd like to see that car in maroon. I don't care for the whitewalls and mags on that car, one or the other but not both, too pale looking,
devastated? really? build it however you want, who cares if someone has the same ideas. if you want to be unique, a 32 roadster is not the car to build.
Reminds me of a bass player I used to play with. He always said he could never be a song writer because when he got a great idea he heard it on the radio the next day. lol Nice car, bet yours will be too.
Wheel covers would look better than fake M/T Raders, and I would not use a V'ed spreader, or those big headlights.
TOT ALLY ???? ok, so you make plans to copy Tom branch's car but get TOT Ally. Devastated because somebody copy cats you ??? Hey, you can't copy toms car, I thought of copying it first !!! No no its my copy. the chances of building a traditional hot rod that hasn't been done before or that is completely unique or innovative as a whole is kinda slim. Most everything has been done, copied, refined, scrapped, or left iconic and quasi sacred.
no clue who built the car, but there was a period build '32 painted blue that was channeled., lowered and oh so nice...maybe someone knows the car i am thinking of.
I wouldn't sweat it. That thing isn't even close to Tom's car. Tom's roaster is just plain "right" while the car above is "wrong" in so many areas. The firewall, Lokar shifter, steering column, wheel, disk brakes, etc. Heck, its not even the same color. Don't sweat it, build the car you want to build, and don't let a car that's "kinda close" to the overall concept of your car sway you...
It's called "universal consciousness"...you and ten (or more) people get the same idea at the same time...eight will never do something with the idea...one will get right after it and build it and the ninth will work toward to the end...and never get it done... That's why the phrase "There is nothing new under the sun" was coined many years ago...and it's true. "Don't cry in your milk" is another phrase...get over it, move on and come up with a new idea...before some other guys beat you to it...!!! R-
I never even thought of that one but it has a lot of merit. I wonder what the Graffiti clone clowns thing when they show up at a rod trot or show and there are more graffiti clowns there. "hey mine is a more accurate clone than yours" Well as several said, there really isn't much that hasn't been done on a 32 roadster that hasn't been done time and time over. Forget those wheels that always say to me that "these were all the cheap ass could afford" when I see them on a car no matter what he paid for them. They just look like the car owner settled for the cheap wheels that the tire store had because he couldn't swing the "good" wheels. Almost every one on here who has been building rods or customs for a while will tell you that they have gone to a show and there is a car just like theirs sitting there with the exact color that they were planning on. Some times it's ten cars with that color and I'm not talking black or candy red. Run Steelies and little caps or Steelies, wide whites and something like the 53 Studebaker caps, change the paint shade a bit, change the exhaust to something that runs under the car and out the back and you can park right next to that car next year and they won't look anything close to the same except that they are both channeled 32 roadsters and you won't burn the boys if you lean too close to the engine to tweak the carb. In 1981 I believe a friend of mine who I think might be here on the Hamb pulled into Henry's Haulers run at Marrymore park with his F-1 pickup that he had suicided the doors on over the winter thinking that he would be the only one there who had put suicide doors on his truck. I pulled in right beside him and opened the suicide door on my 48 and he about lost it but it was a good laugh in the end. We had had the same idea at the same time and acted on it.
Whitewalls look wrong. So do the valve covers. Customizing in the 60's was the decline of hotrods. IMHO You have a chance to do it right now! Also possible they have internet and you just again described the differences you propose. If you did that before maybe they used your blueprint before you could. Careful of what you post when you're dreaming.
Friggin hilarious! Build what you like, don't worry about the other guy. His car is cool and I'm sure your's will be too. Just don't make the same mistake that guy did by putting the steering wheel on the wrong side! What's it take two people to drive that thing? The passenger's gotta steer or what?
Build a Coupe version. Grouch had a chopped and channeled green metalflake '32 5 window that was bad ass. 389 Pontiac and 4 speed.
I like Tom's car because it was a style that was quite popular in the fifties and had seemed to have been forgotten, In the seventies and eighties, alot of thirty two's were unchaneled in order to give it a resto rod look, if you are not to tall , put a chopped canvas top on it, this will make the car look alot diferent and will give it a mean atitude.
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