Features traditional t bucket

I've had the itch for a T for a long time, I started one a while back but sold it due to a guy loving it more than me...lol now I would trade either my dart or my Effie for the right one... Any takers? My buddies the Hilton's have one I would kill for, maybe Tyler or Bobby will chime in with a pic of it.. In my opinion it's perfect!

 

Great stance, looks great, needs some ribbed fronts and grooved rears, or maybe Firestone 16x4.50 fronts and 16x7.50 rears, and I would be drooling over it trying to trade keys with ya.. Great looking T man... By the way opinions are just that opinions, please don't take it as I am ripping on your car, I think you did a great job, and would love to have it!

 

Haha you know Fred when I wrote that I was thinking who is the guy who is he?!? I should have googled his name lol.

No more posting late at night on seizure meds for me! lol

 

Oh one more thing that keeps getting thrown in as being "Fad T" is the motor cycle headlights but if you take a look at Gene Chan's T that I posted above I think in the thread I started we all said those are motor cycle lights.

So now a question when did they start being used and is it "Traditional" enough to use on a project?

Gene's T isn't the one that got me to thinking but it is the one that got me to thinking I'm really going to build one in the near future and it is the one that set the standard for my build to aspire to be.

Also my fellow HAMB'ers have inspired me with their work and to stay loyal to the original concept of these cars. I think one of the things that people get lost in is the small details that really stand out and are not so small.

I was not sure on Turtle decks until I saw Gene's T and that sold me on the Turtle decks. Now Fred and Louvers T's are starting to sway me for the bed.

I think I need rehab because if I keep on building these in my mind I'm going to have a fleet of T buckets that Henry Ford would have wished he would have built.

 

Now that is a nice photo of your T in your front yard. Is the coupe one of yours too ? And , for the life of me, I can't remember where I found the picture of your car but loved the whole looking down on the two cars scene.

 

Yeah the 48 Plymouth is also mine as well as the flamed Chevy. step side. My daily driver.

Also Whiplash I have great respect for you and all others living "down under" for not only quoting Willie Nelson (I used to do it all the time when I was an urban cowboy) but for building kool T roadsters there even with the shortage of traditional parts and the strict restrictions the government levies on you.

 

Thanks Gary for the comment. I think you explained somewhere recently on here who had signed your dash panel, who are the other signatures you have on it ? I know it is going OT but Willie would have to be one of the biggest under rated song writers of all times. It simply amazes me to hear all the different artist that have sung his songs. Another favourite is the late great Outlaw Waylon Jennings.

 

I just love the internet and the HAMB. Two guys come together half a world apart that think alike and have the same interests. I too have seen a list of Willy's songs and who performed them. Unbelievable talent! Have you ever heard the story behind his song "Hello Walls"? Crazy Willy.

Signatures from left to right not in the order they signed.

Ivo, Blackie, Roth, Edd Byrns, Norm, Iski.

 

I'm still confused after 41 pages as to the definition of "Traditional" Is it the design, year of parts manufacture, construction material, or????? If we look at some of Jerry Kugels' pussyfoot Jag suspensions from the 70's, are they traditional now?? Do you need to use a drum brake system to be traditional? Are turn signals and radial tires non-traditional? Is a fiberglass body traditional?? If I were to build something similar to what we drove as kids in the 60's on 2 lane roads and uncrowded streets it wouldn't be safe in todays traffic. With the advancements in steering, braking and tires the outward design will change very little but the safety factor and reliability would increase ten fold .

 

Pick an era. 40's, 50's, 60-65 (if you're sticking to the HAMB rules). Use parts and maybe techniques from the latest year BACK. The firmer you are in your stance, the more the traditionalists will love you. They'll also let you know what's wrong with what you're doing.

OR you could build it to LOOK like an older build, but have modern things like disc brakes and radial tires, etc.

OR you could build what you want and admire the guys who build the traditional rides.

OR you could wait 10 years and the late 60's muscle cars will come back in vogue. Seriously. This shit comes in cycles.

And now, you can sit back and read everyone else's opinion on what a traditional car is. Because for a trend that's so popular now, there sure are a lot of different opinions on what it is.

 

For the HAMB its simple:
Was it available and in use during 1965 and prior.
Glass T bodies were, so no problem there...everything else was just coming into use in the early to mid 60's so it becomes more of a question mark.
Feeling "safe" is an individual and very personal thing relative to what you compare your Hot Rod to.
I feel much safer than a very common modern vehicle when I drive a T...and unlike that common modern vehicle, I don't need to put my foot on the ground to keep from falling over at stop lights!

 

We're talking here about "Traditional T buckets". My interpretation is about a ten year period started from the Kookie Kar version of Grabowski's roadster and ending when fiberglass bodies took on different proportions than original T bodies and the advent of Kit Kars. Pretty much mid '50s to mid "60s

If you are going to build one you have to use as many of the parts that were used or could have been used in that ten year period. If you don't you might call it "traditional style" but not traditional.

You might say one picture was the start and the other the end.

 

Whoa! Curve ball! How did the bodies take on different proportions? When did this happen and if it did, how can a person even tell? I know a lot of the early bodies are thin, but how are they different than later bodies?


Footballs on! Later.

 

Fred Pay attention to Chip's thread. The first fiberglass bodies were direct copies of T roadster bodies. Actually the bucks were taken off of steel T bodies. Later in the '60s they started making them longer for more leg room and for taller builders so they could sell more. And yes you can see the difference. Thus a non traditional look.

Oh Fred multi task as I do. Football and HAMB. Remember commercials.

 

I think in one of my threads Chip posted about this too. I think it was me asking "What body to use" from what company. I would have to look at the thread again.

One of the HAMB members posted using a body off of ebay by a game named Bear and I think Chip and a few others said it looked really close to what a real T looks.

After talking with the member who bought one I'm going to either use Bears body or one from Speedway.

 

Jalopy45, you just hit one of my sore spots with the word "traditional" when used in rodding! I have always used "period correct" or "era specific" more frequently. Traditional can mean so many things to many different people. Some one who was building cars right after WW II would think one type of car was Traditional, whereas myself having grown up in the thick of the street rodding renaissance of the seventies sees a much broader view of tradition. Like wise the thirty year old guy that has spent the last decade reading current magazines or just here on the H.A.M.B. is going to have a vastly different view of traditional than mine. Each of us will feel we are correct, some will be irrefutable, some will be more so than others.

With the term period correct, if you picked '63 as your date, hell, that gives a dead set perimeter to deal with. Pick up every periodical from '63, figure out what was available then, find that stuff or accurate reproductions, Hide what ever modern stuff you want to use and go to town.

You asked if fiberglass is traditional? My thread on my car is my personal attempt to legitimize if not "traditionalize" the glass T-Bucket body. Hell, with the first of them coming out in mid '59, that's 54 years of cars being built that way. I think they have earned the term "traditional", and I think I have convinced some of the staunchest non- supporters of that claim. Yet, if we're talking a deuce roadster body out of the seventies, I'd consider it a means to an end. I certainly wouldn't kick one out of my shop and yard, but even if I did it up "period correct" with every forties bell and whistle and topped it with braided wiring, I still wouldn't crow about it being 'glass. It really wouldn't matter then, would it?

Seventies cars traditional? To the thirty year old guy I noted above, HELL NO. He really doesn't have grasp on what the era was about unless he has spent every minute of his life absorbed in the magazines and other periodicals of the era. Kinda what I did with the forties, fifties and sixties as a kid.

To me, the semi gray beard? Hell Yes! Awesome stuff going on back then with guys like Kugel, and Jim Jacobs, and Pete Eastwood, and Don Kendall, and Jim Kirby, and on and on showing us the way to do it, and laying the foundations for what we have in the hobby/obsession today. A GIANT HELL YES!

To our World War II era guy, the seventies stuff would be tolerable, and some thing the "kids" did to keep the flame alive.

And an absolute YES, I agree with you 100% that a COMPLETELY traditional, period perfect car in todays world, unless you live in a small low population place with lots of two lane roads is almost dangerous. I live in the is forth largest city in the U.S., downtown in the rat tangle that is the business/financial district with tons of commuters pouring in from the suburbs every day. A car that can't stay out ahead of the pack of zombies, can't out brake them, and is fragile is a hazard 'round these parts. I can drive four blocks, hook a left on I-10 and at the bottom of the ramp, even though it's marked at 65 mph, you had better be doing about 85 or you will be run over by some dick head playing with his sat/nav... Whatever the hell that really is.

These are all reasons why when you see my posts, lots of the time they are about installing a five speed and hiding it, or an electronic ignition, or a clever way to uprate and improve brakes without going to discs and killing the "look", or really making suspension systems right and work correctly. It's very possible to do these things and keep the "traditional" or "period correct" look of a car within reason, and I think it's an important factor in this deal.

You asked!

 

Awesome answer!!! And very true!!!

 

Actually, from what I have seen and been told by those that were there, was that as the first generation of T-Bucket body molds "wore out", (and they do) the manufacturers started making new molds off of cleaned up versions of bodies from their first gen molds. That's where it sort of started with body lines getting wider and less crisp than an original "T" body, and cowls getting a bit wider, cowl lines changing shap and character lines disappearing, dashboards in strange configurations, and the tops of the dashboards starting to "sink" a bit. 'Bout '62 or '63 was when I see the first ads for Cal Automotive for the first 'bucket bodies with a choice of 14" or 20" beds molded on. Within two years, seemingly EVERYBODY had bought one and pulled a mold off of it and was now offering them for sale. That was the first big "change" in the glass T-Bucket body. Combine the two and suddenly the original idea sort of grew away from what it was.

Then, by the later sixties and early seventies, as stretched, sectioned and wedged creations by Dan Woods and guys like Danny Eichstedt grew in popularity, things changed even further from that simple, glass reproduction body.

By the Fiberglass revolution of the late seventies and early eighties, (Remember the advertising slogan "Steel is real, But 'glass is class" Steel Rebel?!) some of the manufacturers just said "screw it". "Lets just start from scratch and really do something different with a T-Bucket body". This led to some of these companies completely sculpting something that KINDA looked like a T-Bucket body, but stretched way out, widened, and devoid of all it's character marks and re proportioned in the name of "high tech". I honestly think some of this was marketing, and I honestly think some of this was boredom on the part of guys that had been doing the same thing for the last 25-30 years. Either way, it made a very strange and fairly ugly time period in the T-bucket evolutionary scale.

And, as I have said before, Having looked at these things for the 48 years now, I really do believe that I can spot a stretched T-Bucket body from the lower altitudes of outer space!

 

When did disc brakes first appear on the American manufactured cars ? The discs on the front of my Bucket are from a 1963 Ford Zephyr from England and I used them as, not only period correct, but I prefer the non ventilated solid rotor compared to the more modern vented discs from the 70's onward. From memory the 60's Camaro's still used drum brakes but not sure when they started being used on vehicles over there. I agree with everything that Chip has mentioned about the fibreglass bodies too as in the early seventies is when somebody made the first of those extreme high backed low side bodies that look absolutely wrong and ugly. Heck, I know they have a special name but for some unknown reason my grey matter in the brain refuses to remember what they are called, so obviously not my cup of tea.

 

The mid to late sixties is when they became common stuff on American cars. Prior to that we saw them here and there on specialty stuff.

 

Damned Texans. GRRRRRRR....

Okay, I knew about Cal Automotive and when the molds got bad, people made molds from other glass bodies and as time went on and more molds were done, bodies got a little larger and some details disappeared.

I also knew about the Dan Fink tall back, low door sill bodies (I NEVER understood that) of the late sixties. Then, I remember things being stagnant for a while and suddenly the stretched body popped out. I hate them. They don't look like a T body and are too large to be a "bucket". I knew all of that and thanks for confirming what I knew.

I thought Rebel was saying that the crazy bodies appeared early on. It caught me by surprise because I had never heard about them coming out early on.

Oh. Good reading here:

http://www.tbucketplans.com/the-real-history-of-the-fiberglass-t-bucket-body/

So, I'm good. Except for the Texans losing, but we did some good BBQ, so it wasn't a total loss.

 

Well Fred you still have the Dallas game later. My Raiders lost too.

I really wasn't sure of the timeline of when fiberglass changed. Actually I was into dirt bikes in the '60s and '70s and I never had any interest in it. I really didn't get started building my roadster until '79 when I found my steel body. My mindset was formed in the '50s before there were fiberglass bodies and I had no interest in them.

 

When I got into hot rods ('72 or so) the magazines sometimes wouldn't even mention whether a T Bucket was glass or steel, but there were so many glass ones and they were so easy to spot, I guess they figured they didn't have to. In fact, for a long time it seemed no one really cared if a T Bucket was glass or not. Or maybe it just wasn't talked about or written about. They also didn't seem to care if the sizes were out of whack.

The article in the link I posted is pretty good. It's got a couple things in it that I found interesting. But I love learning, so I like anything that's informative.

 

Hey, Chip & whiplash;

Disc brakes were on Studies in '63(Avanti for sure, GT Hawk I'm pretty sure. & in '64, on any Stude you wanted to order them on, IIRC). Solid rotors. Calipers were (the "aircraft spot style" or so they were called at 1st & promoted that way. As compared the full disc type of Kinmonts) very similar to the jag XKE style IIRC, & in ~ 65 were also available on the ford mustang (gt & shelby, at least). Believe the rotor & caliper is exact same thing as Stude used. For some reason I'm thinking they were Girling, but I'm tired & brain is fried...

So, I'm seeing that kind/style is traditional - & period correct, as far as the hamb & these discussion(s) would be concerned. Used much, on the street on hot rods? I doubt it, but they were available, in parts stores, from dealers, & wreaking yards. .

Marcus...

 

Thanks Marcus for that info, that is another breed of vehicle that I believe were a step ahead of the others in design and pushing the boundaries. The Studies with there lower slicker body lines.

 

Sorry Whip, I really like you and your roadster, but I never thought disk brakes looked right on on a "traditional" T bucket. But then I am a purest. Although my definition of traditional is early '50s to mid '60s, and that is pushing it some. I think the last few posts on this thread are just making excuses for not taking the time to find and install the correct parts, if you are really going for a Period Perfect" look. As for safety, my '40s Ford brakes will lock up all four on my roadster. Later in the '50s far better drum brakes were available. It really doesn't take a lot of brakes to stop a 2000 lb. car. I'm sure mid '50s Ford truck or Buick brakes that stopped 5000 lb. vehicles would work fine.

But that's just me.

Gary

 

40 Ford or F100 front drums stop a 32 roadster perfectly

 

Exactly so lets lets throw out the safety argument.

 

Here in england we had cars in the 40's with disc brakes, although they tended to be exotica but that still don't make them period perfect on a traditional hotrod in my opinion.

 

And I like and respect everybody here too but, you are all forgetting what our hobby started out as, to go faster and build something that was different from everybody else, with items that could be even purchased at the parts store or, and this was more the case, could be salvaged from a wrecked car at the Auto Dismantlers yard and would work well with all the other parts. Now Chip summed it up very nicely and said that instead of " Traditional " maybe some, and this is where I fit in, period correct would be a better description of my car. I look at it and think, well the wheels fit, not the tyres but I have and will be driving my T hard and fast on our NZ roads, the alternator has a question mark, will research that, the body and style of it fit, so I believe I'm close to what I wanted my car to look like, something from 1965. If we all built cars using the identical parts, hell we might as well all drive Honda's. Oh on a light weight T, drums would stop it very well but then again, I have a fetish for the old solid disc rotor with chromed calliper which one gets a beak at through the holes in the rim as the car cruises .