History How many of the HAMB Members think the Customs Section has ...

completely gone its way? Apart from some very selected old-timers like myself, it appears that the Customs Section has pretty much exhausted itself. Old things do go away, and things change with time, but it's more like a tomb here than an excited place to invest in one's free time anymore. I used to get juiced here, but now I have to beat the bushes for some kind of enthusiasm. Anyone else feel or see what I see? Centurion9

 

I spend most of my time in the HAMB forum and enjoy the customs that pop up there along with the traditional stuff that also pops by. I have great respect for all areas. I like a blend I guess in a nutshell but I say no ending or going away it's part of it...perhaps some adjusting is an option...

 

I'm a new guy but I really do enjoy coming on here and seeing how builds are coming along and reading the history of some of our rides. I'm sure the old guys have seen it all but some of us newbs can enjoy this stuff too!

 

I spend most of my time in the social forums cuz it is a bit more relaxed there.

 

I have the same feeling for a while. Not much going on here.
It does not inspire me as much as it did. Difficult to explain.
One reason for me is for example that "Mr. custom" Rik has his own homepage and forum and hardly posts here anymore. And so do others.

I'm not on social forums so that's no alternative for me.

 

Never did get why it was split up in the first place. We are all car guys, we go to the same shows, why should we have different forums?

 

There's a variety of reasons at work.... One, unless you're hacking up either a 'common' car like a shoebox, Merc or something relatively ugly, or found a 'lost' custom, you'll take heat from the 'restorer' crowd ("It's worth waaay more if you don't hack it!"). When was the last time anybody had the nuts to customize a early T-Bird or 'Vette? Or a Tri-five Chevy? And when even icons like the El Matador and the Ala Kart get attacked by some as 'ugly', that tends to stifle things.

Two, it's not all that easy to come up with something new that also looks good, so you see a lot of 'variations on a theme' i.e. endless similar cars (I'll bet there's more chopped Mercs now than stock ones.... LOL). Fail to get it 'right' and you can have a car that's worth less than if you left it alone, so that tends to stifle things even more. "Yawn, another chopped/nosed/decked/lowered custom..."; safe, but rarely exciting.

Three, it's more expensive to do a custom these days. Plating/paint costs through the roof, difficulty sourcing parts or the expense of hand-fabbing them, metal-working skills, all add to the costs of a custom, generally with less return compared to a rod, certainly much less if the design isn't 'right'.

Now, if this sounds harsh, I'll note that I love customs; it's just that I love well-done ones with original thought put into them, not so much the usual semi-clones generally seen. There's still some out there, so they keep my interest in...

 

I love the KUSTOMS so repost some of the older ones for the newer members. I hope to have one some day. THANKS ! RON...

 

I like the customs forum and like to follow everyone's build threads. For the most part it's just car guys busting out cool shit inter garages with very little drama or ego. It's a slow pace for sure but that's a good thing. It kind of reminds me of a smaller community. That being said, I never knew why the HAMB was split in the first place. I usually log onto the general discussion section to keep track of what's going on and log onto the traditional customs when i want to see something join particular.

 

I'm strictly a custom guy, but I just peruse the entire forum, instead of the custom one. Yeah, the amount of traffic is much smaller, but customs take so much more time, money and effort to build, and there are few of us, so threads get posted slowly. As does progress on most customs, I'm guilty...12+ years on my 47 Chevy build. WIth no progress in the last year or more.

 

What do you recommend as an answer to the situation?

 

I'm one of those "old guys" that got started on customs in the early 60's and I like them the best. I thought that I would post my Custom build on here but got deleted after my second post. No reason given, my guess is that it wasn't Traditional. I'm still on but I don't post much anymore.

 

What was it?

 

You know, after thinking about this, we have a strictly tradition hot rod forum, a traditionally inspired hot rod forum and a traditional custom forum but no Traditionally inspired custom forum.
Maybe the custom forum could change and evolve into both traditional and traditionally inspired builds.
Just a thought........

 

I received some shitty sounding feedback on here about a few modern additions to my car that would make it a lot more enjoyable to drive. It turned me away. It would be way cooler to be able to speak freely about my custom.

 

I agree with you El Caballo, Been into Kustoms and hot rods ALL MY LIFE,
was originally really excited to find the HAMB, entered a lot of posts originally, but when I tried to share my 54 chevy bel air hardtop build I was pretty much shut down because these 30 somethings here that know how everything was when I was in High school a lOOOONg time ago, told me I was not traditional enough.
My chevy is being built in as traditional a MANNER as possible, just not using OLD TECH. but I guess that is what the powers that be want. Not my place to tell people how it was, they all know beyond a shadow of a doubt EXACTLY what was back then, evidently they all read the same magazines. Never lived it, but the magazines cannot be wrong, can they.?
I have not even logged in, in quite a while, no reason to do so. You all want to know why the Custom Forum is lagging? stop killing projects because they don't fit your little myopic view.
Customs are about innovative thinking. NOT just bolting old parts to an old body.
Most likely this will be erased and I will be banned from HAMB, over this view,