Art & Inspiration Why traditional?

I am in my 40s, been into real hot rods all my life thanks to dads magazines from the 60s.

 

I like everything with wheels that goes "Broommmm...." And I like technique, technique that I can understand. And was designed with esthetics and pride.

And my son (20 yo) is even worse...



Leaking oil? No, sweating horsepower

 

Was 5 years old.
Believe it or not the smell of old mohair did it for me.
Ran away from home. 1958.
Was only a whole block away one evening.
There it was, an old 40 ford setting behind an old 1940's car garage. With heaps setting all over.
I jumped into the seat and the smell of old moldy mohair overtook me.
My imagination allowed me to drive all the way to California and back.
From then on I always equate old times, old cars and freedom to the smell I can never get enough of it.
Even after redoing the interior on my 37. I can still at times smell that crusty old stuff.

 

I'm not a traditional guy, I'm an Era Perfect guy. I appreciate any car build to an era perfect standard. My Volvo is build to be era perfect to a Danish kids wishes in 1970-73. But it looks more like an mid-sixties build, because we are ten years behind in the design department.



I'm born 50 years to late and I could have been around in the early days.
But those cars just talks to me, so I just can't help it, and I feel no pleasure driving cars that a younger then me, and very few cars build after late fifties, hot rods (late 60s EP builds) and trucks (big rigs) (up in to the 70s) rock my boat, I can drive anything, but modern cars are SO boring!!!!!!

 

I am still pretty young (34), my family were oval track racers.
However over the last 25-30 years the sport has gotten to be such a huge money thing.
People no longer build a car from scratch then assemble the engine and the rest of the running gear.
Now you just write a check to the chassis builder, then go to the engine builder with a fist full of hundreds.
Where traditional are more what racing once was, find a car build or modify it, hunt down parts (vintage engines, juice brakes, speed parts), and the striped down look very much reminds me of stockcars.


My father Willard Palmer building his first late model-

The chassis for the second late model-


My great uncle Don Weyle crewed for Sam Craft's A.A.A. big car (Indy car)-
Model B with RaJo head.
Sam was from Denver N.Y.

Uncle Don Weyl clowning around in the car-


The first traditional car I remember seeing and studying when I was 18 was Doug Anderson's Model A coupe one of a very few in this area at the time.

Doug Anderson's car on the July 1999 cover of American Rodder-

 

Amen!

 

Funny how that is...I am a blues fanatic and listen only to the blues both current and traditional....Pandora is the greatest invention ever for blues lovers....

 

Awesome thread.
For me living down here in New Zealand and previously being raised in Sydney Australia, I like the traditional look because of its simplicity. I like the feel of old parts combined with old technolgity, (spl?) riding down the road.
Down here its hard to be period correct as they were built back in the day in the U.S. For those lucky enough that make annual trips to the U.S to score those hard to get parts there are some really cool cars down here and that are H.A.M.B worthy as you guys get to see. That said I don't too anal about the correct definition of traditional but look at how cars were built down here in the 60's, as I'm a 60's kid, using local parts and built in a shed. Local tradition I guess you could call it. Cars that I saw at indoor car shows at the local supermarkets on a Saturday afternoon and Sunday.
I guess there is room for all sorts in this world, not on here of course, but as it has been said before traditional will always smoldering away in the background thanks to guys like us.
Cheers

 

There's only a handful of traditional folks on this board.... I prefer the term period.

Most of the folks preach traditional while running radials and some very non trad parts but are the first to point out the discrepancies in others build threads.

Just sayin.

 

Dunno. Probably. I know what you are going to ask next, no.

 

Awesome!!! I used to take my shirt off, shake my fat gut at her and bellow a few verses of "if I were a rich man" at my daughter when she was smaller...she is probably going to need therapy later...

 

I find the opposite to be true. It's the guys 50 and up that grew up with muscle cars that usually cross that line, the younger guys won't touch the later cars.

 

It's funny, I would never feel like this about a stock Model T, I could drive a Model A, but I rarther rod them up, but a Stock 55 Chevy, even with a 6 and a three on the tree, would be cool for me.

I could run a 1932 BB truck, and that might be the only truck I would drive stock.
I like old Diesel engines, and I would love to own a 2 tons 1948-55 GMC with a Toro-Flow and a granny low Four speed. Or one with a Detroit 2 cycle,(not HAMB material, i know) but at that era I lost all feelings for a US build car (except the small nova/Chevy2).

But I love to own a 50s build Model A Survivor with complete Spring in front, channeled over a boxed A frame, with a either a flathead or a nailhead, bike fenders, buckets and steelies.
But since I can't afford to buy one I will need to build one. And that is Era Perfect too.



Just as soon as I finish my 5tons shop truck (Diesel conversion, I know It's OT, but I love it), my 1929 Chevy Dry lake build and the Carbs setup in my Volvo.

 

I love cars that are true to themselves. In the 80s, I thought Boyd's builds were awesome. It was a reaction to the rods built with cowl lights and all kinds of junk bolted on them. As I got older, I saw so many cars built with a shape of an old car, but all of the coolest parts were gone and replaced with modern looking junk. Opening a good and seeing an engine bay that looked like my new truck, where its hard to see anything definable as a block, or an interior that could be in a 90 s Oldsmobile in a 30 s car just was so disappointing.
I like cars that are innovative, but they should be built in a way that enhances the car. An interior should be complementing the car it's in, not competing with it. A hot rod engine should look simplistic and sound aggressive. If parts are hand made, they should look era correct and not Cut out by a computer.
Most guys on here seem to get that. Guys who "build" their cars completely out of a catalogue never will.


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I wish I had a time machine.There are a ton of reasons why Id like to do that like for example my grandfathers customized shop truck in the early 60s.Would love to see it one more time.Traditional styling has a I made that,personal attachment to it that modern,catalog ,bought,style cant duplicate. Simpler,cheaper,honest, average Joe kind of thing.
Today everything looks the same and has lost its zing.Without getting too PC, I think everything in general was better back when Traditional was just common place.We should never forget our roots.

 

My first car in 1964 at 16 was a 57 Chev 210 coupe that I built with junkyard parts and did not own a prewar Hot Rod till 2000 and that was a long way from a traditional Hot Rod. I like the traditional look or maybe I should say time period (50's 60's) Hot Rods/cars, Then Again I like all cars and appreciate the time and efforts of fellow rodders/hobbyist. Been playing with cars for 50+ years and my taste has changed some with time and definitely not a hard core HAMBer as my choice is the look, but with modern conviences as I drive my cars and want to be comfortable, (68 now), my free advice to you getting into hobby is enjoy it and your choices, being a young man, you've got time to figure it out, what makes you happy, the KEY to the Hobby and life....A suggestion, check out the albums of posters to see their lifetime of FUN !

 

I love old stuff, my fridge and stove are from the 40's, my sewing machine is from 1906...

But this is what I don't understand really; when I see some famous fabricators online or I'm at a show, the doors or hood of some old ride are open everything looks like it might be from a 2017 BMW or Corvette. The slick grey upholstery, textured plastic or engine covers. Usually there's a circle jerk going on around these things. oooohs and aaaaahs. 1/16th gap around the doors, so what?
So why would you take something old and cool, remove just about everything that makes it so then insert bland lifeless modern grey plastic/leather shit? Why not "customize" newer cars this way, and stop picking on the old ones. Is this what Boyd started and Chip is finishing? I don't get it. Someone enlighten me (us).

 

Because it's what I grew up with..

.

 

I've been shaped and informed since childhood. What I was able to read and what I watched happen in real time sowed the seeds. While I can deviate just a bit I never stray too far from the old way. My most focused efforts are 30s restoration which keeps me between the lines.

 

Why a traditional rod??? Because it just looks right!!!!! Because it reminds me of when I was younger and I was in awe of the cars that the older guys were driving that they built with stuff that was available in junk yards and traded for among friends. That's why I built my 52 flatfender Jeep old school style; Buick odd-fire v6, granny low 4 speed, power locks front and rear, and it goes the same places as the high tech rigs for a lot less dollars. Requires a little more finesse but the fun factor is way high for over 30 years. Now I am building a 30 Model A coupe old school style as best I can; 8ba flathead,Isky 400 jr, two 94's, Bubba's distributor, Offenhauser heads, F-1 open drive trans, 3.78 banjo rearend, 46 juice brakes, stepped rear frame per Vern Tardel instructions. Got it running last spring and it sounds so good . Have a few older guys keeping me aimed straight and advised as to how it was done back in the day. I am retiring at the end of this work season (operating engineers heavy equipment operator) and cant wait to finish it. The fun factor is way up there and it doesn't have to be plugged in to diagnose it. Everything is seat of the pants and built by myself.

 

Until you sit in a chopped Model A watching front tires turning away wondering if all the bolts are tight, unable to talk because of the open pipes and a row or two of carbs stick up past the cowl, the doors don't quite latch tight and the window cranks' frozen with the windows down and windshield cracked open letting in the racket from a hemi, its barely above freezing and your ass is hurting while ripping down the road in the middle of nowhere thinking:
MAN! IT DON'T GET BETTER THAN THIS!
All it takes is just one time and you'll be trying to recapture that moment for the rest of your life.

 

When I was growing up, billet aluminum and tweed interiors were what rodding was all about. Musclecars had air shocks and were jacked up in the back. They had tires that stuck outside the wheelwells. Yes, this was cool! For me, my older brother and his pals were my influence. They all had musclecars, so that is what I had. As I get older (50) the older cars I like. Kind of a progression I guess.

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Difference in territory I guess.

 

I like traditional cars because that's where it all started, but I can appreciate anything that's done well. What's important, is keeping the car hobby going, because the way things are these days, we need all the help we can get , whether it's street rods, muscle cars, etc. It's going to take interest in more than one style of car to keep it going, but I have noticed, more young people are starting to get involved in building traditional cars, which is a good thing.

 

Indeed. It wasn't "traditional," it was the latest thing. Beginning in the mid-50's, I read every car mag I could get my hands on. Mt first car was a big V-8 powered Model A Coupe Hot Rod I built from parts when I was 17, in a buddy's family's dirt-floored single-car garage with hardly any tools. Then Hot Rods became street Rods, and I lost interest. I decided a while back that it was time for me to build another Real Hot Rod, then I discovered the HAMB last fall. I'm now building my second Hot Rod at 71. I now have an "official" shop to work in, and it has a real concrete floor! (And I now have quite a few tools to work with, just none of the exotic stuff like metal-shaping equipment or bead rollers.) You can read all about my "new" Hot Rod at the "T-V8 Build Thread." Here's a link: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/t-v8-build-thread.1011604/

 

Well Ben, it's just the way cars should be.

 

I never grew up around "hot rods" more of the muscle car era. However I think that my car being a 1961 Fiat 1200 Roadster gave me the appreciation of "keep it simple, stupid", probably why I love my 1995 Jeep, and now traditional Hotrods.
I'm determined to build one someday.

 

Being born in the 90s, the "cool" cars for my generation are civics or store bought "hotrods" that afford you every comfort and lack style or soul. Modern cars today are only fads. In 10 years, the cars of today will be seen as "old" and "uncool" and the general population will have moved on the the next newest thing. But a traditional hotrod will always be a traditional hotrod. They are the purest (and if youre like me the ONLY) form of hotrodding. They are true time capsules and have something that no new car has or will ever have; soul! Each and every car is unique and is a direct reflection of the builder and the image he/she has seen in their head. You couldnt just go to the store and buy a hotrod. It had to be built with your hands using creativity and elbow grease. Traditional is timeless and will always be cool.


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My eyes have told me what I like for 50 years....

 

I'm into all kinds of styles of builds including traditional. If I were just into traditional it would be like, just liking blondes, and I like more variety than that.