Hot Rods Never saw a "30's" hot rod as a youth

I grew up in NJ close to New york city, for a time period reference,I was 17 in 1964...I never saw a "true" hot rod car on the street...In fact there were about zero 30's- early 40's cars of of any type on the road. Rust wasn't too much of an issue so it wasn't that.NJ had yearly state run safety inspection and it was difficult to get a modifed car passed...There were plenty of 50's 60's cars with modified engines running around and lots of street racing. First time I saw old hot rods was drag cars at Island drag strip around 1963...
I used to look at the magazines and think the west was where all the modified old cars were....

 

I don't think hot rods were as common as we would like to think.They were largely the domain of guys under 25.I can only remember seeing 4 before 1965.They may have been more common in high school parking lots in 1957,but I was too young to check that out.If you lived in a urban area with limited parking old cars disappeared quickly to allow room for the "good" car for the family.Time eliminates cars quickly too.In high school in 1969-72 55-57 Chevys filled the high school parking lots out west,and could be bought for 250 bucks.By the time I got out of the service in the late 70"s trifives had thinned out,and it would cost you 1200 bucks when you could find one,and only a hard core guy was looking.They would sky rocket in popularity again later.

 

Where I am from , live in Va 30s car that where Hot Rods where common so where 15-20 ( mid 60s - 90s ) speed shops after ww2 to mid 1990s , Northern Va , small towns about ever 20-30 miles or so in a 100 mile air radius, since then (90s) all have turned into Cities , In my Area it was like what you see in American graffiti, Street racing all the time , Old Dominion Speedway ,Manassas Virginia was the oldest drag strip on east coast . started 16 th of a mile dirt , then late 50s 1/8 , closed about 8 years ago , To many complaints from people livening in homes $4000,000 up .
There is a lot of history here not like as much on the West Coast , few locals Bunny Burket ,
Lee "General"Edwards, Lee day , Jonny Rocca , Carton Phillips, Sunny Leonard, Royce Miller , KS pittman , Selock , ( do not know the correct spelling) Warren Johnson, Tommy Franklin which now owns Virginia Motor Sport Park in Dinwiddie witch is on NHRA Circuit.
,many more . Denny Hamlin lived in Manassas when discovered by Joe Gibbs when gibbs showed up to buy part from Denny , when Gibbs was starting race team and that started Hamlin's career Professionally.

 

I agree with truckedup.
Being a teenager in the mid 60’s, the only cars I seen driving were muscle cars. The earlier 30-40 stock cars were only found at a few specialty car shows.
We are talking specifically cars on the street here.
No wonder we are all ga-ga over early Hotrod’s.

 

I was in high school in the 1970s and I only recall one 30s hot rod anywhere in our area (Minneapolis generally). But think about who hops up cars and races around.... mostly young people, and what do they drive... cars they can afford. In high school we had 60s and 70s muscle cars. Back then I paid $1250 for a 70 Chevelle big block and sold it a few years later for about the same amount (damnit). Now a days I see and hear mostly small foreign cars, especially those damn WRX Subarus (which are pretty quick by the way). The kids of today are probably having the same conversation we are, but theirs is about 80s cars!

So now I’m finally building a 30s hot rod. One.

 

I was driving them to high school in the '60s - my avatar is my '31 in 1964. There were quite a few hot rods around my Northern Nevada then. Certainly the '50 to '57 cars, especially Chevies, populated the high school parking lot.

 

Up here in north central Iowa in the early 70s was my first hand introduction to old hotrods. The first was a very kleen 3W 32 Ford in a garage of a house we were looking at, next was a 57 Nomad then a buddy of mine got his brothers 55 Chevy along with a 41 Ford pu. This is all about 73 or 4. Street racing was still going on so muscle cars and street strip cars were more prevalent as daily drivers but the hotrod were garage queens, my buddy with the 41 was probably the only pre 49 car in the school parking lot of 1500 plus kids.
In 75 there was a kid in auto shop that bought two Shelby GT 350 for 700 each, complete running driving cars. Cars weren't even 8 years old.

 

only a couple in my town growing up in the sixties......a deuce ( i had access) and a 37 Buick (didn't care). We did have a lot of exposure to 30's coupes and sedans though....lots of circle tracks nearby and those were the bodies, and sometimes frames ,of choice. Makes me crazy now to think about the iron that was cut up for those cars, but it was the times and those guys running that stuff were our local legends.

 

Didn't see them in Maryland growing up in the '60s either. Fair amount of Street racing in '50s and '60s cars, but the only real hot rods I saw were in magazines. I drove a '41 Chevy pickup to school with 15" wheels and baby moons with a "Mustang orange" paint job, but it had a '59 straight six in it and I didn't really consider it a hot rod. Oldest ride around though...

 

I grew up in a small town in southern Virginia and there were quite a few pre-war hot rods around in the late '50's and early '60's. There was an active local hot rod club and a drag strip within reasonable towing distance. The hot rods tended to be either Model A based or '39 &'40 Fords. The nearby roundy-round tracks had used up all the '32 to '38 coupes.

 

There was about 400 students in my graduating class, maybe 100 students had cars.The license age was 17..In 64 the H.S. hot car was a 55-56 Chevy with 265- 283 stick and 4.11 posi...I had a half primered 56 Ford Victoria 292 with a Hurst Mystery shifter.I think the shifter cost near $50, big money on about a buck an hour... Some early 50's Olds coupes with the typical noisy lifters. Slow straight 8 Pontiacs...Some Mopars including a beat up 58 Desoto with the dual quads. A few rich boys with 50's Vettes...The coolest car was a 50's Stude coupe with a stick Caddy, a gutted interior and locked rear axle..And some motorcycles..

 

Here are some pic that I found here on the HAMB a few years back posted by another HAMBer who lived in the Area, He might chime in & post more, Old dominion speedway in Manassas Virginia , the House in back ground , one of my cousins grandmother lives in the house , built in 40s ,later it turned into the concession stand , track is long gone ,but the house is still standing a bandit ATTACH=full]4544428[/ATTACH]

 

No one had a pre war hot rod when I was in high school in the 60's graduating in 1965. When I was in jr high on Bainbridge Island, Wa a buddy who's folks owned a pretty good size farm (housing development now) had a stripped down Model A coupe that he would drive down the driveway and park by their gate and catch the bus most mornings and then drive back up the hill when he got off the bus. When I was at a high school football game one night some "older" guys showed up at the came and parked down past the end zone where they let people park around the field on what was the school track or just inside it in a chopped and channeled Ford coupe with a then big V8 that was pretty rough and in black primer. Can't remember What engine or what year the body was but it was somewhere between a 30 Model A and a 32.
After I moved back to the valley in 1962 one of the Sr. had a stock Model A sport coupe that he and his friends had a lot of fun with. The car was pretty well thrashed even then but it always seemed to run. One of the girls a year older than me drove a nice 41 Dodge coupe that was stock but she really impressed us with her driving when she backed it out of the high school auto shop after we had done some work on it one day.
The guy who ran one of the local shell stations in the middle of town had one of the first 62 409 Impalas around that he always seemed to have the motor out of and had a rather rough but seriously cool 36 Ford chopped, channeled and shortened truck that I may have the grill shell off hanging in my shed that I picked up at a local swapmeet a number of years ago.
Bob Norwood who later gained a big rep as a Ferrari tuner in Dallas but in the 60's was the tune up dude at Anderson Motors in Grandview Wa built a 361 Mopar powered T bucket with one of those big wide cross rams on it that was pretty wild. It showed up around 65/66 but he didn't drive it much when I was going to trade school in Grandview and had classmates that hung around with him a lot.
That was the same time as Robert (not yet Evil) Knievel worked for Don Pomeroy in his Sunnyside, Wa bike shops and the guys would come to school telling stories on how this blowhard down at the bike shop claimed he was going to jump motorcycles over cars. They probably quit laughing at him a couple of years later.
That was about it for older hot rods though a grand total of very few. .

 

Born in 1960 and grew up in Garland TX. There were muscle cars but lots of older stuff too. Early 60s Impalas, a few early model Ford pickups, and one early model Studebaker pickup that was the shit. I think it was called Little Annie's Fannie and it was raced in front of the Jack In The Box and Garland High School on Friday and Saturday nights. Most of the muscle cars didnt stand a chance against that old truck.

I worked for what my mom and dad called an "old hippy drag racer" at a Fina Gas Station and he had A 57 wagon with a flame job on black paint that was strictly a drag strip car. It had what seemed at the time 3' of Tarantula high rise intake with a couple of large cfm Holleys. He would occasionally back it out onto Saturn Rd in South Garland and smoke out the taco stand doing burnouts and then drive it into the bay and close the door, go into the station and lean back in his chair with his feet up on the desk and wait for the cops to show up. Fun times!

 

Back in the day (early to mid sixties is what I remember as the hot rod hay day) I was deeply involved in the hot rod scene. Did lots of cruising and street racing and off hand cannot remember seeing 30's cars on the street. Attached is a picture taken at NY's Westhampton Drag Strip of the 36 Ford drag car we built in my Grandpa's garage. Originally flathead powered which was swapped out for a 327. I'm the skinny guy in the middle.

 

In 70 or 71 (born in 58) I was doing a paper route and a old guy on the route had 2 40 ford sedans (stock) and was really out of place even then

 

I was lucky during the 60's growing up in the midwest. To me, hotrods were the norm, not the exception. My Mom owned a 4 unit apartment building converted into 2 large apartments and rented out the upstairs apartment, and 3 of our 4 garages to a young tool & die maker whose passion was hotrods. He had a Olds powered 40 ford sedan, and his daily driver was a 57 chevy also olds powered(seeing a theme here?). Hell, my Mom's everyday car was a 64 mercury marauder with a dealer installed 4 speed. There was always something going on in the garages with different hotrods and I was 'tolerated' as I hung around because I was the 'little' prince. My mom, all 5'2" of her, ruled her domain with an iron fist. And her rules were simple. She had to be able to get in and out of her garage, the snow had to be cleared(so she could get to work), and everything garage related stopped at 10pm. While I liked the 'hotrods' I was lucky to find a mentor who got me interested in sprint cars (building/racing), or I might never have learned the skills, or felt the rush of high horsepower and open wheels.

 

Im not near as old as most of the guys repling to this thread, but you actually could find a few pre-war rods scooping the loop on a Friday or Saturday night in my hometown when I was in HS in the mid 1980's. There was often a 35 Dodge coupe, 46 Ford coupe, a rough fenderless 34 Ford pu and the 40 Ford coupe I drove. I also drove a 55 Belair and another kid had a metalflake 53 Chevy. But most of the hot cars that could be found in the school parking lot were '67-72 Chevelles.

 

growing up in Phoenix in the 60s hot rods were common cruising central was a big thing

 

Grew up in a small town about 10 miles from Pittsburgh. I can recall several hot rods starting around 1959 when I was 13-14. But I was hooked on hot rods and customs, so I sniffed them out where ever they were. No, they weren't a Ford in a Ford, or a Mopar in a Mopar. BOP was popular in just about anything.

 

The shop teacher, Jerry Taylor, had a Deuce roadster, but in the educational attitude at the time, I had college potential so No shop classes! A few years prior to that, I a saw few others, one was a Model A roadster from out of town set up with full side curtains for all weather driving and a another Deuce roadster when visiting relatives. This one I gave the name of " Yellow Bird" because of it's color. Yellow body with black highlights and full fenders also in black with dual ashcans. At least that's how I remember it, I was less than 10 years old. Thanks for the memory jog. This Is Why I Love the HAMB!

 

I was lucky enough to have grown up in Southern California in the 50's/60's and remember seeing a lot of pre-war iron cruising around, I can think of several at my High School. There were a lot of tri-five Chevy's as well. Muscle cars weren't getting popular until the later 60's.

 

The neighbor behind us had a 37chevy coupe with a 394 Olds and a T-10 as his daily driver. In the garage he had a 59 Impala w/ factory 3 deuce 348. He'd bought it new and it was seldom driven, but by the mid 60's he'd swapped the 3 speed for a T-10 in that one too. Otherwise a box stock car with skirts and factory dual rear antennas. He was a 100% disabled veteran due to terrible leg injuries from a land mine in the Korean war, yet he hobbled along and ran a garage his whole life. One of those men you had to admire for the fact that he was always determined that a pair of legs full of shrapnel wasn't gonna keep him from doing what he loved to do.

2 classmates in high school in the late 60's had 32 Fords. One was a fenderless 5 window and the other was a full fendered sedan. Both SBC powered. Both were bought as pretty nice finished cars as neither of them had enough mechanical knowledge to change the plug in a lawn mower. Both eventually wrecked and totaled.

Another guy, a few years older than me, had a T coupe he'd put together with a 283 w/ 4 deuces. It disappeared for a while and when he brought it back out he'd swapped a 409-425 into it. Complete with the original unboxed T frame, no front brakes, and death trap engineering from one end to the other. He was one of those guys who believed he did his best work after he'd knocked down a quart of liquor, and it showed in everything he did. Kinda sad really, as he was real sharp mechanically and could do most anything he set his mind to.

Lots of tri-fives around then as they could be bought for near nothing. I had a 56 150 I'd put a 327 and Muncie into. I stripped it of about 4 previous barn quality paint jobs and my dad fixed a couple dents and welded in new eyebrows over the headlights to replace the previous chicken wire, newspaper, and bondo rust repair. Got the body all straight and solid, but never got it past primer. My mom had done a lot of furniture upholstery as a hobby and she reupholstered the rear seat and panels in black vinyl to match a pair of early corvair buckets I'd put in the front. Got a new set of chrome reverse at JC Penney when they had them on sale for 14 bucks apiece. Pretty good dependable ride at that point, and selling it a couple years later was among my dumber decisions.

 

I was born early 1946- when I was growing up in a small Northern MI town the boys 5 or 6 years older were building hot rods- even when I was in HS in the early 60's a few hot rods were being driven daily- I was that kid that was a pain in the butt but most allowed me to hang around as they were building their cars- my best friend at the time drove a 1930 Ford to school every day- at that time it changed to more '50's 60's car but even then muscle cars were becoming the car of choice- I never owned a muscle car nor had any desire to buy one- I drove my '53 Ford in HS and a '59 Corvette while in college- Still some hot rods about as a fairly active car club-

 

I remember seeing a Model A coupe about 1961 that had steel wheels on the rear and the parallel spring bounce. I'm sure it had a modern engine too but it still had the Model A wire wheels on the front and I wondered if he had hydraulic brakes on the front. I saw Model As with 1935 wheels too.
There was a fenderless hotrod near my junior high school. I looked for it every day but it wasnt there very long

 

I lived a bicycle ride away from the Ayala Brothers shop in ELA. Lots of hot rods, customs and race cars. Low riders weren't a thing yet. This was from 1955 to 1958. My taste, in cars, is stuck in that era.

 

I graduated high school in 74. There weren't many pre-war cars around then, and those that were around were well hidden. The 5 or 6 dirt tracks within 100 miles of us killed off a lot of the 30s and 40s bodies. To compound the problem, the muscle cars were getting real cheap to buy. Couldn't build a hot rod for what you could buy a used hot performance car, so most of the guys that had the hot rods just had them parked. There were a few 50s cars some of the guys had, but those were pretty rough and had performance car drive trains.

We didn't start seeing pre-war cars around here until about the mid 80s, when Detroit no longer made hot cars. By then the "restore your performance" group started being a pain so a lot of the performance cars that still survived got parked or parted out and the 30s and 40s cars came out of hiding and became popular again. I saw more 30s and 40s cars & trucks in the late 80s and early 90s then I ever saw in the late 60s and all through 70s. Gene

 

I grew up in the U.P. of Michigan . My dad had the neighborhood garage and tolerated the local kids hanging out in the short summers. The family across the road had 5 boys , I had 2 brothers plus some others. One drove a 29 ford sedan with a flathead, his brother drove a 36 ford coupe with a Y block, his older brother had a former Michigan state police 57 2 door Chevy with a 283 power pack with a 3 speed.
My older brother had a 50 Chevy with my dad's old GMC dirt 6 cylinder. My oldest brother went in the air force right out of high school in 1960 and came home with a 56 Fairlane convertible.
I built a 33 Chevy coupe with a 324 olds. Got in too much trouble with that and my mom said it had to go . so I got a 49 ford coupe and stuck the olds in it.
the summers were short and the winters were long and lots of snow and ice. Everybody had a winter beater that had some sort of salt damage.
The muscle car craze hit in the mid to late 60's and everybody got rid of their old hot rods for new muscle cars. I got a 62 Galaxie 500 XL in 66 with a 406 . I worked at the local Pontiac dealer when I was in high school and they took in on trade for a new 67 Pontiac 428 2plus 2.

 

Finished HS in 77, I don’t remember even seeing a pre war car, much less a hot rod. Might have been a few AD and F1 pickups around, and a tri five Chevy or two, but mid 60’s pony and mid sized cars ruled the streets. I was probably 19 or 20 before I ever saw a pre war rod anywhere but in a magazine.

Thinking back,there really wasn’t that many of us high schoolers that had our own cars, most drove their parents cars if they drove at all. I had saved money from every odd job I ever had from age 13 to get enough to buy that first 67 Mustang. Most kids didn’t do that, I knew I had to work to get what I wanted because my old man sure as hell wasn’t going to buy me a car. I even had to pay him part of my income after I got a full time job, but that’s another story....