Hot Rods EVER FINISH A HOT ROD OR CUSTOM & NOT ENJOY IT AS MUCH AS WHEN IT WAS UNFINISHED?

I did this with my Model A pickup years ago, I built it over the course of a year and on a shoe string budget it was my daily driver for several years and then along came the mono chrome look and I decided t take it apart and slick it up.

When I built the truck I envisioned the color as canary yellow, I loved the moon disc and I all the simple trim pieces that make the Model A's so cool, but I was swayed by the new fad of no chrome slick and smooth and I painted the truck red.

when I got it back together I hated the look, I had screwed up my truck and within a few weeks there was a for sale sign on it, had I adhered to my original plan of yellow I would probably still own that truck.

Anyone else follow a fad and not your dreams? HRP

 

Well, fads die, seen it so many times... Myself, making one too nice, is almost a nail in the casket, worried about everything etc. I think if you went yellow you would have had it that way for a while, yellow is a color that just dies out... Look at your sedan.... Used, driven, and no worries of rocks etc. Has me thinking the sedan should stay that way.... And who knows if you painted that thing yellow you wouldn't have the sedan now.... Everything happens for a reason...

I've regretted doing the full slick job myself, I like good drivers... I guess its part of the "done" factor, and when a car is "done" your done, gone as far as you can go kind of thing.. The want to do this or that different goes away, then money ends up being a factor, how much more will you spend to do a full change again, or is it cheaper to sell and start over. Id say my favorite cars I've owned are rough around the edges, 20 footers max...but 50 footers are better road cars....

 

hell yeah.

 

I’ve never finished any! LOL!

 

I would say my T touring was that way. After I finished it we immediately moved out to the country. Driving it on the gravel didn't bother me but I just realized I don't want an open car for my main hot rod. Don't dig the sun and windburn, don't like skin cancer.

 

NO..........

 

21 years and it still ain’t done. It is driveable tho. Snowman

 

Every single one. To me driving them is the biggest let down of the whole build process. Since they do what I know they're going to do, there is nothing left for me to do but maintain. And I love creating, hate maintaining. After the fifty, hundred, two hundred mile test drive, it's down the road with somebody else's ass in the drivers seat and his money in my pocket for the next build.

 

I don't mind driving a car when I finish doing what I want to do to it, it usually increases the value and I start thinking about what I could trade it for...
Right now, I would probably trade the T for a nice '61-'63 T-bird...

 

I can't enjoy a car that's nice, I'm always worried about something happening to it. I can appreciate a great paint job and amazing body work, but my cars will never have one. Half of my car enjoyment is watching my wife or kids drive off in one of our hotrods. Brakes, chassis, engine, interior work are all things that are done right on my cars, but not paint. I always say rust and dust is a must.

 

Yes, I have seen some stuff that I knew was 'too nice to drive', until I think back to the '47 Cadillac in Kerouac's On the Road that was supposed to be delivered from Chicago that ended up being pretty much destroyed in the process. I'm like that with any new pickup I've ever owned. When they're new I baby them a little, and then they become what I call "Cowboy Pickups", not that I don't service them. I guess this comes from driving my grandfather in his always newer Oldsmobile sedans into the various pastures where he had this trick to get the cattle to come up up so he could bump the cows to see if they were carrying calves, and to check for pink eye and so on. He never left salt blocks in any of his pastures but carried a sack of it in the trunk that he would ration out in lines when they came up. Yeah. So to me everything that is old was once new, only someone got to make it old. I guess that holds for too nice, and so on. Guys it's all in how you look at the inevitable decay that time brings to objects and subjects, we being more susceptible than we are willing to admit. Being kind to a machine is a fine thing, but babying something just because you don't have the heart to hammer on it is folly. If you don't, someone else will. Trust me.

 

I think that the drive to do something new and to push my limited skill set by doing as much as possible are the fun part... thrashing it once it's running will be fun too, just don't think I'm programmed to be the type to show my vehicle.

 

I’m worse than that. I did 3 Chevy IIs in about 30 months, just trying to sharpen my skills and it’s like an art project. I never enjoy driving them my pleasure is letting some one else have them. Will stop after the roadster. Just bought a sewing machine. I’ going to create interiors.

 

HRP , you knocked a home run ,with this topic . Worst thing I have done in a long long while , is put shiny paint on my 32 . I drove my 48 truck for 70K plus fun miles in DP 90 , the OT Power Wagon is approaching 80 K on a Cummins swap , it’s brush painted ! I just hate to polish and clean stuff , the ones that get used are where the fun factor is at for me .

 

I hear you, I loved my Model A pickup when it was just a daily driver beater at best.

It's like the truck lost it's soul when it got slicked up and painted, I turned my old school hot rod into a street rod. HRP

 

3 Chevy II's, sounds like you have a slight obsession. HRP

 

Once I finish a car and drive it a bit it seems to get used less and less and then I end up selling it and starting something else. I've never been happy with anything I build but see every mistake every time I look at it.

 

Great topic-
I've been wondering this a lot lately. My recent project is another '59 Edsel, this time a 2 door hardtop. The previous builder/hack had started on it about '02 and did some drive train upgrades, '73 390, '67 heads, aluminum intake, with a 750 Holley double pumper- yeah that was yanked off and sold- C-6 trans. Car was originally a gold exterior with green guts- strange colour combo and one of 500 built with that combo in '59.
So, I am altering the grille as I did on my last, '59 Impala tail lights added, cause they just look right, lowered, original interior reinstalled. I am going to use '61-'63 T Bird exterior door buttons as a salute to the bitchin Lincolns that had the same.
I don't mind it in primer, as it will be as I correct rust issues and fill in and shave different items from the body.
An end game of bright and shiny paint etc sound really cool, but, I still want to drive it and not worry about scratches and idiots.
You folks out there with completed vehicles, do you take it on the chin and go forward with a door ding, or does the stress of the unknown cause you to not drive the car as often as you'd like?
I want to drive the Stranger and have a calm mind-
Thoughts?

 

I could give a few although slightly off topic examples but to be brief there is no room in my life for things that are "so nice" that I would hesitate to use them. I'd still consider myself to be pretty particular about how things are treated and respected, but they're of no use to me if I can't use them.

Lynn

 

My old beater has looked like it does for the last 33 years, the last paint job was applied in 1963 from what the original owner told me, I love driving my hot rod and will jump in and drive the car on the spur of the moment, I have the car insured and another scratch is what may happen and nothing to worry about. HRP

 

I want my stuff to have good paint, rock chips and scratches only mean that I drive it. I've never had a profession paint job on a hobby car, I do my own body and paint, and I'm far from an expert. On the other hand, I'm not afraid to drive one with primer spots or the whole thing in primer.

But my problem is I always see something else that catches my eye. I'd be like Jay Leno if I had his kind of money, but I don't, so I can only have one at a time, to get something else means something must go bye bye. And there are so many vehicles out there I'd like to own, both HAMB friendly and OT.....

 

I have a minimum of a mile of gravel road to leave my house and hit pavement. One thing I love about my 40 is that it was painted in 1973, for $85. It is far from perfect. but it presents well, and I do not have to be paranoid about the car.

 

Yep, my 68 firebird.

Before I finished it I spent countless hrs running dirt roads, drifting corners and just basic good old sliding side ways as much as I could on the gravel.

Then after finish body work, new paint and vinyl roof it was one great looking muscle car but the thrill was gone, all I could think of was worrying about gravel chips....

Needless to say my manual trans GTO never got painted

 

I try to finish mine to the best of my ability and that finances allow. Quality paint int etc. Then we drive them but take care of them as well. The 40 in the avatar was done in 08 and driven many miles. During that period we reshot the front fenders once and the hood twice due to rock chips-no big deal. A couple of years ago after a little trip my wife noticed a couple of chips on the rear fender . When we got home we took it off immediately (1 hr) and had it reshot 3 days later and a few bucks-all good. Her 55 is very nice but she drove it for many years. When we redid it a few years back we had the hood reshot and the front fenders blended around the parking lights etc due to rock chips etc-again no big deal to me..

 

All of them...never had an old car that I actually liked to drive...searching for parts...assembling stuff....that first fire-up all are so much fun....pulling out onto my road out in front of my house...the love stops there...too slow...wont turn...wont stop...the ride is terrible too....people try to run you off the road...they gotta get in front of me to jam on the brakes and turn in front of me...

The hardest part of this old car hobby is how much you lose when we go to sell them...red every single time in the build ledger...

MikeC

 

I haven’t ever done that to myself partly because I helped a friend ruin his pu. He was a body man and loved doing traditional custom bodywork. He was always making changes to his daily driver pickup that he drove in primer always. His wife finally convinced him to get it painted and he had me do it. He then put nice wheels on it and got a nice interior in it. He then was able to show it, etc., but it lost its cool factor. Pretty sure it completely ruined it for him. He could no longer change stuff and had to be careful with it. I took that as a lesson and have continued to drive beaters myself.

 

Not to get off track but in the last few years I've had several basal cell carcinoma's and a couple of squamous cell carcinoma's requiring additional knife work, I can't emphasis enough for everyone to use sunscreen, especially if you drive a roadster or convertible. HRP

 

For an average Joe, nothing takes the fun out of a Hot Rod faster than an expensive paint job...just saying!

 

For me, I like shiny paint, everything I've ever owned has been shiny, including my race cars, will say that as age has caught up with me now the flat black paint job with red/white pinstriping is becoming more appealing, If I repaint my Mercury I believe I will go that route, it's a thought I've been entertaining. All my vehicles, all my life I have tried to keep them as nice as practical, but do drive them so some paint chips/etc. happens and try not to get upset when it comes. Like many here I drive them, I enjoy driving them, said many times, the cruise fun matches the destination fun. I have seen too many times a fellow car guy about stroke out over someone touching his ride, getting a stone chip etc. can't be much fun for them IMO