Hot Rods In light of Ryan's recent thread

I have been playing with and building hot rods since I was a young teenager and have heard most of my live that the demise of hot rods & custom was inevitable, it hasn't happened yet but we are still hearing the predictions, Lets face it age is taking its toll and the influx of younger guys and gals that subscribe to the traditional hot rods & customs are not going to be enough to influence the manufactures to cater to this demographic.

We are seeing some company's changing their focus and others bailing for more lucrative markets with the import and truck crowd.

I don't have to depend on 1-800 parts to build my chosen styled cars but there are some important manufactures that if they fold it will be much harder for the average guy to piece together that rusty Model A he drug out of the woods or a field.

Walker Radiator comes to my mind, they made a great product and have had a strong reputation of quality & service and it's been a standard here in the South, but they have closed the doors.

Support the company's that make a product you need. HRP

 

I think we will see more consolidation. A lot of the smaller vendors we use got their start in the 70s and 80s and are aging out. An earlier time frame but Parr Automotive in OKC did this and instead of selling they just closed it down. We already see Ecklers and Speedway scooping up brands and product lines. There is a ton of tooling out there for early Ford parts that is an asset to these bigger players even if the company isn't viable to purchase.

 

Luckily Chassis Engineering was picked up by Heidts a year or two ago when CE closed the doors. As far as I know they still make most of the CE catalog (except the forged axles) with the same quality. I bought a Crossmember from them recently and it's a really nice piece.

When I built my 40 Ford, I spent a lot of money with the Early Ford Store in Ca. Sometimes their prices were actually better than the big box parts houses, but it made me feel better supporting a small business.

However, it's hard not to spend money at Summit, there prices are pretty good, and they are only 20 minutes away and can have most parts ready for pickup the same day.

 

Time marches on, things will change as the world constantly changes. Our car Hobby will always be here, maybe just different. Side note on the market for our beloved rods/kustoms, there have been several doom and gloom threads here , yet go shopping on the net, if anything the prices seem to be up, I've been watching this for a few years now, looking to sell my Merc, I'm thinking many like me wanting to sell car, not give it away to some asshat car flipper, Also I like many do not have to sell so I can wait it out. The rudeness of the buying market today has surprised me, but a little common courtesy, respect is becoming a rarity in general. IMO.

 

I occasionally look at some of my magazines from the 70's, they were saying the same thing then.

 

The day no one is building hot rods will be a sad day.

 

As long as I have scrapyards, I’m good.

 

Oh, and never throw a usable part away.

 

And keep a stash of junk

 

That's just part of life. Everybody worries too much about things that are out of our control. Live life the way you can. Enjoy it and make the best of it while you're here. That's my mentality.

 

20 years from now there will be no auto mechanics. With electric cars it will be plug and play with drive train parts, only thing for a mechanic to do is brakes and suspension.

 

Nope.
Guys are already tweaking electric cars.
Motors, batteries, computers are all rebuildable and capable of being modified.
As technology changes, so do the tools and techniques.

 

I'm going to start a New Old Auto related business, it's just going to be Sounds of Exhaust. Every kind out there as long as it's Loud. That way when this new Batt powered Junk takes over I can at least sell Kool sounds for the Old guys to listen to while traveling. Of course those guys are the 30 and 40 year old Pups of today.

 

Another dumb thread. Post #10 says it all.

 

I'm just going to keep on having fun with my cars while I'm still breathing, thank you, kids will be doing whatever they find to be fun long after I'm gone, including modifying computer code to really smoke those samarium cobalt electric motors - hotrod parts are a niche market, companies that I think will survive will be those that provide services in addition to parts, and cater both to racing and street customers, sounds like Speedway, right? - not reality I know, but I love the part in Demolition Man where Stallone finds the 1970 Oldsmobile W30 in the tunnels under San Angeles long after electric transportation appliances have taken over the streets, and the misfits go crazy over an actual petroleum burning muscle car

 

Tesla Donks coming soon to a car show near you

 

You have to look at the “younger” crowd and what’s affordable for the car hobby.
So what is available (pre-65 to keep it HAMB friendly) for a 1500 or so bucks that is drivable? Not much, right? So what do the younger folks do is buy a import, spend cheap money on go fast stuff, and have fun. Sound kinda familiar for 50+ years ago?
So who does the after market places target if they want to be successful and continue keeping the doors open? The occasional FH speed parts, or import parts that are being used now?

Heck, I didn’t lead a charmed life and if I hadn’t bought what I have now, to be honest I don’t think I could afford to get into the pre-65 or so scene now.

Sure, there’s always swap meets that will be there with all the parts needed, but it will be a long time before someone is able to buy a Ardun conversions for 50 bucks. My kids BF was putting on a turbo or something this past weekend on his “hot rod” he bought used from someone upgrading their car. He paid a 100 bucks for the complete conversion for his engine.

For who ever said that “they read about the same thing in the 70’s”. Well, when was the last time you could walk into a store, buy a Holley 4bbl and intake, and walk out in 20 minutes with parts in hand?

 

I had to order a SBC water and fuel pump from the local parts store.
Non stocked now.
Same for the one wire alt

 

The chip shortage is starting to make changes in the new car industry, Ford has yards full of trucks they cant deliver due to the shortage of chips for tech features, Dodge are I think delivering without GPS and they aren't the only ones. They haven't outlawed combustion engines or refuse to register early cars yet!
Where we live I am certain that if it was affordable to buy or build an old car for young drivers they would be very popular.

 

Cody tried to sell several times, but no one was interested. Summit and mail order type vendors have put the hurt on brick and mortar stores.

 

Thank you so much for your insightful thoughts on a dumb thread, please elaborate and help us learn how to post thread's that would meet with your approval. HRP

 

I didn't know about the closure until after it happened, I think you were the one that told me? I would have been interested since I had just started my company at the time and inquired about buying another one. I bought tens of thousands of dollars from Parr when I was ordering for the shop.

 

Liz was trying to get me to buy it, but I wasn't really interested in starting a new business mid-life. Plus, I think they were probably out of my price range.

I was just perusing Gibbon's site and I guess they got out of the fiberglass business as well. Sold off to a guy in your neck of the woods.

 

That was quite a while back after Kyle Bond ran the company into the ground. That addy is about 40 minutes West of me. My folks lived over that way for a few years

 

I am not up on stuff.....I just googled it to see if they survived the pandemic.

 

Seems you can get most everything you need from offshore manufacturers, and can source it online through some major retail suppliers. The word 'monopoly' comes to mind. It's time we realised that you can't source your stuff through these avenues, and then complain that the small specialist guys are shutting up shop. It's sort of our own fault............

These comments are not aimed at any individuals in particular, but rather at the industry as a whole. You may say that you are not one of these consumers, but for every one like you there are many who do buy the other shit....

 

Old cars are expensive. Always have been. HAMB era cars are pretty much out of the reach for most guys under 30, with young kids.

Modern imports are pretty cheap. The young guys can afford to buy and work on them. Most eventually grow into older cars as finances allow.

The hobby is still strong, it just appears much different then it looked like when most of us were young. You can't find a HAMB era car behind every old barn or in any junk yard anymore. Most of those were scooped up in the 60s & into the very early 70s. All that is available now is a pile of rust, or something someone saved. As those guys that saved all the old stuff die off, enough of it will return to the 30-40 YO somethings and the process will start over.

I think most of us are paranoid because we see that the young guys can not get the old cars the same way we could back in the day, and we just can't picture how the process can keep going. We also view the parts supply with the same vision. The young guys are going to have to rely on manufacturers to make the stuff we used to find all over the place, or they will have to wait the the guy that kept all those old parts to die off and hope they were lucky enough to be close enough to snag up the parts.

I'd keep going, but I dropped my crystal ball and now it quit working. It also appears there is a shortage of crystal balls, they are back ordered all across the internet... Gene

 

Hey Gene, I can lend you my crystal ball as a temporary replacement. It's a cheap China knock off and only helps predict "near future" events. Right now it's predicting that I'm not "gettin' any" tonight

 

I don't want your crystal ball! I don't need one that will keep telling me that! Gene

 

If you live long enough you see trends stuff go in and out of style. I love old cars as a kid ,mustangs ,model a ford and jeeps as well. It was easy to find rusty model a fords locally and even run across a early V8 cheap. I remember flathead speed equipment was at scrap prices along with early hemi crap. It was independent suspension billet alum anodized crap that was expensive. Traditional parts were junk and cant tell you how many of them ugly ass 32 pine winter fronts I passed on. Unfortunately the model a ford got popular along with mustangs and jeeps became POS that still nobody wanted. Heck paid even less then a couple hundred bucks for them beat up early broncos too . So drove one of them Broncos for 20 years. The early flathead fords were again outdated and muscle cars where Hot along with foreign cars . Yes certain cars had long time followers but they also faded in and out.
The jeep in now the minivan of the 80s traditional original paint cars RATROD muscle cars replaced with FAST EVOS and WRXs and even electric vehicles..
I don’t believe the car or old car hobby is faltering but is changing. Think about what hot now and it’s kinda going back to a simple time and old school.