Period correctness: When does it become self indulgent/destructive...

As the title implies, this is more of a philosophical question aimed at instigating discussion. It's highly subjective and there are no right answers but I think it bears some thought...

Example (autobiographical)...

You want to build a car that's as close to being period perfect as makes sense to you. This will be different for everyone, but for me it meant trying hard to keep the variations to the tires, upholstery, brake hoses, etc...

You also want to build a car that would have been built in the era you're shooting for (my case, pre 1950), but is still unique, and interesting. This would be something that is true to the era but not repetitive and has something for the eyes to enjoy upon inspection.
I like model A roadsters on 32 rails and I’d seen enough 28-29 As on Duece rails, so I chose a 30-31 body. I have always considered Spencer’s chassis to be about the most beautiful, well proportioned, frame ever, so I decided to pay homage to him with my frame….

So here’s where the dilemma arises…

Do you find a stock 32 frame and cut it up, or do you start with repo rails and build something new?

If you choose the 32 frame, you are going to spend a butt-load of money up front most likely, and then you are going to make it unrecognizable to someone who might need one for their restoration or for a full-fendered hot rod, etc...

If you go with the new rails, you can’t really claim to be period perfect any more…

So what would you do?

I knew that if I chose to start with a gennie 32 chassis, I was going to remove the stock x-members, replace them with A front/Rear ‘members and a 39 center member, pinch the frame, fill all the holes, box it (Spencer ‘boxed’ his with an extra set of deuce rails!) and bob the front and rear horns.

I thought it would be incredibly selfish of me to basically destroy a good Duece chassis, so that I could claim the illusion of period correctness…

I went with ASC rails and gennie A front/rear, and 39 center, members.

There are probably hundreds of examples of similar decisions that you run into when attempting to build a ‘period correct’ traditional hot rod.

So where do you draw the line? Why? Give us examples…

 

uhhmmmm.....you really have to destroy two perfectly good deuce chassis to make your frame the way it should be.

Usually this stuff ends up being decided by how deep your pockets are. Isn't philosophy fun?

 

It depends on you. I know thats what everybody says, but its true. Some folks have no problem cuting up original stuff, while others might think about restores, etc... As usual, I draw on my airplane experiance. In Reno they race highly modified WWII fighters. Some say that its a sin to cut up rare planes like that. Others say that the racing heritage makes them even more valuable. Others are just glad to see them fly. I'm that guy. At least you're doing something with it instead of letting it rot.

 

I believe if you intend for the build to be period correct, then a new part that is designed to look old should not be over looked just to be perfectly period....that's gay. For instance; I purchased a rebuilt toploader with open drive. I'll admit I was a newb and did not realize it until I had already bought and paid for it. I'm on a tight budget and just moved forward with the build...later I had to buy the open drive conversion for my banjo, once again newbie decision. So, now I have an open drive hot rod that was designed to be early 1950. Learning experience, next time I'll do more homework. To me, I won't really give a shit anymore when I take my first spin. BTW, I used ASC rails too....shhh don't tell anyone.

 

Personally I too went through this dilemma and decided that its fine to use repro parts if they really look like the originals. I used a repro steel '32 grill shell on my 60s era '30 coupe so that I didn't have to cut up the original commercial grill shell that I had. (Even though the guy I sold it to probably has it hanging on his wall and it will never be mounted on a car again) That also saved me the work of filling and smoothing the top.
Think about it this way: nobody expects you to use tires that were made pre-war. Nobody expects you to use only vintage glass in the windshield. Nobody cares if the spark plug wires are new cloth wrapped wires instead of NOS wires. If its made today, but with the same materials and style, then it seems to me...its period correct. Even if everything on your car was genuine vintage, its still a new build and wasn't around "back in the day" and therefore won't ever have that history. But it will look "right." I say a new frame is totally acceptable. Anyway, its just too hard to find vintage welding rods so that the whole car is 100% period anal.

 

There was a time long ago that I worried about this stuff also. I was once proud that I never cut up a good restorable car to make a hot rod. Well actually back then the restorers were driving the prices and not the hot rodders. We couldn't enjoy the pleasure of starting with a nice car. We could only afford the junk that restorers said were too far gone. Some cherry stuff by todays standards.

There will always be guys buying older restorations and selling the rolling frame to make a 4W independent air conditioned street rod.

That being said...I hate it when someone takes a cherry original body and cuts it up into a cartoon characature of the original to make an unusable show car. If you have that much talent, start with a rust bucket.

Do what you feel is right for you. Wasn't it the Neal East Duece roadster that was an old hot...restored to a cherry original and then later "unrestored" to it's old hot rod configuration?

Now if you are restoring a well known hot rod or custom then I think you are screwed into using only the correct parts.$$$

 

Something tells me that by 1950 someone had built a hot rod using the open drive line from a 47 P/U. It would be period correct for me. Just don't put Buick drums on it .

 

Not giving my opinion on your dilemma.
Only alittle insight on my ideas of choices and life.
"We are our own worst critic."
And that is not a good thing as i see it.

 

I pretty much got out of the Mustang show thing because of the date stamp, correct overspray, orange peel, trailered to perfection cars virtually sucked the fun out of meeting up with and dealing with the politics of club life. It has been said before that PEOPLE SUCK. I cannot subscribe to that completely because there really are too many good people here warts and all, but people that have become engrossed in being at the Nth level of perfection with regards to their cars are obsessive and no fun. They have lost sight of why they were into cars in the first place.

 

Were the vehicles of the period you wish to emulate "original" or did their builders try to build them as tribute to an earlier design?
Is every part, piece, thing from that "period", fabric, metal, paint, tires, gas, oil, air? If not how can it be period correct.
I believe that one can only build a vehicle "in the manor" of the period. Such a vehicle would be built to pay homage to those that preceded us.

We build cars to drive, to express outselves in a way that makes us feel alive. If some of your personallity isn't in a build why do it.

I get a kick out of the posts that begin with "What should I" name, paint, use, etc. with "my car".

 

I believe in function ofver form in many cases, and I will buy new or repro when it makes sense. Anybody who cares and gives you shit for repro stuff is as bad as the guy at the Muscle car show looking down on the Hamb'er. Do what you like and answer only to yourself. Personally, I'd sell the old frame buy the repro and spend the difference on some other period styled stuff. or maybe some more tools.

 

Unless you also plan on cutting up 1950 somethings to make your own patch panels to fix any rust, I'd say you made the right decision.

 

...damn Kilroy, talk about makin' someone feel guilty...

Yes I started with a cherry, mint frame and cut it up...but...the body was toast, so I don't feel as bad.

When I get done with the coupe, sometime in '07 I'm gonna sell her and build another from a Brookville 3W...just because...

 

There is always the word "money" coming up in these discussions. Everything
costs money and if you can't afford what you want, then you have another
dilemma. I think you might be looking more for the moral dilemma? Cutting up
a frame that is vintage and never will be original again. Sometimes it's hard to
draw the line, but when it comes down to major parts of the car, like engine,
body, frame etc. then I would consider a genuine part as impossible to do
without. It's not a new wireloom in exact replica that we are talking about.
It's a highly visible frame on a period-built fenderless hot rod. Most people
don't care, but they don't understand the excitement the rest of us have for
the period correct cars either.

But I would never consider NOT using a not very unusual part (not saying it's
cheap, though!), when I want to build a period correct vehicle. And the
reason is straight against what hot rodding is about. It's saying that the
modifications we do to the cars "destroy" them. That should come from a
fanatic restorers mouth, not from ourselves. That's putting down on our love
for these cars...

Go for the original frame...


Just my (very personal) 2 cents...

 

My 2 cents:

It becomes those things when it stops being fun and becomes work.

In tackling my project, I constantly run into walls or up blind alleys trying to find the period correct part or trying to re-fabricate the same.

I have decided that I am going to have fun doing the research, learning the skills and searching for parts to see how close I can come...but I also want to have fun doing the rebuild and hopefully driving the result. So... I will compromise when I have to. When I'm done, I'll know how close I came to that goal and by able to tip my hat to the guys who had the time, money, skills and patience to go all the way for that period perfect rod.

Good Luck!

 

How about I just stop working on my truck, then you can buy it and finish it?? It's cooler than a 3W

 

When you have to ask questions such as these. I'll never understand the period correct thing. I see a car in my head, then I get it as close to that as I can with my resources. Cool thing is, I don't answer to anyone, I have fun and allow it to remain a hobby. I think once your mindset goes into a moad where things have to be perfect (in this case period correct) to everyone or anyone, the fun is gone.

Mootz

 

its funny how we all make fun of the gold chainer's and there cars but any one building a car that is made to a year with no newer parts whould have been a gold chainer car then.

it all comes down to how you justify it in your mind.

 

Period correctness is ALWAYS self-indulgent. You only do it for YOU.

It's like a contest with yourself, to see how exact you can make it to your interpretation of the period. If somebody out there had a precise formula for a period hotrod, with no exceptions, then it would be easy. But it would be their car, not yours.

 

Fuck deuce rails... I'm lookin for an Essex frame

 

I basically say do it to your satisfaction. When people built these rods new, they did it to the quality that they would be proud to ride around in. Do something that you would be proud to ride around in.

I have people all the time wonder why I would put an old flat motor in a hot rod. "You could go faster with a SBC" (I'm not starting a war here... keep reading). I personally just think the flatties are neat. I'm know I'm not going to have a track winner. So basically, I'm building a life size model of a cool 50's car. But I'm going to do it to a level that I can be happy with.

I've collected almost everything old. Very few new stuff on my build. I did that because I just think the old stuff is neat. Not that I'm trying to be correct about anything... I'm just putting a pile of neat stuff together so I can personally drive down the road and say, "wow. look at all this old stuff go."

I too used ASC rails and a reproduction lowered front A crossmember. almost everything else on the car though is old. Not because I'm trying to do it "correctly" but because I think the old stuff is cool. I like the dents... I like the pit marks. I like that it looks like it has had a life prior to me. Lets see if I can bring it all back to life and have it work harmoniously together.

Whatever you build, someone is going to seriously be drooling over it. Who cares about the others though. Build it so that YOU are drooling over it every time you hop in!

 

Depends on when you want to drive it.

 

Unless you find a barn fresh period perfect hotrod built in the forties, you are just recreating a style of a certain era....use whatever it takes....cut when needed....then drive the shit outta it.

 

What if 'Perfect' is how you saw it in your head?

What if you aren't doing it to impress anyone else and shooting for the 'goal' is one of the many factors that makes the build fun for you?

What if one of the main reasons you remain interested in the hobby after years of building and being around modified cars, is the idea that you can build a car that's a perfect time capsel to a free-er time?

Let's face it...

With ASC, Brookville, etc, it isn't that hard to build a model A on a duece frame without really doing that much fabrication. A fair proximation of a 'Traditional Hotrod" can be built with a couple of wrenches and decent credit....

The challenge is in the details... Period Corectness is simply the way you detail a car.

 

Bingo! Well said.
Were not these guys in the 40's-50's "doing their thing"? Yeah there was a "standard" of sorts depending on what fit into a certain dry lakes or circle track class, but there was a lot of experimentation going on, with what was available.

Is a self imposed fanaticism for period correct HOT ROD parts, which were often times thrown together from then cheap available junk yard items, very far removed from the MAFC or EFV8 guy who obsesses over some mid-production cotter pin change? We hotrodders don't seem to have a problem ridiculing THAT.

But if that's what lights your bulb, that's fine. But building a car for the enjoyment, learning skills as you go, and driving the piss out of it ranks higher for me. Do you really need a NOS 39 muffler bearing? Cotter pin correctness and lock-step be damned. Do it your way and have FUN. IMHO

 

Right. That's the idea right there...

But I really don't want to turn this into a condemnation of, or justification for period correctness as a whole...

I also don't want to focus on what I did and why... Although I'm fairly proud of how far I've taken it so far and where I've stopped...

What I'd rather discuss is how far YOU took it and why?

 

I guess you have to decide whether you want period perfect or a car based on a certain era then. If you want to go with a new frame, do it but it will no longer be period correct. I think it is borderline impossible to build a car period correct in all aspects anyway. Somewhere along the way, something will break the rules whether it's a zip tie or a certain shock, paint choice etc.....that's why I don't get the whole idea behind it.

Mootz

 

I think if you are emulating the look an an era, everything that doesn't have to do with that look should be fair game. I have a deep channelled 49' Fleetline that will be running 60's vintage ET-V's and (for now) a heavily "patina'd" body while I fix it. It looks the part, but underneath is a modern frame, suspension, overdrive trans, disk brakes, and 3/4's of a SBC.

I intend to drive this thing everywhere, in all weather. The hard core guys will easily pick it apart and say its not traditional, but it makes me happy.

 

All that period correctness make one sound like a restorer. Put the car on the road and drive it. If someone doesnt like it, he can build his car differenly. Thats why its called hot rodding. Because we are different.

 

if you like it build it, if you build it drive it, if it's not yours don't worry about it.
merry christmas
dan