Use your imagination.

There are some very creative rod and custom builders around here. You have my respect. This isn’t about you. The purpose of this thread is to encourage people who are designing and building cars to use their imagination, and to create that which has not yet been created.

Stop cloning the American Graffiti coupe. We already have enough of them, with all of them trying to be exactly the same as the first one. If a‘32 five-window with bobbed fenders on the back and cycle fenders on the front really is your dream car, that’s fine, but you could use that theme as a starting point, and then design and build something that will be a lot better. Unless you're a clone, stop trying to build one. If you really insist in reading sheet music instead of improvising, how about cloning something that was a masterpiece, and something that we're not tired of, like the Greer-Black-Prudhomme car?

Enough with the chrome or polished stainless spreader bars, hood handles, and hood latches on ‘32s. I’m tired of them. Aside from the fact that most of that stuff is made in China, they detract from the lines of the car. That’s a bad thing. I hereby proclaim them to be street rod jewelry.

I'm sorry, but we have enough red cars now. (But there could never be too many black ones.) Please choose another color. Thank you.

Dave Mann
(602) 233-8400
http://www.roadsters.com/

 

Thats true. Im tired of seeing Brite Yellow and red on 32s and 34's.. Even though , i gotta admit, flat/gloss black/ on a 32 is getting too popular...

my 2 cents..
steve-

 

Dave, You've got your nerve, asking us to THINK. Can we still do red wheels w/caps? hehe!!
Actually, I'm with you. there are a lot of really fine ideas, trends, and styles that could be explored and still stay true to the HAMB traditional theme. I've had one inparticular rattling around in my head since high school and would like to make it a reality before I die. I've got a few parts, a body, etc. You may be nudging me to get my ass in gear. We'll see.

Frank

 

I say let folks to whatever the fuck they want with their own cars. People build what they want because that makes them happy. Sometimes something really ugly or miss guided comes out of it, but sometimes something cool can too. If some dude wants to make another American Graffiti coupe, let him. I think one needs to worry about their own cars before worrying about others.

 

What are you saying?

can we build something besides a Ford?

or would that be a little too different?

Paul

 

Yep, I was once in the conformist rut and built and owned an all steel black Thickstun dressed Flatty-powered '32 Ford Cabriolet with red Kelseys. Luckilly I've broken lose, used my imagination and now have a black '28 Tudor with orange Kelseys and a BANGER!
You need to free yourself and use your own imagination Dave- '32s are great, but you seem to be a little past CONSUMED!

 

Guess the last sentence of this thread's first paragraph should have been in bold. Quote:

The purpose of this thread is to encourage people who are designing and building cars to use their imagination, and to create that which has not yet been created.

 

Yeah, that's why I painted my rod RED suede, just to be different. There ain't nothing wrong with a red car.

 

The purpose of this thread is to encourage people who are designing and building cars to use their imagination, and to create that which has not yet been created

But, then imitation is a sincere form of flattery.

It is difficult being a trend setter.
What trend do we start next?

Jim

 

I think I catch your drift, Roadsters.com!

People think I hate small block Chevys just because I refuse to use one in anything, but that ain't the case. I've had a whole lot of them in the past and had great luck with 'em...but I could go the rest of my life not owning another and be happy for it!

When you're messing with musclecars or late models, that's one thing...you mainly tweak and modify what's there to begin with...you improve it and make it personal, but you don't often alter the basic core design.

With hot rods and customs, though...the whole vehicle is part of the "picture", and yes...that includes the drivetrain! After a while, you get to wondering why so many 'artists' are re-painting the same Mona-Lisa over and over!!

Every part you make, select, install or modify on a hot rod makes a statement...and individuality should play a role...or everyone will be "saying" the exact same thing. Where's the fun in taking comfort with the accepted standard formula, right?!?!

But, of course..."there's nothing new under the sun", right? It's all been tried before and there ain't no such thing as TRUE originality, eh?

Well, yeah...maybe!

But, every artist works differently. Many DO like to break the mold and start with a clean sheet of paper, or lay down their own, personal ideas and create something new, fresh, different and exciting...

...and others look at a sunset that inspires them to capture that image with their own to hands for the sake of making it a part of them. We may end up with a million paintings of similar sunsets, but if you look closely each will have it's own subtle personal characteristics.

There's valididity in both schools of thought, and neither is "right" or "wrong". It's up to the individual which path they will choose and what they feel inspired to do.

I can't get into building small block Chevy powered clone cars, but that doesn't discount the talents of those who DO dig that sort of thing! Maybe the Milner coupe is their figurative "sunset", and they feel inspired to capture their own rendition of it in metal and rubber? Who knows? Whatever makes 'em happy, I suppose!!

 

one thing to think about ,its not what you build ,its that YOU built it!and no one can take that away from you .even if its been done 500 times its still yours ,done your way!

 

There is nothing new ! It only gets done differently. Issak Newton Quote----------The biggest farse is magazines that show us what everyone else is doing and how they did it and adds for stuff that is mass produced as if we are all rats in a maze with endless amounts of money. As soon as a new TREND or IDEA is out there its like flys on flypaper. The one good thing about rat rods, [rats in a maze again] is that it is recycling old junk and is helping to save the planets resources. round one !

 

As a guitarist I've heard young kids say "I wanna play just like (fill in popular guitarist's name here)! And I say "why? He's already done that. Create your own style".
It's the same with cars. The "I want one just like that" syndrome. I think they should say "I want one as cool as that one". Taking a proven design/idea and then running with it is what makes it your own. As much as I like the Graffiti coupe wouldn't we get tired of seeing a dozen of 'em at a show? Kind of like a row of restored Model A coupes? Isn't that why we build rods and customs...to be different?

 

Some people haven't learned to use their imaginations, so they (must) copy or not "play" the game at all.
It's "safe" to copy an already accepted piece of art/custom/rod. the worst that can happen is it will be overlooked.
A copier doesn't run the risk of being chastized for building something just a bit different. (Right GoCatGo?)
It would make me happier to see 50 Piss yaller duece coupes lined up than 50 perfectly restored turquoise and white '57 Bel Air convertibles (hey Mable, this one is different, it has a Continental kit and a factory spot light...) but even more happy if the coupes were 50 different colors.

I only wear Dickies pants and shorts because they are cheap and long lasting, not because they are a "style".

hotrods should all be painted purple because it always clashes with the tail lights and mothers hate it...


Yes, I agree with you Roadsters.com.
Just splainin why I think some people copy....

 

every one keeps telling me to stay out of my head its a bad place to go that i have to much imagination now I am confused please help me i need prozak !!!!

 

Whatsa rat rod?
Daves right....Danny

 

Head bad..haha..never too much imagination. “Create that which has not yet been created”, is something that is hammered home constantly in art school. Culture in the Western world, whether it is car culture, design, music, art…whatever.. falls under the term ‘postmodernism’– basically meaning, to take from the past and create a new ‘text’ or version which reflects our modern existence. That doesn’t mean bolt a fibreglass wing to something or re-pop the Mini…yawn. It means that old elements are combined, with creativity (and cleverness) to reflect what has been done and what could/should be done. If I have it right the reference to the Greer-Black-Prudhomme car is about function over form and original thought. Trend setting and trend breaking at the same time…tall order, but none the less a good one. Thought provoking Mr. Dave Mann.

 

I believe that almost everything that can be done, has been done, with a few exceptions. I think the best way to go about it is build what you want, whether it has been done before or if it might be played out, and add YOUR OWN PERSONAL TOUCH to make your car different. The cars that I find interesting are the ones that catch your eye as ordinary until you walk up and see the fine details that set it apart from the other cars that it may look like. At this point in time, and with the hot rod and custom hobby in full force, it is pretty hard to do something that nobody has already done, and do it tastefully.

 

I have to disagree with you Dave...

I think there are too damn many BLACK "traditional" hot rods out there... I'd LOVE to see a RED one...

As for the street rod set... that's a different story.

Mark my words... the "RAT RODS" that get painted something other than black are the ones people will be "oooing" and "ahhhing" over in the next few years... That and a slow refinement of the details will set the leaders apart from the followers... Jimmy Shine look out... the only place for the young builders of today to go is to make these cars "nice"... Ratty Rods will be passe in five years. Stance and tire selections will be a blur... everyone will have the same shit... so to "stand out" guys will begin to look towards things like motor mounts, brake systems, the routing of wires/cables/exhaust... creative use of color. texture, chrome etc.

I think Fat Jack Robinson created a monster with his tail light brackets... just wait.

End of rant.

Sam.

 

i think it should be more about what the builder wants imagination or not...no one should worry about what their friends think, if the graffiti coupe is something the always wanted then maybe they need to have one ,isnt that what nostalgia is about in the first place ...what ever gives you the warm fuzzy's???

i already had this discussion with a friend, he wants to build a graffiti coupe, hes collecting the parts too,.i said i wouldnt put the stupid chopped shell on it and "fix" some of the obvious thing that were wrong with it, he said it wouldnt be right... hes going to do a spot on replica....

he said when he was a kid he got to play in the actual car and it has been in his mind ever since, like i said this whole trad .thing is about nostalgia, so if copying an existing car gets you the car you always dreamed of... more power too ya!!!!

 

i've been thinking of doing a car... there's this guy in my town, kent something or other,,, maybe fuller? i dunno', anywho, i was talking to him the other day about bringing something i need done to his shop... maybe i'll run some ideas by him. yea, i'm a name dropper, but i could listen/talk to him all day long and get ideas. btw, kent fuller is the guy who built the chassis of the greer-black- prudhomme car back in '62 along with many other famous .25 mile cars including some of tv tommy's. he's still at it working on a 'super secret' streamliner in his shop in sacramento.
nic
http://www.standard1320.com/Fuller/KentFuller.html

 

[ QUOTE ]
... he said it wouldnt be right hes going to do a spot on replica....
...

[/ QUOTE ]

Is he going to do the interior in red and spray dye it black so the scratches and wear show the red through like the "original"?
Is he going to have a burned out (license plate?) light in back to get fix-it tickets for?
(Is he going to cruise for precocious 14 year old girls on purpose or by accident like in the movie?)

There's room for "Historians" in any hobby.

This traditional customs and hotrods trip breeds cloning I think,since all the "approved" old parts have all been used time and again.

 

Everybody builds cars that run around on the ground.
I'm tired of that.

We are light years behind the Cubans.....The REAL trend setters.


Think OUTside the box!
Amen.

 

Sorry to single you out, Fat Hack, but 90 percent of the self-proclaimnd really hot motor builders on the HAMB trash the SBC for god only knows how many reasons, none of which appear to have any basis in hot-rod reality.

I'd like to see a show of hands/log-ins of all the folk who have built and/or run SBCs that regularly saw 7000-rpm shift points/redline.

That's not a tough target to hit for a moderately competant motor builder working with SBC hardware. It's not so easy to do as well with the early Cadillac, Olds, and Buick V8s. AS much as we love 'em, they're still very primitive.

And, finally it all comes down to an essential hot-rodding point: The hot motor to build today is the very same one you'd have built in the '50s -- a Chevy V8.

 

I build what I like. Don't care what anyone else thinks. It's my car and I only have to please myself. I always leave a flaw somewhere in the paint that is easy to spot so the guys that like to pick them apart have something easy to find. My T tub has a chevy ll 4-banger because I want one. I don't care if you don't like them. It is red because I like red, if you don't like it so what, it isn't your car. My chopped A will be in the rat rod nostalgia vein but with lots of chrome and paint and fenderless like an early 60's show rod. Something I would have liked when I was in my teens. Don't like it, so what, again, it isn't your car. I like black cars, always have, but where I live it is dusty, this is the prairies, and I could wash it 300 times a day and it would still look dirty. Red doesn't show the dirt. Practicality means a lot to me. Nutz

 

Dude, I use my imagination ALL the time, usually envolves how Paris Hilton would... nevermind.

I shift my SBC at 5k... somethings gonna break, but that means I get a "new" something...

 

I like to be told what to do... its sexy! Tell me more! haha

 

The thing with "traditional" cars is that the very title implies a repetition, recreation, continuation of something that's been done. Sure, there are enough piss yaller DOUCE coupes around, but there is also an endless supply of chopped Mercs, shoeboxes, 49-54 chevies... you see my point.

So, what do you do? Guys in the 50's/60's were doing NEW things to NEWish cars. For the most part we're copying that. I've come to appreciate the aesthetic of custom cars built in the 50's to the point that I'd gladly recreate the "look" on any car that I build.

When I think of a truly innovative 'traditional' car I envision something like that green Shifters bubble top. BUT...that car wouldn't stand out as much in '63 as it does now. Even that bubbletop is a recreation of an aesthetic that was made popular decades ago.

I mean, putting flashing neon lights under the hood of your car was a new idea that showed imagination at one point. Somebody thought of that. Poor soul.

-r

 

I'm a big fan of 60's show rods and drag raceing in it's purest forms. So that is why I'm going to build a tube chassised bubbletop T with lots of Flake and pearls and shiney things. Oh and you can bet your ass it'll have a chevy motor in it! But I still gotta finish my 1000 dollar RPU and my 5000 dollar twin cam chopper first. You can build something beutiful if you do your own thing(even on a mayjor budget)and stay true to your original plans.
-Jesse

 

Can I quote myself from the VW thread???...("Cars that excite me are ones that have new ideas done with different raw material (stinkbug)....not stagnant body choices with the same old stuff...sorta what deuce five windows with flatheads have become....is anybody else getting tired of seeing "perfect period correct" 32's??)....sorry for being redundant...but I agree completely!!!!