For the guys who were there: Your parents feelings about hot rods/hot rodders

I'm writing a paper for school about the origins of hot rodding and the attitudes that went with it. I would like to include some first hand accounts of the possitive and negative feelings of the older generation at the time.

Thank you

 

My signature line tells my dad's feelings after I came home @ 1:00am with a vacuum leak on my intake manifold when I installed duals on a 216 Chevy six. Our driveway was 3 feet from the neighbors bedroom windows. (I probably also woke the neighbors 3 houses away)

He was from the 30's generation of model A's when customizing and hot rodding was 3 American flags mounted on the top of his radiator and maybe a racoon tail on his antenna.

 

My dad was not a "car guy" at all.To him a car was simply a means to get around, nothing more.

I remember one day when I was in high school (1964) I was removing the grill from my '48 Olds (I was "customizing" it, you know!) Well, he drove up and saw what I was doing and hit the roof. He pretty much used the exact words from Blown49's signature line and made me put it all back together.

I had to sneak off to go to the drags too. "No son of mine is going to be hanging around all that drinking and gambling and fighting"

Yea right dad.

 

Check out www.RAJetter.com. There are two books written by me, about late 1959 and the early 1960's, AFTER I got my driver's license and became a motorized terror ( I had a 3 year old '57 Chevy...!!!)...and MY relationship with my parents when things went awry...it'll give you more material than you'll ever need for that paper...

R-

 

I might be a little younger than you want (graduated from HS in 1970), but my Mom mentioned something recently that might shed some light on your topic.

She told me that she thought I was just going through a phase, and that I would probably outgrow the hot rod thing; also admitted she might have been wrong.

 

My dad was not a car guy although he helped me work on my cars, putting dual exhaust and carbs on a '50 flathead (in 1956). In '59 I had a hot '55 Chev 2 door post, one day I left my buddies house about a block from my place, and got on it real hard. I hit second gear right in front of my dad who was sitting on our front porch steps and blew the clutch out the bottom of the bell housing. He wasn't too happy as he helped me push the car into our driveway, but he helped me put a new one in anyway. I guess he was more supportive than I gave him credit for. HTH

 

born in 42 , so was a teen in the late 50's, my Dad didnt care one way or the other about Hot rods. He gave me my first car,a 47 Pontiac 4 dr, butt ugly,painted brindle shit brown. I hated it but it was wheels. As soon as i could afford it, i got rid of it and bought a 49 olds fastback,got me some duals on it,lowered the front and was a happy camper. Dad never paid much attention to what i drove or did to my cars.

 

We are a multi-generational hotrod family. My Dad ran with a fast group and was reportedly a terror in his 36 business coupe for five years after returning home from WW2, but he eventually met Mom and settled down. Wish he kept that car and his Model A Pickup! Of course he never told his boys any of this, I heard about it from uncles and other old men. It must have been interesting for him to see it happening all over again in the 60s with his boys, all of us die-hard car guys from our early teens. We drug home every old thing we could find and worked on them all in his driveway, leaking oil everywhere and appropriating his tools as necessary. Mom was very understanding, having seen it all before with her brothers ("boys will be boys"), but Dad was in a foul mood for years. When we marked off a quarter-mile with painted start and finish lines on the road in front of the house, he exploded. Looking back on it, I think he was mostly jealous of the fun we were having. The poor guy had to work long hours to pay the bills, and we were in those blissful early teen years where food just magically appeared on the table. I did see him run his 361 powered Dodge pickup down the quarter a few times when he thought no one was home. He was probably justified in his bad attitude, however, because I wrecked our new family car and my 50 Chevy before I turned 17, and there were two more coming up behind me. Karma did catch up to me when my youngest son began driving, but that's another story. My 11-year old grandson just told me his favorite car is the 59 El Camino. And the beat goes on.

 

1963. A couple of us in the driveway with a 53 Olds. A sort of rare bird with a stick. Here we are cutting a hole in the floor to put a newly ordered JC Whitney no name floor shift. The old man comes out to see what we were up to. He says " What are you guys doing?". I says "We're putting a floor shift in". He says "You guys are nuts!, I fought those floor shifts for years. I was so happy when they put it up on the column and what do you assholes do but put it back on the floor"
In the late 50's early 60's nose and deck were really big. So, out come the screwdrivers and we'd pop all the trim off and patch up the holes with bondo...... He: " That used to be a good looking car, Now it looks like shit!!"

 

off to a good start. I love reading these stories.

 

I was born in 1950 to give you a point of reference. My Dad still regrets selling his Model A chopped top with a Merc engine. In the early 60's he sold a Model A roadster project to help pay for Christmas. Family always came first. My first driving car was a 56 Chevy 2dr post. When the old powerpack 265 gave out Dad came up with a 283 with a "green stripe" cam and 3X2's and a BW 4 speed. He helped me fix blown clutch disks and blown spider gears. We worked on the car together. When it came time to go to college he came up with a 63 SS that needed a motor and front suspension rebuild. We did the motor swap and my buddy and I changed out the busted front spring. He would borrow the '56 and go out to the truck stop and come back with a full tank of gas, a few extra $ and a big smile on his face. He went way beyond supportive.

 

Great idea for a paper! You should post it here and let us all read it after you get finished and get your grade. Heck, then you'll be a published author.

I think you'll find that the billybadass, tough guy hot rodder attitude didn't really exist so much back then. Most hot rodders were just young guys trying to go fast in what they could afford. A hood was a hood and a hot rodder was a hot rodder, they were not necessarily the same thing. It's ironic that the guy's you see running around now day's trying to project an image of the badass hot rodder of day's gone bye are really just representing a popular misconception.

I guess I'm too young to reply to your question but, I can say my grand dad had similar attitude to tex34ford's about my dad's shenanigans’ in the early '60's. Not really understanding it but laid back and supportive none the less. In fact he still has the same attitude now in his late '80's. My grandmother had a lead foot and helped dad put dual quads on everything he drug home, lol. She's one of a kind. I'm lucky to still have them around.

Good luck with your paper.

 

When I brought home my '39 Hudson coupe with purple metalflake paint, all my Mom said was "I'm going inside and throw up".

 

I'm 54, loved cars from the time I was old enough to stand up on the seat beside my mom in her '51 Chev Deluxe coupe and identify the cars coming down the road towards us (I vividly remember plucking the keys from the ignition, a silver dollar for the fob, and chucking them out the window as we went somewhere! I was about 2, it seemed like a fun thing to do, although I don't think my mom thought so.)

My folks thought of cars as appliances, and always had comments about kids wasting time and money on cars. They tolerated, but didn't endorse, my interest in cars. This kept the brakes on, and I was always cautious about starting something I couldn't finish, their comments about a neighbor boys car under a tree in the yard, with the heads off, never to run again in the back of my mind. When a friend wanted to trade his '36 Ford three window coupe for my '41 Chrysler Windsor sedan, they were appalled. "That's a Chrysler!", they said, "Don't trade that for an even older Ford. And, it's a coupe! Those aren't very practical!" Thanks, Mom and Dad...

 

My dad was British, a typical Brit. Bowler hat and all. A surgeon. One morning his car would not start (his battery was in mine). He HAD to get to his office so I convinced him to take the roadster. After explaining the start and shift routine, off he went. Top down. He looked too damn cool. Well, the day ended. He usually got home about 5:30. He didn't show up until about 10:00 that night. Tie was gone, suit jacket gone. Hat stuffed under the seat. Never said a word, but I did see that he had bought gas and he had left with a full tank. Last time he drove or rode in it, but he did have a little smile on his face when I mentioned it.
I miss him.

 

My mother used to ask me if I had been messing around with "that old strip down." This was in 1962, and "that old strip down" was a '46 Ford coupe with a '53 bone stock hemi engine....331..two barrel..dual exhaust... '39 gearbox, .
skinny 16s,......totally stock looking except for '49 Plymouth bumpers. That car did not deserve to be called a strip down.

 

My Uncle had a '54 Chevy with a 392 Hemi dropped in it. Simple looking sleeper with out rear brakes.
Hid dad had a country store and hated that car parked in front, making him put it out back everytime.
One day my uncle came in from a months work on the road, and the Chevy had a different hood on it. 30 years later he found out his dad was drunk and with a buddy-throttle to the floor hauling ass. Until the hood popped up.

Otherwise the old man hated his kids messing with old cars.

 

Hot Rodders were not the guys you would want to date your daughter.
My Dad ran many a taildragger down the street when he would come home
and find my sister sitting on the porch with a duck tailed hotrodder.

I rember being at the local garage with my Dad when I was about 10yrs old, and a guy there had a flattie with offy heads and chrome acorn nuts on his mill.
I asked Dad on the way home if he had seen it--he mummbled "hot rod fruits"

My mom on the other hand let me drag a 36 Chevy into the back yard when I was 12 yrs old. And me and my gang were always fiddlin' with the old beast. My sisters Hot Rod lover boys started spending more time in the back yard we me, than they did with her. Some of these guys are still my friends 45 years later.

I asked my Mom a while back why she let me have my junk cars in the yard when I was a kid.---She said that was how she could keep an eye on me.--she tricked me!

 

My Dad was a rodder from way back when everything were flatheads. My older brother came home from the hospital (birth) in a blown '39 Ford coupe. I came home in a '29 Ford roadster p/u. My dad gave up rodding in the mid 50's to raise 5 kids. When I got into rodding, my Dad use to call all my cars junk. However, when one of his friends came over, he would always show them my car and make me take them for a ride. When I was 25, my Mom said I seem to be getting younger, not older because I wasn't outgrowing rods.

I'm 58 now. When my brother was sworn in as Chief of Police, I drove my Mother to the ceremony in a '32 Ford 3 window.

 

My dad was a car guy and helped me with all my cars back in the day. He thought hot rods were cool and liked customs as well. My mother on the other hand thought they were all junk and did not like them or really care for the guys that drove them. When there were a few friends over with cars in the drive way dad would always come out and talk with the guys and check out their rides. I guess it was just the way things were back then, seems like most of the mothers just tolerated us but the dads were cool.

 

Both my parents were car people. My dad was a Pontiac/Buick salesman, and my mom worked in the accounting office of a VW dealership. We went to any kind of event that was racing, you name it...drags, boats, stock cars, motorcycles, hell if two cockroaches were crawling across the floor, we'd make it a race! My dad helped me build my first hot rod, a '40 Ford 2-door sedan in 1962. My father passed away 2 yrs. ago, but my mom is thriving at age 81 and still watches racing on tv!

 

In "52" when I was a Junor in high school, my mother heard about a hot rod club starting up. She got all the details and told me to go and join, both of my parents were very supportive. Hear I am at 73, still playing with cars. start the kids young, you can't go wrong.

 

My Dad wasn't very supportive, always trying to disscourage "hopping up" a car. Funny thing is he was quick to show friends and relitives what his son built, he seemed to be proud of what I accomplished. Mom on the other hand was very supportive, She would come out to the garage, watch what I was doing and make suggestions. Found out she was reading my Hot Rod magizines while I was at school, had an real intrest in it all. She would also want a ride in my car as soon as it was done. Mom also talked my Dad into loaning me the money so I could open up my own Hot Rod shop when he was dead set against it.

 

i luckily have a dad that has allways liked cars im 51 when i was born i was brought home in a 57 corvette i guess that was my introduction to hot rodding dad allways has loved cars especially 32s he had a super nice 32 highboy with a full house flathead he drove to high school in the late 50s ..he kind of layed off of messing with cars from early 60s till about 68 i remember riding with dad to the pontiac dealership he picked out a brand new olive green 69 gto then about a year later he brought home a 32 5 window and tore it completely apart he completly redid it in our 2 car garage i remeber going out and watching dad and handing him tools or whatever he needed turned out to be a nice car he also bought a 32 roadster and a 32 three window remember going to memphis to the street rod nationals in the early 70s never saw so many cars ...dad was allways bringing home something cool i remeber he drug home an old junky looking motor he had found about 60 miles from home he said it was sitting beside an old house i looked at it and i remeber asking him what the heck it was he said it is a arden flathead i never will forget he said he bought it for like 300 dollars he kept it for a while and then put it in hemmings sold it for like a 1000 dollars he thought he made a killing we were allways draging home some kind of cool old car project to work on...i remember two of dads cars in the mid 70s made into steet rodder and on the front of rod action i was in high school i thought i was the coolest guy on the planet to have a dad that built hot rods and to get them in a magazine was something else every one at school thought i was full of it till i showed them the magazine the they couldnt believe it : dad bought 57 nomad for 250.00 dollars and completely redid it for me for my first car the i had a 57 hardtop with a 427 in it for my 2nd car i could go on and onabout the cars and the different stories but theres not enuff space or time ...all i can say is i probably have the best dad and mom there is and i have been lucky to have grown up with someone like my dad for a parent..........dad still builds lots of cars we have lots of good times together ..me my son my brother and dad all went to the roundup together i have been blessed to have a hot rodder for a father

 

I was always taking things apart to see how they worked and reassembling them in less than perfect condition so my dad gave me an army tech manual when I was about 10, that was back in the 50's. I studied all thousand pages of it by the time i was 15 and still have it today I call it The Big Damned Book Of How Everything Works. My mother was just glad I stopped taking things apart and got a job wrenching. Neither of my parents were car people but I can't remember ever getting my butt chewed for messing with cars so I'd say my parents approved of it. Well I take that back, mom was a little upset when she found the rambler six that I rebuilt in the living room closet.

 

My dad passed long before i was into rods and such. While I was into fox mustangs and loud stereos, my dad was pissed about the loud stereo and his friend btw in his mid 70s was there and i turned to him with an awkward look. And the words ill never forget he said "Every generation has to figure out a way to piss off the one before it, yours in the stereos, ours were hot rods, flatheads, and straight pipes, at least you got the pipes right"

 

Thank you all. This is great stuff. Just what I was looking for. I'm going to use this site as a source and quote some of you directly. Thanks again.

 

My dad was not a car guy. Never changed his own oil - turn the key and drive as a means of transportation. My grandfather was the car guy that I take after I suppose.

Dad, whom I called "O.G." (after his first and middle initials) was an accountant and loved things neat and orderly. I always tinkered on the family rides growing up and that was okay with him as long as they ran well and were clean and stock looking.

All the guys in the neighborhood were gearheads. My hotrod mentors - one owned a Texaco station a few blocks away and the other a garage w/ a rail job and leather helmet (tells about what period this was!!).

Anyway, by the time I got to driving, O.G.'s response that sticks in my mind...."you're not pulling that junk in here and tearing it down on my driveway".... well...sometimes I does....

 

Even as a kindergardener (1960) I rode my bike to school which was one mile away from home. The journey to my elementary school took me close to the high school, and right past the burger joint which was a notorious hot rod hang out. Some of those clowns enjoyed buzzing the little kids on bicycles. Quite dangerous and irresponsible, really.

To answer your research question, my parents word to me was "Ride on the sidewalk."

 

When I was 14 I wanted a Ford cp. with a flathead , my dad said no way so he found me a 39 Ply 2 dr. which he figured was slow enough for me and would keep me out of trouble. So I pulled the head and had it milled, added a dual carb. intake and split exhaust manifold. I had more fines with that Ply. then any car I ever owned! My dad give up after that one and I got a 41 Merc.cp. and put in a 50 Merc. flatty, loads of fun in that one.