Guys speak of West Coast Style Rods/Traditionals and East Coast Style... -- * Are there other regions of the U.S (southern/Mid-West etc) that have a history /style of their own???? * Also -how would you describe the diferences in Rods/Traditionals Styles in different parts of the U.S ?
i been down south a couple times. seems like 4 doors, heavy suspension, mud tires and a big block were the norm. sounds like a huntin rig!
I'd be curious to see what was done "back in the day" here in the southeast. All the old car magazines were based on the west coast as most are now. If there were hot rods and customs here back then, we have little to no record of it. I feel nowadays, however, with all of our mass communication, our regional style lines will begin to blur, if they haven't already.
According to the great rodding book by Arnie & Bernie Shuman, "Cool Cars Square Roll Bars", the Northeast definitely had their own regional style of rods.
I've seen several from Texas in the littlebooks. Here's Wayne Klebb's T, "Satan's Chariot", from Spring, TX, in '62. Satan's Chariot T - Wayne Kleb, Spring, TX <HR style="COLOR: #e5e5e5; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #e5e5e5" SIZE=1><!-- / icon and title --><!-- message -->Any more info on this one? <!-- / message --><!-- sig -->
In the '50s/'60s Southern hot rodding mostly followed the West Coast style as learned from movies and magazines. None of my friends or I liked the East Coast look....we did not have a Southern style...unless you want to count stock cars.
Welcome to the South. Seriously though, the Southern cars from back in the day took cues from the east coast. I have seen a lot of coverage from Virginia in particular where the cars look very much east coast. Channeled with no chop and even some whacky fabrication that went on. Now I think that there is not really a style so much. You have east coast, west coast and Florida. East coast has heavy channel, west coast has heavy chop. Florida has.....well, we have seen some of the cars that come out of florida and I'm not going to even touch on that.
As a man who was around " back in the day " 50's and up .. A lot of the Southern cars followed the " Moonshiners " look. Fast, good handling and SLEEPER looking. By the mid to late 60's, the cars had changed into Muscle Cars ... and with all the magazines around ... a lot of the styles blended together ... east, west and southern became Hot Rod/Craft Craft/ Popular Hot Rodding magazine style
Check out the newest Street Rodder Magazine -may 2010. That issue is definitely pushing a middle america style. Fake beer taps/beer, vertical mufflers, tractor noses... TP
What he said. I was 25 before I realized that all 38-40 Ford coupes didn't come with auxiliary tanks in their trunks
You keep that donk stuff in the southeast! I think the southern style is a blend of all the cool from the west coast and the east coat. Here In Houston They call it 3rd Coast style!
<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/TmhHFq1AqJ4&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/TmhHFq1AqJ4&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object> The opening shot is at a place here in Largo, called Heritage Village, that's the general store, and the local Pin-Mar Antique car club maintains the period correct (1931 or so) mechanic shop in back. Here's a FL look I've seen on more than one old car down here:
I can only really speak about the 50's and early 60's as that's when I lived in the South (East Tennessee). There weren't as many custom shops in the South as there were on the West Coast, consequently the average guy wanting to dress up or customize his car would rely heavily on "bolt-on" parts such as fender skirts, spotlights, spinner hubcaps of all varieties, blue dots, dice, and those cat's eyes or half moon chrome headlight shields, even continental kits. Basically anything you could order from J.C. Whitney or Honest Charley. Custom paint was rare, at least where I lived. Hot rods were rarely seen chopped, sometimes channelled, though I do remember a sectioned shoebox that sat at a gas station in Newport, Tn. I was just a kid (this was about 1959 or so) and I didn't fully understand why it looked so different until I saw one in an issue of R & C and read about what had been done to it. To this day, '40 Fords in the South seem to be required to have all the bumper accessories ( wingtips, grill guards ) to be correct for the area. I think those guys still cling to the retro-rod look as that was the way haulers left their cars, visually stock on the exterior with modifications enough to the suspension and drive train to hopefully outrun the ATF cars......Just my ramblings...Don.
The shine running cars of course I knew about, and they are cool to see for sure, I had a friend whose father found a 55 ford with "a little extra luggage space" just a couple years ago. And don't think for a minute that the revenuer's stopped all the shine production. It still goes on, but at a much smaller scale, kind of like a hobby for folks now. We have talked about the style, does anyone have pics? Shine runners, Hot Rods, Customs?
I can't speak for the 50s but from what I have heard it was mostly Olds and Flatheads in Montg,Al. A lot of times you didn't know it was a hotrod unless it was running or you looked under the hood. Hardly any fenderless rods.I do remember an occasional 30s ford in the early 60s usually full fendered. I had a H.A.M.B. friendly '47 2dr in the mid sixties. Mostly tri five chevs. Never remember any radical customs. I always wanted to go to Cal. when I was younger to see all the hotrods. Never made it.
Actually the Ford with the big DG on the front is none other than Don Garlits, hisownself! That car is usually in his museum, along with everything he has ever owned in his whole life.
Did anyone see that documentary on moonshiners that the History Channel ran a year or two ago? They showed (if I remember correctly) a '40 Ford sedan that appeared completely stock, but had an early 2X4 caddy motor in it. I think it might have been Junior Johnson's car?
You gotta realize that in the south trucks didn't get big until the 80's, before then it was Trans Ams that dominated the street, and before that the moonshiners would have souped up 40 Fords and early Hemi cars along with a supercharged Studebaker Hawk. Just look at early NASCAR for example.
My Dad and his buddies use to run around Charlotte N.C. back around 57-58 era. I use to ask him and his car buddies all the time what it used to be like back then. I always use to ask these guys why you didnt lower the front end of your cars back then. He said it was the rough rural roads more than anything and the second was, everybody was short on cash. You didnt make as much money in N.C. as you did on the west coast. My dads 55 Chevy was built in his apartment front yard, and he would always tear down his engine or was swapping intakes etc. because the weekends were spent at Pumpkin Center or Shuffletown dragstrips. It had 2 in. lowering blocks and little J.C. Whitney chrome crossed flag stickers on the quarters. He had Halmon-Moody punch some louvered fender skirts and they got stolen the next day, his hubcap of choice was Dodge lancers. His car was typical. He never saw anybody shave door handles, but lots of nose and decking. The drag racing influenced him more than the customizing. Tony Young from Charlotte also used to do custom body work then , he said there was a chopped 40 Ford Convertible and a 47-48 Ford Chopped Conv. that used to run around Charlotte He said there were no radical customs that he knew of. Red Humphries , who is on here could elaborate more on the scene in the south as he was in the middle of it. The south had the taildragger look with the late model cars and nearly all the rods were channeled, probably because of rust and it was the style. I always kept my eye out since at least 1975 for any evidence of customizing in the old cars in the old junkyards in our area. These yards are gone now and I never thought to take pics. All I ever found was nose and decking on stuff. I found a 50 Chev club coupe with the 1/4 windows filled in. I found a channeled 39 Chevy coupe.The best evidence I found was a 50 Ford 4-door in Hickory with 50 Merc grille shell frenched lights and no door handles. It sat behind a trailer for years. There was a chopped 56 Chev sport coupe in Newton, N. C., purple and white, ended up in Street Rodder on the readers page then I saw it in the junkyard. We rode our bikes there to look at it. I didnt have my liscence yet and it was 1800.00 dollars! Then there were the cars that have every accessory from the factory and J.C.Whitney all over them, that was a southern style that wasnt all that different from what they do to lowriders on the west coast now. Chrome skinny sunvisors from J.C.W. were popular, stainless steel fender skirts on your red 61-64 Ford Starliners with the rear end raised up .Saw some of that in Martinsville Virginia too. Al Philyaw from Gastonia N.C. always carried a pic of his old 50 Merc in his wallet. Now it was really low front and back with skirts , lake pipes, maroon paint, it looked like a typical west coast car. He kept up with the trends back then he said. Hes passed away now , but he was a wealth of information on the trends back then! He always strived to have his car lowered more than his buddies. But in a nutshell, from what I hear, The south had the taildragger look or you channeled your rod, the roads were rough, and no one had the money to spend on their cars.
Dear lord.... Thanks for this morning, my dogs and Ron Stetter..... Ive seen the car.....heard the stories... But that was really amazing to hear Ron tell it..... Powerfull.....
Yea, I saw that episode. It inspired me to write a song about it....... although, I can't quite remember how it goes now.
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