Hot Rods I look at our hobby differently, as I get older

What happened to Cadman's post? Did he delete it? LOL that is funny.

 

Every Saturday Morning in Jacksonville, Fl we go to the Krispy Kreme Doughnut shop and one of the guys will bring a grandchild or two.
It's nice and we all try to make it fun and interesting for them.

It would be nice to think that what we do might just change something and get them interested in our hobby.



This past Sat we took a moment to remember 9 /11



Cadman

 

NO ... just changed it a little

On this board I just have to be real careful what I say. :-(
That's why in the last 5 years I just read posts..
Cadman

 

Yuppers the hobby has changed a tad since I was kid (1960's), back then it was a bunch of older guys building street rods and a rat rod or two thrown in for fun. All I wanted was to build one to be cool. Well the street rod guys priced me right out of the ball park. I went roundy round racin, had two (2) great kids (no racin for 20 years), now I am slowly workin on two smelly old ratty trucks as time and money permits.(went back racin in 2002)
"Tuner" cars...hmmmm...not real if you ask me...If it isnt an American car company it isnt real. We all work way too hard for USA dollar bills. If you have ever been layed off due to some issues with a foreign company (I have). Let them tune the American Neons and Focus' all day long. Take the Jap and German stuff back to where it belongs. They are extreemly fast dont get me wrong, and build pretty darn good too. But too many Americans have lost their jobs because of them. Keep the hobby alive with the old American iron.
just me two cents. that all..

 

Come on man, your pic of the little frog next to your exhaust pipe was awesome. we all know you wouldn't let little kids get burned on your hot exhaust.

 

Yea! It's just that I have been getting beat up on another board... I need to let it go...

The children love finding things on the car..







Cadman

 

You know, I have to agree with NEFAREOUS somewhat! There is a cruise-in at a local fast food restaurant that is open to "anything & everything" and while I probably wouldn't take some of the cars that show up there if you offered them to me for free, I still appreciate the hours and hours of hard work that these guys are putting into making a 4 cylinder FWD car make 400 hp, and yeah, even making the doors on their 4 door 2008 Chrysler 300 do the "lambo-door" thing. Do I want to talk about them on the HAMB? Hell no, but it keeps the kids in their garages and off the streets, so "more power to ya!". It's still another person that is interested in the "car" thing and personalizing their car and taking pride in it. I'll bet you that when the hot rodding movement started to really take off, there were people moaning & groaning that there wouldn't be any of the brass-era cars left to restore or that "their" hobby was dying...

At the other cruise-in in our town, they only let in cars that are over 25 years old and older, and the grumpy old farts there will pick apart your car no matter how nicely that it is done, and how they wouldn't have done the car that way, and will be happy to tell you that your car isn't worth anywhere near what you're asking for it... I'd much rather hang out with the tuner kids that are there just to have fun and to show off their handiwork!!!

PS - I still remember the cover of HOT ROD back in the 70's where they were preaching the "death of hot rodding" because of emissions, pollution control equipment, the coming "computer controlled" engines, etc... Wonder if my friend that has the pretty much stock looking Honda Civic that runs 12's WITHOUT nitrous would like to see that issue???

 

Sometimes it skips a generation. My youngest grandaughter, age 5, the great thing is she can do paint, trans work or fabrication.

 

She's a keeper for sure.. Might be..Petal car hot rod time..

 

I hear a lot about people saying what will be left of our hobby in 30, 40 years, Yes it seems there's a lot of doubt to if you'll ever see a young guy or gal driving something hopped up and old in the time to come. But I must say hot rods aren't something you'll just find in a museum not if I can help it! Being 21 years old I know how hard it is to find the old guy's that can really help you get that old Flathead bored, stroked and rebuilt or getting a little help from your local traditional rod shop.
I moved to Calgary AB to find work at the time having no clue what a hot rod really is or knowing what I was getting my self in too, but one early November morning back in '08 I came a cross the HAMB and that was it I was hooked. The old man was never really into fixing cars being third generation machinist/tool and die maker, I don't really know how I got it in my blood but I can't get it out! I went out and got my first flatty two months later...
I found the Flathead builder on kijiji selling NOS 8BA rods and bearings, one thing led to another and after trading two tranys for a great price on a rebuilt '39 it was time to talk power plant. Four months later at the start of this month Bill dropped off the racy 276ci short block mill. So far that's put me down 5 grand and I'm still looking at a runnable stock 1930 model A coupe for about 5.5 grand then sell parts, drop about 3 grand to finish the chassis and about 2.5 grand to get the mill running happy. This hobby is not cheep but when all is said and done this traditional AV8 Coupe show rod will be like nothing Iv ever done in my life. Where I could have put this cash into collage to get a job in a office and wake up for the morning news, is just not me. My friends think I'm nuts but applaud that I'm fallowing it throw. This hot rod is my portfolio and will help me get a career in what I want to do for the rest of my life.

 

They also have no girls. Sad story.

 

I learned to do mechanic work from my Dad. Growing up, the only time a car went to the shop was when we were completely out of ideas what was wrong with it and that was a pretty rare occasion. We didn't exchange starters for rebuilt ones, we went to the parts store and got a set of bushings and brushes and put them in ourselves, everything was like that, there was nothing he was afraid to take apart and try to fix and he encouraged me to be the same.

Dad was into stock stuff, he really wasn't a hot rodder. he liked to pick up an old car and try his best to make it like it was when it was in the showroom. I was the little speed freak. I remember one night he came into the garage as I was putting a 302 Ford together. As I was putting the cam in, he picked up the old camshaft and asked "what's wrong with this cam, it looks perfectly good to me?" My answer was "what's wrong with that cam is, it's not this cam, wait until you hear this sumbitch!"

He rolled his eyes and walked out of the garage, but after I got it running and tuned up nice, he just had to drag his friend out to hear the "badass sounding motor my boy put together"

I have to wonder, 30 years from now, what cars among all this late model stuff are going to be the "classics". I'll admit, I look at all this new stuff buzzing around and I have a hard time telling one from the other, but these kids know, I have a 17 year old nephew that can tell you all about them. The cars may change but I'm pretty sure there will always be youngsters that want to hop them up, make them go faster, look cooler, sit lower and so on and so forth even if they have electric motors. It may be that "trick set of capacitors and high performance brushes" rather than a hot cam and trick set of heads, but, they'll still be hot rodders just the same.

 

I've got most of my influence as far as mechanic ability and interest in keeping old things going and or bringing something "back from the dead" from the dairy farmin uncles on my mothers side of the family. My father wants a warranty and the ability to go outside, turn a key and get on with life more than he wants to build a scrap pile and keep things around to tinker with. As far as the hobby goes the writing is on the wall. Entry costs currently are too high and after the 2013 CAFE standards go into effect, forget it. The costs to modify a post 2013 ride will be prohibitive and maintaining/modifying older cars will carry steeper penalties we're beginning to see in the registration/emissions process.

I, however, am really into outlaw culture...

 

I was at a small rod show about 2 months ago. A young kid of about 15 was with his grandparents. He fell in love with my patina 31 A . He looked like he was into skateboards and Call to Duty, not traditional Hot Rods. He wanted to know everything about it. I spent the 30 minutes encouraging him to get into the hobby. His grandfather was a HotRodder from years back, and said his grandson loves traditional hot rods.

There is hope....for the future..

 

I have no idea how many fires I started over the years.
If I'm at a show and someone is picking up there kid so he(she) can look in the car ,I always tell them to let the kid sit inside.They can't hurt it,and if it gets scratched I can fix it.
So many kids are turned off by the don't touch mantality. Remember it a chunk of steel.
Later Russ

 

I just wish I had a dad.

 

I'm a young guy. I'm still in school, 16 years old in fact. My parents split up when I was 3 and I've basically lived in the middle of nowhere ever since, just with my mum.

So understandably I've been interested, and in some cases, a part of just about all of the different "classes" of car. I started out liking the imports, they're cheap, very quick, very easy to build and still modern enough to make sense as a car. However, I hate the whole bolt on parts thing, I want to make my own stuff and that's not really accepted in that crowd. "Dudeeeeee you got a HKS blow off valve??" "na man, I made mine out of a radiator cap". I've never had an import car, I probably never will, I just grew to get more and more sick of it all. It's more about showing off than anything else, most people don't care how the parts work together, just as long as they've got a Apexi FC computer on their Silvia with a Blitz cat back exhaust, a HKS catch can and a Boost T ect ect.... It all seems to just be about having a few mismatched brand name parts. Yeah mate, your TiAL 4" chrome inlet pipe and pod filter is awesome, pity it runs right next to the exhaust and you've still got stock everything else.....

I had a vauge attempt at getting into street rods but they are all the same! 1932 Ford with a SBC in a bright colour with chrome IFS and a 9" diff. Besides, the guy that had them wouldn't even look at me, I'm too young in their minds. Besides that, they're way too expensive, they don't interest me enough either.

Then there's the street machines and Commodore/Falcon crew. Much the same as the street rodders, no help at all and all their cars are the same. Another thing is, all the cars I have driven that fit into this category were soooooooo bad to drive, sure, they had plenty of power but the steering and brakes are always way too vague, no feel what so ever. They always wallow around in corners and were just horrible to drive. I never really liked the cars anyway.

Now, the resto guys, they are great! They will help me out on anything, my problem is that I just can't leave a car stock! I can tell you this though, there is no other group I have actually felt wanted in. That alone will keep the resto crowd going.

The 4WDing crowd is pretty good, lots of fabricating and plenty of people who will help you out and teach you anything, unfortunately a large part of that group seem to, quite frankly, dick heads. Those kind of people who only seem to be there for the free labour on the cars and the alcohol, you know? Those kind of people who will mess up your stuff to show off to their mates coz they think it's funny. There's the few "real" guys that are pretty good though. 4WDs can get bloody expensive damn quick too.

That leaves traditional hot rods, the problem with those is.. It's so bloody hard to come across people that have them! In the flesh I mean, there's plenty of you on here .

So basically, I'm into Gowjobs, ie prewar style hot rods. Of course finding stuff to build them out of is near impossible but I'm getting there. I'm actually building a speedster pick up style thing, think depression era farm vehicle. Building it from scratch of course, making my own chassis and panels, right now I'm more just collecting parts than anything else, still need to find the perfect engine, something kinda period correct at the very least, preferably a 4 cylinder side valve. This isn't going to be a road vehicle of course, I live on my uncles 3000 acre farm. I imagine I'm the only young guy into prewar rods that lives in Western Australia! I don't think I've ever even seen one in the flesh!

So what kind of cars did I end up with? Well the road going ones are a 1957 Peugeot 403 that I'm doing a rolling resto on, modifying it a bit along the way or course. My other car is a 1985 Peugeot 505 GTi, very nice car, not powerful though! That will change soon though! Nothing really H.A.M.B related but I'l get there one day, 1920's/30's car bodies are so expensive..... I think I'l just have to build my self one

Thanks

Hayden

 

I have no kids to mentor, so I let other folks children jump in my roadster and twist the wheel and stand on the seat. They are always thrilled. Maybe they will grow up to be a hot rodder as well.

 

Im just pissed I have to work to make money,I have about 50,000 in cars and parts ,But no fricking time,Working 6 days a week for 100 a day .Would have to pay a shop that for an hour worth of work ,Which I do afterwork ..I hate bills