Its a pretty save bet that back in the fifties/sixties, fenderless '33/'34s with deuce shells outnumbered fenderless '33/'34's with stock grill shells by about 10/1. Nowadays, you can reverse that ratio.
I'm sorry, but it just doesn't look "right". The '34 is a "swoopier" designed car. Like it's cutting the wind. For all the worship it recieves, the '32 is a box in comparison.
The green car looks decent, but the only thing that keeps it back is the deuce grill shell. If it had a 34 grill it would be perfect! I think the proportions are way off on your car, no matter what grill shell you put on there and hood sides will only emphasize that fact even more. Just put the original grill shell back and call it done. A stock 34 is hard to beat!
I have to agree 32 grille shells are out of proportion visually. It's an artistic thing. Some guys will never get it no matter how hard you try to convince them. It is a East Coast thing really in my view. I have looked at a lot of mags from back in the day and I don't remember seeing any West Coast cars that looked like that. I am not saying there wasn't any just saying it wasn't a popular choice on the left coast. Similar to tractor grilles on cars. Some guys will rave on how good it looks and most will just shrug and say ho-hum. There is something just very sexy about a 33/34 grille. Henry got it right. It works with the rest of the body lines. A 32 grille is more commercial in design and works with the boxier styles of earlier cars. You would not want to see a 35 or later Ford coupe with a 32 grille shell on it would you? I didn't think so. Now that coupe pictured on the bridge has some good styling cues going for it. I agree. I think the louvered side panels look out of place in relation to the top hood. Louver pattern is too close to the top hood. The builder obviusly went to great lengths to build something unique and put a lot of thought into it. Just imagine how great that car would look with a stock hood/side panels and grille. It would be wicked. This is the kind of argument you get about stock roof height and chopped hotrods. Some people are just more conservative in that regard. I guess that's why some cars you can just walk past and say that's nice and some cars you look at you just can't keep your eyes of because you know it's badass. They have visual impact in a good way. Not just to be different. I tend to enjoy the latter a little more. Here is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. This car would just suck with a 32 shell on it. This car has perfect proportions.
Just to throw my opinion in even though I know a lot of people do not agree, but, to me 1932 was the last year that you could run a car with no fenders and look right. A 33 and later does not look good to me without the fenders which are part of the flow of the styling. So I don't think either a 32 or 34 shell looks right on those fenderless cars. Just my 2¢.
To me The only grill that can replace a 33 or 4 grill on a fenderless car is a narrowed 37 pickup grill
This is why so few cars actually look period. Virtuallly all the traits that define a late fifties-early sixties era car are considered out of fashion. Nerf bars, deep channels, cycle fenders, bobbed fenders, full wheel covers, rear roll pans, chopped duece grill shells, bobbed frame horns ect, ect. So instead we see ridiculous mash-ups like fenderless highboys with w-motors and kelsey hayes wires masquerading as "fifties hot rods". I gotta wonder how many of the guys that said late fifties on the "what is your favorite era" thread would actually even recognize a period-correct late fifties car if they saw one. Curbspeeds pic is a great example, it does not look like a late fifties era hot rod in any way shape or form, it looks like a late forties/early fifties race car. History revision is the order of the day. I let the little pages and fifties issues of Hot Rod be my guide as to what is "period correct", not the opinions of my buddies or guys on the internet.
Well, you are right about one thing, some guys will never get it. Griepsma was from California. See posts 7 and 19. its a damn shame I am leaving the country tonight for a month, I could post period photos of more than a dozen west coast '33/'34s with duece grill shells. If you dont like the look, thats cool, I can accept that no problem. Just dont try to re-write history to suit your modern point of view. Another west coast car you guys can look up for yourself is the orange, cad powered car with americans that was the subject of a rod test in R&C in '63. There are literally dozens of examples of west coast based cars I could post.
Where did the OP ever mention anything about wanting a late fifties styled car? At the same time I suggest he cover the interior with shag carpet to make it into a seventies styled car. ;-)
Something that I actually kind of overlooked that really tells the tale of the HAMB and this thread in a nutshell. There are only two period photos on this entire thread, I posted both of them. Every photo posted by a naysayer on this thread is a modern photo of a car built in the last 20 years. Pretty much sums it up. If I have time before I leave the country tonight, I will try to post that R&C rod test from '63. I think I know where the mag is. I really dont have time to hunt for anything else tonight. That will be two period, so-cal based, street driven, fenderless model 40's with Deuce grill shells. Two more than the number of period, so-cal based, street-driven fenderless model 40s posted with '33/'34 shells, that number would be, uh lemme see, what was that number? Oh yea, ZERO... Edit:Before someone posts the candy orange BB/A 3 window that was featured in Hot Rod in '62 in an effort to confuse the issue and dilute the facts, note the "street driven" proviso. I have that issue, and its pretty hard to drive a car with a blown early hemi and no radiator on the street.
x2 The sad thing is, that if one chooses to build/save a car like so many were built in the 50s....you are challenged if you post it on hamb. That's not right. Seems like the main issue is that they hate the look of those average cars. Some of the details, I don't care for either, but the cars that make me stop and look, at one of our many Northeast shows, are the ones that look "all familiar" to "me" from what I can recall from so long ago. We are entitled to appreciate and talk about these builds. But don't worry, FalconGeorge...times are changing, and there seems to be a growing group of hambers that do get what the early builds mean to some people...They may not want to have one, but they do understand it. I should put up a pic of my first 50s full fendered hot rod roadster that I bought a little over 40 years ago. It was not even a Ford, but had a Ford grille shell and a modded 32 headlight bar, and canted 52 Buick taillights in the rear fender tails. One good thing from back then, is that all of the rods were simply hotrods...most of the young guys did not care what year or make, when they saw a cool coupe in town. it just did not matter.
The main problem with the proportions of the blue car isnt with the deuce grill shell, its that the grill shell is about a foot ahead of the centerline of the front axle. This is compounded by the headlight location. Suck the grill shell back to the front axle, and line the leading edge of the headlights up with the leading edge of the grill and it would be 100% better. Theres another problem, and this is an issue with ALL hoodless '33/'34s, thats the firewall. My own feeling is '33/'34s generally work better with a hood in place. You can dispense with the side panels, but if theres no hood at all, your eye goes straight to that firewall. Theres no easy way to resolve the firewall issue, and the original poster is on the right track to want to put a hood on the car. Before he does that, i would really try hard to find a way to suck the deuce grill shell back as much as possible. It will pay big dividends. This is the real crux of the issue with being a slave to fashion, if you are just a blind follower of the latest trends, it tends to blind you to what the real issues are when you look at a car that does have some problems with proportion. Oh yea, and I would lose that horn pdq. But, as i know some joker is going to say, its not my car, so I shouldn't be offering any advice, regardless of its relative merit. Oh yea, and just so you know, I own sixties era cars, so couldn't POSSIBLY have anything of any value to contribute. lets get that one out of the way before Deto shows up with his usual rant.
Further to this, do you know anything about the history of this car? Did you build it like this, or buy it with alot of the stuff done? With the split bones and nerf bar, it really looks like it is a car from back in the day that has been updated. There might be an interesting history behind this car. As far as the hood goes, you would probably want to start with a '33/'34 hood top, and modify it to mate with the deuce shell. I am gonna bet that the hood will not be long enough.
..early 21st century? Very nice indeed, far better that I can do. My eyes and screen are not the best, but it looks like it has later 50s Buick 45 fins, but still has the old stock very outdated/unwanted (in the 50s) bulb headlights instead of sealed beams ...and they seem low for later 50 build...and I think it has a CE axle. Speaking of axles; Have you noticed that most of us want a "pretty" dropped Ford axle? Also, have you noticed that the guys who drop them today, make them all "pretty" drops? If you have ever tried to drop one, you will know that a pretty drop is very un-natural. They just will not free-bend like that. So, how many pretty axles were used back then, compared to all the other ways of drops? I must admit that when I did mine..I was sheeple... I wanted to have it come out real pretty like what i saw on hamb. I did not realize that till this thread...I am sheeple.
The backing plates are a dead giveaway, dont even have to look farther to know thats a modern photo. I took a five minute look for the R&C road test, I JUST dont have any time tonight, gotta leave for the airport in about an hour and a half, still gotta shower, eat, and pack my camera gear. While I was hunting for that wayward R&C, I noticed a blurb on the cover of an issue from a couple years ago, it said "Contemporary Traditionalism, The New Wave?" Had to laugh, though "how appropriate, considering what I'm looking for and why." Well, thats it, I'm outta here for a month. I'll probably be checking from some crowded internet cafe in Ho Chi Mien City in the next couple days. Further to this,Dont want it to sound like I am dissing the black coupe, I'm not, its a beuatiful car, I'm just in such a damn hrry tonight, I kind of cut it short. I really only remember one high profile model 40 from the fifties with the truck grill, that would be Jack Morgans roadster, IIRC it was in Hot Rod in '54? Maybe '55. Ithink that was the car that influenced Jacobs to put one on the yellow car, i seem to recall reading that somewhere.
Debating personal taste and history. Like watchin' a dog chase his tail. Looks like fun, but nothings getting done. Unless there is some book... a "bible" of hot rodding that defines what a hot rod looks like, these debates, like the different views, will go on forever. Is there a count of EVERY hot rod ever built and a pic to match? NO! There are thousands of different ways to build a rod. There isn't a mold. They aren't popped off an assembly line. Who's to say what era or coast did what? A writer at a magazine, looking at some pictures he was sent from across the country? Bottom line, and I hate to use it, it's only got to please one person. The OP. If he decides to conform to a bunch of views on a web site, so be it. In the end, it's his car and he'll have to live with it.
Several pictures out of how many cars? It was done, but was it popular? History is only as good as the facts available and so far, facts seem to be slim to none.
Amazing what the search function right here on the HAMB will turn up. One of these guys friends should have told them that F&J and Falcongeorge won't approve, and it wont be "traditional". I really don't care what the OP or anyone else does with their car, but saying that no one "back in the day" built channeled 33/34s with stock grilles is miss-information at best.
See post #42, thats pretty clear, you dig up ONE just one period photo, between the years '57-'62 of a channeled, fenderless '33/'34 street car (no race cars, I know theres lots of those) from California with a '33/'34 grill, and when I get back in a month, remind me, and I will match it with TWO with deuce grill shells. Hows that for a deal? Two to your one. I call that a challenge.
Never said no-one, I said cars with Deuce grills out numbered them. I will be back ina month, and pick this up where it left off. Nice looking five window by the way, too bad it didnt have a duece shell on it, it would look better. Are these west coast cars, or are we goignnation-wide now. That'll make it alot easier for me.
The '33 five window does look pretty good... I gotta plane to catch, we'll pick this up when i get back...
Falcongeorge....... I get your point on 57 to 62 you are saying that there was a tremendous amount of 32 on 33/34 grill combo's, but who is to be the Authority on what was right or looked good????? In reality it could have been a fad or craze, possibly "East Coast Style" if you will! We as modern day Hotrodders need to embrace all styles of traditional HRodding. As for myself, I have an infactuation with 33/34 cars w/stock grills, but I appreciate other builds from different eras ie. 32, 37-truck, trac nose, etc. all to change the look of the 33/34! Thats great that you have an arsenal of pics to share, but the OP only wanted to embrace and share his passion for this style, not get into a pissing contest. Anyway relax and enjoy your trip, dont stress!!!
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