Yes, I too believe that "laying frame" has no relevance on a site focusing on "traditional" Kustoms, but I wonder how long it will be before someone comes along and brands us as "traditional Nazis" and gets the thread closed down, as always seems to be the case recently. Paul
My four biggest reasons for NOT liking the "lay frame" deal could be cast aside as being somewhat silly, but.... If your suspension is adjustable on the fly, you haven't EARNED your right of stance. Yeah, looks broken sitting flat on the ground. The "who's lowest" pissing rights are irrelevant with hydros or bags. I like my car where it looks it's best, whether driving or parked. Now as far as a truly period custom is concerned, yeah, that speedboat, balloon WW tires look is king!
Don't jinx it my friend, this still has to get past the evening and night time crew yet! But I have my fingers crossed. Paul
Now you have done it again.... I think there has always been a stong following of tradtional custom cars on here but I don't think many of them comment on threads very much. You look at the view count on most custom based threads and it is usually way up there. Maybe we are a more reserved lot and don't always have to comment everytime someone posts something new like those damn hot rodders
Does anyone really believe that customizers then would not have put their cars on the ground if they had the means? Kustoms are "low and slow", always have been always will be...
I realize I'm an 'old timer', but I can't for the life of me see beauty in a stance that has the front wheels stuffed up inside the fenders.
Laying frame or what ever ya call that,says a lot about the time frame and info you fromed your own ideas of the right look in. For those like me that are old and did this stuff back in the day before bags,we knew that too low was not driveble and there for stuided looking *,but we did try to get down with out hitting the hell out of the bottom of car,cus kind of low did look nice But what looked stuided than still looks like a broken undrivible werid design now to me,yet that don't matter to those that love bags. I would think it would be cheeper to just let the air out of the tires or park in a hole,no I'm joking there!
And if they had billet wheels, Grant steering wheels, 80's Cadillac tail lights, digital guages, Mercedes headlights, chameleon paint, and side slash graphics there would have been guys who would have used those too back in the day... but they didn't, and thats what made the 40s ad 50s so great. PS, thanks for this thread. I like traditional customs.
Great sample Tom. Kevan's Merc is absolutely a perfect sample for showing what stance is all about. And it could not have been illustrated better with the laying frame similar styled Merc sitting next to it. If you don't get it after seeing that Picture... then you most likely never will. Kevan's Merc is in motion while sitting still. While the red merc is glued to the pavement sitting as a model car with no frame attached yet. I love period perfect and traditional Custom Cars, but there is also part in me that does not mind the more modern approach to Custom Cars, especially when it comes to the underneath parts. Air ride or whatever means to lower and raise a Custom car can be practical, and if it means we can see more of these on the roads I'm all for it. But there is just no need for the laying frame look for these cars. The red Merc shows it can sit with a stance as well. So why make it even possible to lay frame. Built in stops that will not allow the suspension to get any lower than the perfect stance. The stance of a Custom Car that looks like it can drive away at any moment instead of having to wait for a tow truck.
I have to ask ........so do you think that the old custom sleds from back in the day that are recent restorations should be laying frame since we now have the means ? So if you were to walk thru the Customs then and now building....do you really think that a lot of those cars would of looked better sitting on the ground? I wonder why the owners didn't make em lay frame when they restored em? Im just asking a honest question here,not trying "ride anyone".
This response is getting old on this site. The HAMB is about History PERIOD! You wouldn't go on a message board about WWII aircraft and post a picture of a F-18 and then state "well they would have used it if they had it" when you got shit on would you? Yes things have changed and evolved over the years but that is not what this site is about. It is about celebrating what and how things were done in the past not how they might have done it if they had had a miracle time machine to come forward 50 years and bring back todays technology.
Mike, I'm not at all against a nose down rake, my truck looks good that way at shows, like taking a bow by blowing out the front bags (ha ha). But sometimes a radical nose down rake looks more like a panic stop than going fast... ie. hard acceleration tends to raise the nose a tad, eh? - regardless of how high it was when you got on it. Gary
I've always thought the cars with the tail down stance were trying to recreate the look of having one to many fat girls in the back seat.
You know, I don't get a lot of choice in my stance for the Kripple Kart. The fact that she has to carry a fat cripple and extremely heavy powered wheelchair over the back axle on a floor that has been dropped 6 inches between the chassis rails pretty much dictates that she has a kind of a what I like to call "California rake". I still think of her as a Kustom. However I'm lucky enough to know and be friends with some very clever people who have suggested ways of converting her to the front wheel drive and airbags so that she could "lay frame" in order to assist me with exiting the vehicle without the ramp system I have at the moment. I have always told them I would insert pineapples up my ass backwards before that happens. And no way could I call my truck anything other than "traditionally inspired". Paul
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