Now I've been around these old hot rods for about fifty years now and I should know this by now but since y'all are not too hard on potentially dumb questions, here it is...a highboy (or is it high boy) is typically a fenderless car that was born with fenders. But I was once told it got that name because it sat high on the frame so is a channelled fenderless car still considered a high boy? If not, does it have another name?
hiboy/highboy - body mounted on top of frame. Loboy/Lowboy - body channeled. Hotboy/Hautboy - an oboe. dj
Yeaaaah....hiboy, loboy...Common terms but they wear on my nerves just a bit for some reason. I have no idea why! I will use them when the subject is brought up by someone else, but I'm more comfortable just saying fenderless or channelled etc when I'm describing those styles of car. I wonder around what year the Hiboy/Loboy terms were first used?
somehow, the term 'hiboy' brings to mind a nice fit-looking fellow with one hand on his hip and a come-hither glance waving to a sailor: "Hi Boy!!!"
I'd imagine it was in the early thirties, right around the time someone took the fenders and aprons off. The neighbors said " golly that's high boy"
Who gives a shit? I get saved so may times by my automatic spell check. I have to ignore it often for my hot rod terms that are not recognized. Y'all know what I'm taking about. If my spelling bothers you than you can kiss my ass.
Hackerbuilt, I have not heard a channeled car called a loboy in a coon's age (that may or may not be PC ). I think that bot terms have been way overused over they years. Probably good to use when describing a car that is currently unseen, but if you can see it no reason to use the descriptive term at all. It is like seeing a brood of geese crossing the road and pointing and saying gosling.
The reason for the highboy look in California while the eastern and midwestern cars were channelled.... Racing rules for the dry lakes and Bonneville allowed running "stripped" of fenders, running boards, bumpers, tops etc but the body had to be "unaltered in height width and contour". Channeled cars bumped up a class into streamliner and modified territory. Even rodders who never went to the lakes, wanted to look like they did.
The Jalopy Journal
