My letter to R&C

Well said, Fred.

The term "kit car" always dredges up memories of VW powered abominations often seen in the classifieds in the back of my Grandpa's Popular Mechanics. I don't look at a T bucket or a glass Deuce and go "Yup, that's a kit car". I go "Damn, I wish I had that hot rod."


I don't know, maybe I'm just getting old and cranky.

 

That is a very good point. I will leave the names out of this story, if the guy who told it to me wants to add them he can, but here ya go.
There was a large group of "32 Fords" going to a very large gathering of such cars. While they were stopped at one point, a very well known and respected builder was looking them over and said "That car just looks so Right going down the road. the stance and attitude is perfect" And you know what? I am pretty sure it was the Only Glass car in the bunch! And it was the only one said builder made a comment about in a group that included many top award winners.

 

You do know Rob is here on the board? Why didn't you just shoot him a PM?

 

i have to disagree. first off, to group every fiberglas car into one category is wrong. each car should be judged on it's own merit. having said that, i believe most shows and the hamb are full of "kit cars." by that i mean the body and every other piece of the car has been mail ordered. this is why so many cars, especially street rods, look exactly the same. alot of people claim they built their car when in fact all they did was put it together. if you built your car out of catalog parts, you are not a builder, you are an assembler. big difference. i know every one has difference skill levels and that's fine, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a "kit car" whether it came in one piece or a hundred different pieces. and this is the same reason custom cars are such a small percentage of the car population, you can't mail order a custom. you have to be willing to find and modify your own parts, design your own ideas, make all parts and changes work together. takes a ton of time and dedication which most people aren't willing to sacrifice when they can just order everything they want to be just like everyone else. the hamb is loaded with threads with people complaining about the quality and service of places like speedway and jamco and whoever else, well guess what, stop using them and make or modify something to work like before these places existed. i know people don't have the skills to do everything, i don't either, so trade work with a friend that can do what you need, you must be good at something. i know this will piss off alot of people (because a million people fit this description) and that's not my intent. but if you claim to have a "1932 ford" and not one piece is from 1932 or from ford, how the hell is it a 1932 ford! if it came out nice and your happy then great, but don't claim it's something it's not and don't get upset when people call it what it is.

 

Great read. Good jab.

 

There are a bunch of guys on here that can do that. Especially if you've worked on a ton of steel and glass cars. Not starting shit, just pointing out.

I have guys ask me if mine is a kit car. They weren't being assholes. They just don't know. Seems like a lot of glass body guys are super sensitive to the subject.

 

A well thought-out letter, Fred.

 

Don, I knew it was a kit car.....just knew it

 

I have a fiberglass body, 63 Vette, all out race car, when people compliment it, the first words out of my mouth are "well it really just looks kind of like a 63 Vette. There's not one single piece anywhere on it made by GM." Although it's pre-65 I've always figured it wasn't really Hamb material. Like a bunch of people have already said, folks that don't build their own stuff usually don't have a clue.

 

I have a 1933 ford coupe all steel. I was plesanty supprised when it was called a glass car. What I don't like is someone pasing off a glass car as an original car. I had a guy sitting next to me at a show that had a glass car and was telling people he had dug it out of a ditch in Canada and took him 5 years to build. Glass cars have most of the hard work done on the body, but still has a ton of work to do. The guy sitting next to me had a glassey look when I finally had enough and handed him a magnet and ask him to hang it on the door. He moved.

 

Rebel? Try this. I've had a car in my mind for some time now. This one isn't going to make it on to any "HAMB Friendly list but I think it is a hot rod none the less. In the spirit of the original hod rods this car uses a light body powered by a more powerful engine and it is designed to out perform most cars on the road. I'm thinking a second series Geo Metro 2 door coupe powered by a High Output Quad 4 Olds engine turned north south, mated to a close ratio Camaro 5 speed. The rear end and suspension is a complete independent set up out of an early 3 series BMW. (GASP!!!!) Tubular frame, full cage, big brakes, sticky tires. So tell me, which is more hot rod, the fiberglass T built largely with a credit card and a pile of catalogs or the junk yard Metro?

 

I've seen some terrible genuine steel cars and some incredible glass cars, depends on what you do with them. If it looks like a hot rod that's what I call it. Unless the whole thing comes in a box it's not really a kit car anyway.

That said, an original piece of art will always be valued emotionally and monetarily higher than a reproduction.

Aaron

 

Editors have never been known for having an excess of intelligence. I would not worry much about anything he said. Critics don't have to go to school, they just start talking and hope people assume they know what they are talking about.

 

Interesting letter Fred and very well done.
<O
I think this paragraph misses the point though of what folks mean when they talk about a cars soul:<O</O
<O

Finally, old car guys love to toss around the word "soul", when describing a steel car and down grading a glass car. True, the steel car was once pounded on in some factory by a man or woman who was doing so to feed and house their family. Their blood, sweat and tears are infused into that cold steel. Giving it a "life", so to speak. That's great and also up to debate, depending on your definition of what a soul is. But, doesn't the man or woman at a fiberglass manufacturing plant work there to feed and house their family? Are their blood, sweat and tears cheapened because they are working with molds instead of presses. I doubt it.<O</O
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Calling on your "depending on your definition of what a soul is" to me, for what it&#8217;s worth, the "soul" of the car is what it went through during its life before you got it, it's experiences, who owned it, basically its "life and times". It's soul is so much more than the folks that built the car at the factory.<O</O
<O
When I drive my Model A and Model T other owners were there before me, part of the mystic is you&#8217;re experiencing a piece of those folk&#8217;s experiences. Like it or not you are now connected to them.<O</O
<O
But for a lot of folks they don't care about that soul, and that's fine. But if ya do care, ya can't get it from a new vehicle.
<O
Hope that makes sense... and thanks again for the thread, quite interesting. <O</O

 

I'm not sure why, but reading this thread I keep thinking about the old joke, "This here is George Washington's boyhood axe. The Jen-You-Wine thing. The head's been replaced twice, and the handle's been replace three times, but it the genuine axe!"

First, the editor of the article was just being an editor. There was an editorial in Car & Driver some years back that stated (and I'm paraphrasing here) that unless the article pissed someone off enough to write, it wasn't considered a "good" article. They live for "riling up the Injuns". It's good press, in their minds anyway. So mission accomplished. See? They got us talking and writing about the article.

I think a lot of the angst about real vs. kit comes from those who spend WAY more than they should for a car -- like paying well north of a couple of hundred grand for a nice Cobra -- only to have someone show up with a car they built themselves for a tenth the price. And the latter car's fenders won't dent from the inside if they happen to drive it on a gravel road. Or you can actually lean on an open door...
While not really meaning to, the "builders" are thumbing their noses at the guys with the "real" cars, or at least that what the real car owners think.
I think the builders just like the look of that car and get one any way they can. If that means building it yourself, then so be it.

My very first car was a '31 standard "A" roadster that was a present from my folks when I turned 15, way back in the early '60s. As you can imagine it barely ran and was a mess. Even at that age I tore it down and restored the drivetrain as best I could and went to re-assemble it. My downfall was splash aprons. JC Whitney sold glass ones, nobody sold steel. All of the originals rotted out from the salt on the roads. My folks, and their antique car club, refused to let me use the glass ones. So the car sat and never got finished, finally being sold as a basket case when I went into the Army. I think back a lot on how much fun I could have had with that car if only I could have used the glass aprons. Life is too short to worry about what other people think of what your car is made from. If you like it, enjoy it.

 

I'd way rather look at a glass car that was built with some thought and some balls, rather than another "look at me, I'm one of the guys" steel car. But thats just me. I was so knocked out by that channeled gold glass '32 on here a while ago with the wheel covers and cycle fenders.

Oh yea, and glass T-buckets ARE traditional! There was some thread on here a while back where some guy was building a Willys "gasser" and was all hung up about getting steel fenders for it. Yea, those gas class racers back in the sixties were all about the "soul" of "traditional" steel parts. Just cracked me up.

 

Isn't this exactly what the OP did, lets not take ourselves too seriously. Unless you're a pro builder feeding your family its a hobby, nothing else.

 

To me, a "kit car" is one that is bought as a "kit"; a majority of the parts are all in the box that arrives. Cobra kits come to mind.

The fiberglass T buckets, coupes, etc? I refer to them as fiberglass replicas.

And there is nothing wrong with any of these, in my book.

The only thing that I take small issue with are those that are titled/registered as "1932 Ford", or "1965 AC Cobra", etc. No, they are not. How can there be more 1932 Fords registered and on the road today than Henry ever built? There were only about 1,000 real Cobras ever built. Try to guess how many are titled and registered today!

But, I love them all. They are all hot rods to me.

 

I built two "kit cars" a t-bucket with total perf parts and a cobra Niether one was simple.

 

Fred, I appreciate your thoughts and respect your opinion. I also agree to an extent. Building a so-called kit car still requires a tremendous amount of planning and know how on the part of the person working on the project. Even a Street Beast isn't a nightstand from Ikea.

Taking the soul part completely out of it, there is something to be said for resurrecting the body of an old car. I don't like to think of it as being a snob about it either, and I feel the same way about reproduction steel bodies. I know what it's like to replace rotted floors, rusted rockers, lower front fenders that have gotten soft, and even entire quarter panels when time has taken too much of a toll. I know what it's like to sit with a shrinker and strecher, hammer and dolly, english wheel, etc to create the pieces from nothing when there is no aftermarket part to install. Folks that bring their 2011 Corvettes to a cruise night don't know either. I kind of look at glass-bodied cars in a similar light. They belong, but not quite as much.

Obviously, virgin original steel is the best, but who can afford that?

 

After getting a mouth full of 50 year old desert dirt as you try to loosen off that severely corroded frozen bolt that rounds off and has to be torched or ground off and getting bitten by some poisonous spider, you spend a ton of time degreasing and sanding off years of caked on crud. Half the car is missing and you have to sandblast, strip or otherwise clean to bare metal only to find yourself left with a fine piece of lace. Then you have the rotted remnants of wood to replace, the frozen window regulators, the potentially fatal health risks from rodent droppings, the worn out components you need to toss and replace followed by months of metal work and fabrication.... Or you take the easy route and build a visual replica of an original car with not an original part on it. Dial 1-800 for anything you need, all clean, shiny and new - and much of it just bolts on. Sounds a bit like painting by numbers - just saying....

 

I have been asked if my 59 corvette is real. I was also asked if my 31 Ford tudor sedan was real and lastly I was asked if my 34 3 window coupe "Hot Rod" was glass. I have owned these cars for many years and many fads and I am presently building a 27 ford roadster HOT ROD nothing new every thing old. Thanks for listening to an old guy. I still love all the old cars. Jim.T.

 

How many of us would even be able to participate in our hobby if not for fiberglass?

 

You're right, a night stand from IKEA is a much better piece with better looks to boot.

 

Always thought a bucket was a bucket. Never would call one a 'kit' in years gone now.
Norm and Isky come to mind. And Tommy I's version.

 

So reading some of the replies, one could easily get the message that some are saying if it wasn't a rusty old POS that was buried in 40 feet of muck, then it isn't a Hot Rod either.
Well, that sucks, cuz I have built at least a dozen pre 48 cars that didn't require floors, didn't need hundreds of hours of rust replacement or work, and didn't lave tons of shit on the floor when I was redoing the car. It called shopping for the nicest car you can find to begin with. Hmm I guess the weren't hot rods after all.
And what about the original Hot Rodders - this shit was pretty new when they were doing it and they didn't go through all that either, so I guess they didn't have HOT RODS!

 

First, I looked at your build thread and there's some GREAT fab and metal work going on. Excellent skill level and resourcefulness.

But you did to some of your car, what I did to mine. Some parts, you went to a junkyard and made it fit. Does it matter where the part came from before it was modified? The alternator bracket I used to run was purchased from Jegs, but it wasn't designed to do what I wanted it to do. I had to cut, bend and file to make it work for my application. Would or should that be less of an accomplishment, than if the bracket was purchased from a junkyard? How could it? Didn't I build it? By your criteria, I should have gotten some mild steel, then cut, bent and filed. Then, it would be "built"?

I love the work you did on your dash, it's awesome work. I'm taking classes to get to that level of metal work. But you purchased the original piece from a junkyard. You didn't make the whole dash from metal stock. You bought a dash, cut, welded, filed and hammered, until you had "built" your dash. how is that different from the bracket I purchased from Jeg's and modified?

That's what I was getting to in my letter. ALL cars are built. On different levels and to different standards, but they are ALL built. In my opinion, "put together", "modified" and "built" are all the same thing. What you start with or where you got it, doesn't matter.

I get that a glass reproduction body will never be a REAL manufacturers body. Jeeze, how could it? By it's very definition, it's not real, but that doesn't make the END result less than it's whole. In the end, it's a car. Homebuilt, by the builder, in his own image of what his car should be.

Maybe it is semantics, like Hotroddon stated. What got me to write the letter was the way kit car is used and tossed around. Like, "that car isn't as good as that car, because the guy bought his stuff from TCI, SoCal or Speedway; instead of a junkyard".

I can't weld as good as a ton of people, in fact I can barely weld, so I have to buy some things. Does that make my end result less than someone who welded up his piece? I don't think it's less, I just think it's different. Two different paths to the same destination.

I try not to peg cars, but when I do, it comes from where my knowledge of hot rods came from. Like, for a long time, wasn't it the standard that NOTHING post 1948 was considered a hot rod? That's how it was, when I was just getting interested in hot rods. A lot of nice hot rods got cut out of the group. Now, it's just about anything that's modified. That's just an example of pegging.

I think when we start (and I've done it) pegging, picking and in some cases, isolating, we are only making ourselves a weaker group. Times and legalities are already against us. We sure as hell don't need to go shooting at ourselves.

My letters intent was not to change opinion or project mine as right. That would be absurd. My letter was mainly a call to stop the ridicule, isolation and in some cases, prejudice against the way some guys are building their cars. We're all in this together. When the shit hits the fan, we'll all get sprayed. Whether it's a little or lot, won't matter. It's still shit.


As for the "soul" thing. I get what you guys mean, I just call and think of it as something else. Same meaning, different words. No offence meant.

And by calling myself a "rebel", it refers to me writing a letter every time something rubs me the wrong way. If you had know my dad, you'd know what I mean about sending letters to EVERYBODY. He would have loved email.

 

Well said, i feel the same way, it drives me nuts when someone says that about my 32, oh is that one of them kit cars

 

........Thanks John. I knew you would understand.

 

It's a sad thing if we have lost the spirit of hot rodding which was to take something of little value and with ingenuity, some junk yard scrounging and a few dollars create a car that could kick the ass of the newest models coming out of Detroit. The original hot rods were not kit cars by any stretch of the imagination.