Mythbusters: an unscientific statistical analysis of rod building styles, circa 55/60

I think he is dead now.

 

Well...this is what I think...

I think that when a roadster has its top up, it looks like a "go fast" cap.

 

You know what would be easier?

If you just went ahead and scanned each picture and posted them up for us to see..

Great reading material. I've been enjoying it!


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Awh shit! Do I need to fit fenders to be "traditional" now? Damn no more mud on the firewall!

 

That pretty much sums up Adelaide, South Australia in parallel. We too had the bodgies & widgies. Hoodlums. We maybe had more roadsters and 'buckboards' ( channeled roadsters/ tourers cut down into utes). The cops were hard on fender laws- we had an arm of the cops known as the 'anti larrikin squad'. This is a lil' before my time, but the bodgie/ widgie thing I heard many times from my (young) parents. Dad worked first- aid at Semaphore (our Venice/ Rockaway), where the hoods hung out. This was the birthplace of the Port Adelaide Roadsters, who still exist.

 

None here.

 

"If you just went ahead and scanned each picture and posted them up for us to see.. "

Yeah, I think this would be a positive direction. It would positively give people more to argue about.

 

Rather than pick scabs, suppose some of you track your own shit. What you like, what your big brother or dad was up to, where, when, how many, blah-blah-blah. My dear departed Dad liked to put the biggest engine he could get into whatever he felt up to doing. Mixed with some very early 1/4 and 1/2 mile oval stuff, he lived the life some of you seem to wanna sell you left nut for. I was fortunate in that I lived it by his side from about 5yrs old until damn near his last day.

Deep within fg's research there's the subject of "influence". If you like or need to, go back a few TJJ blogs and listen to Ryan's interview again. By his own words he didn't know shit before this began. He knew what he liked, did some research, and perhaps could be responsible in some way for the shit storm some would like to turn this thread in to. Not by choice or intent, but I think mainly because too many get what they want and discard the rest of the info. Comprehension and an open mind are as traditional as 3 deuces or finned valve covers, not to mention some old-fashioned manners. I get it, some of you are hung like a fuckin horse and know it all. If that's the case, WTF do you need from this topic? I for one have enjoyed what it is and even more what it could be. More of my ol man's influence has been tempered for this reply. Those fortunate enough to have known him need no explanation.

 

Thanks for the great reading.

 

lotta blabbing and no fuggin peetures...

 

Thanks for the effort put into this unscientific statistical study. From what I have read and my understanding of statistics (courses taken and current use of it in my job), its appears you put thought on your data collection (you even say it is unscientific). It is funny to read responses from folks who have no understanding of statistics and what it is. Like any study, you will have folks say it is bogus (those that have their opinions vs looking at actual data... if the data was collected correctly)

The numbers shown are what they are for Hot Rod magazine (not hop up or others from the time). do the same study for another mag from that time period and you might get different numbers. It shows what was happening at the largest magazine in its day.

Now, I thought there would be more unchanneled fenderless in the west mainly due to weather and racing influence. (I could be biased based on seeing a number of fenderless race car photos in the mags. if I see fenderless cars (race or not) featured predominately over a period of time, I am going to eventually think they are the dominate build style. Your senses are flooded with those photos and over time your brain just remembers seeing alot of it (not distengusing whether they were street or race)

Now who wants to do a similar study on the percentage of flatheads featured vs OHV (sbc) and see when the flathead went from majority to minority (as it relates to Hot Rod Mag). It might be surprising to see which yr the newer motors became dominate.

 

Ken, I think Brad O and myself have both done the engine count deal based off the first few Hot Rod Annuals. In separate threads. Neat data.

 

prove different or accept it...

 

I accept that is is a study of editorial preferences in HRM in that time period. Frank Oddo must have liked my 32 and my roadster. They made it into SRM fairly often. During event coverage. Once the roadster was in three months in a row at El Mirage, Muroc, And Bonneville. Grey Baskerville on the other hand must not have liked them much as he had lots of opportunity's to picture it and only did once. If you read SRM you might have thought they were common cars. If you read HRM not so much.

 

I found the fenderless stats from back east to be interesting as well. More cycle fendered cars from CA than from back east. I realize a lot of HAMBers cant read so in deference to them, later I will post of photos some of the cars from the "readers write" sections, and you guys can decide for yourselves if the selection of those photos was or was not dictated by Hot Rods editorial tastes. Stick around, the fun is just beginning. As far as scanning all 150+ photos, uh, NO.

 

Tman, would it be possible to post a link to that on this thread?

 

Damn George you're getting lazy.

This has been fun to read. Another thing I often notice, is how much more traffic these "History" discussions get than do technical questions.

 

Great read George, you did an amazing job showing what the REAL facts are even though it goes against what people want to think or revise history to fit thier own build styles.

I personally love '40s style period hot rods, flatheads, 16" wheels, blackwalls, less chrome and built for more function and imulating theroadsters they say at the Dry lakes.

BUT the truth is for the sample period of '55-'60 your chose the pictures and magazines support your findings .

It is a fact that the drag strips were taking over the Lakes racing and the introduction of SBC in '55 as well as other OHV engines for ever changed the style of hotrodding.

Also, the fender laws in the California starting in '51 were very strict and unless you were rich (which most kids were not) and could pay the fines or wanted to lose your license you ran fenders on the street, however that is not to say you did not pull them off at the drags to run faster and be more aero.

For example my '32 3W has been called a EAST COAST built car BUT it is a west coast built car from the fifties and it was lead chopped, CHANNELED, BOBBED REAR FENDERs and cycle front fenders and it ran a '57 283 with a hurst mount. I cannot tell you how many people have tried to convince me to unchannel it, remove the bobbed fenders and put a flathead in it so it would be more traditional!

 

Anyone who thinks that your car or any other car is an "East Coast" style simply because it is channeled needs to go back an re-read their Henry Gregor Felson collection again.

 

How many pictures were sent in to "Readers Write"? How many made the magazine? You really think the editors did not make a difference concerning what was featured? I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. But if it is to demonstrate that there were several styles of Hot Rods in the Fiftys and Sixtys, you are right. Traditional depends on where and when you got into cars.

 

I have some mid 60s rod books that you simply can't tell when the car was built or perhaps started. I particular 1 rdstr pu in a 64 book that looks like what most would call 1959. Sorry, my scanner doesn't scan worth a burnt piston...

 

It is my thinking that many early cars were the owners only car aqnd in many cases their first car, this would mean that with pressure from mom and dad they would have fenders mom and dad s like tidy cars and would approve of cosmetic updates often helping out on improving the state of their son or daughters car. They probably would not know what a hotrod was but I am sure that the youngsters would these cars would not probably feature in magazines but the seed would have been sown and the following fueled by what appeared in magazines would have swept highschools through out the land it was this fad ,as in music, which would have dictated what set the look of early cars then the mags picked up on a look and set tradition in place.

 

Interesting:
http://www.rodauthority.com/features/editorials-opinions/reinventing-the-wheel-the-art-of-tradition/

 

Aw, come on.. If dumb, ol' me can do it, so can you.


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I am past 70, When I was a kid REAL HOT RODS were channeled, I used to stop every time I was in town to check out 2 model A coupes both chopped and channeled, no fenders, and a chopped and channeled 34 ford pickup, full fendered and a 32 coupe chopped and channeled that my brothers wife's dad did in the 40's , We HAD to channel the 31 chrysler roadster, today it would be a rat rod because we never got the body work done before it was sold. And the only people covered with tatoos were part of a circus when it came to town.

 

The point is this. Two long-standing HAMB institutions need to die a quiet death. 1) the idea that channeled cycle-fendered cars (I include cars with cycle fenders on the front and bobbed stockers on the rear in this category) are "east-coast style" hot rods, and 2) the fifties hot rod is defined as a fenderless highboy.

Both ideas are BULLSHIT full-stop,end of sentence. If you gotta have labels, the channeled hot rod, with or without cycle fenders, is a "fifties style" hot rod. I think the idea that these are "East Coast Style" cars has its genesis in the book "Cool Cars with Square Roll Bars". The bulk of the images in the book are of fifties era cars, and as that was predominate build style at the time, the bulk of the images in the book were of chanelled cars, so a bunch of guys who were newbies to the scene decided that was the "East Coast" style.
If someone had done a book about midwest fifties era hot rods first, and it had been as popular as that book was, every guy out there would be calling these cars "Mid-West Style".

The idea that LA was littered with fenderless highboys throughout the fifties is also hogwash. Again if you GOTTA have labels, the "California style' hot rod of the fifties was full-fendered.

Now we have a situation where any "traditional" hot rod is a half-assed copy of the Doane Spencer car, a black highboy with 16" steelies, and a lot of guys have the mistaken impression that the fifties hot rod scene was a sea of sameness, blind conformity. Total bullshit, and the fifties scene had way more diversity in build styles than the current scene, and if guys will open thier eyes to what REALLY constitutes a "traditional, period correct" fifties build style, we can transition away from that sea of sameness into a scene that is FAR more diverse. I have seen the same BS that So-Cal Tex has described, where guys are actually talking about butchering an actual survivor hot-rod to make it conform to the current "official HAMB approved" version of history, in order to make it more "traditional". WTF?? SERIOUSLY?? Quit conforming, stop unchannelling cars in the BULLSHIT delusion that you are making them "more traditional".
Feel free to weld and fill doors and decklids (Anderegg and Kenny Smith), cut down door tops(Apache), build belly-pans(Niekamp, Squaglia), hide the door hinges (McGee), add race car noses (Trone, Niekamp), cut the bottom of the body off (Bob Johnsons T), bob the snot out the rear fenders or even shorten a body through the 1/4 panels, and build REAL fifties hot rods.

And THAT was the ultimate goal of this exercise.

 

Great read, Richard. Nicely put together and explains why some guys do and say what they do.

“Nouveau-Traditionalists” I like that description for some cars.

 

I really wish I hadn't opened that. Gonna have to rinse my eyes with lacquer thinner now...

 

You have to see what others are thinking. That's a part of research.

 

I believe the magazines gave out the first "east coast style labels" long, long before the Square Roll bars was published. I think he was a magazine writer



Speaking of mis-label, or mis-take There were two non-east coast survivors that I spotted in the 'east coast pic thread' that was up top yesteday. The first one was Kisam's 32 3w survivor from Nebraska, and the other one I know is a late 50s Ohio built A roadster, built only for the Autorama shows, now owned by a hamber from central CT.