Projects The bucket of ugly! A de-uglifying thread...

"What's all this I hear about banning violins on television? The violin is a lovely instrument, and should be heard on television more frequently if anything else..."[/QUOTE]


That's violence Miss Litella.

O, never mind.

 

A client of mine put that same tire on the back of the Bantam that I put together for him and asked me what I thought... Well, ugly for one, then when I drove it, it felt like it was alive, but not in a good way! I'm sure from behind it looked like Marilyn Monroe rolling down the road bouncing from side to side like that! That and a 92" wheel base made it fun as all get out to drive.

Damn good point about rules! We're all spouting them, but sometimes it's good to break them... Not always though.

 

You'se gottsta be good to break 'em successfully.

 

Royal knows the rules better than most of us!

 

I have to admit that I liked the T-Bucket Freaks that were being built in the '70s. I didn't like the goofy "Theme" ones, but I really liked the ones that Dan Woods built because of their craftsmanship, and I especially liked the pair of wicked ones that Randy Bianchi built back in the late '70s. The black was named "Moonkist" and the Orange was named "Sunkist". Even to this day, I think those cars are so bitchin'. I remember when Hot Rod did the article on both cars, and when I went to get the issue out of the mailbox, I stood there with my jaw hanging and read the entire article right there on the spot before I went back into the house.

 

That's them!

I'll admit it, proudly, I love the Leg Show T too.... Danny Eichstedt's

Another one of my ALL TIME favorites was built in the LATE 70's, maybe early 80's. Mark Weiss' injected BBC bucket.

Sorry to go off course from Chip's build thread. Chip's T will be bitchin', I have faith! Even WITH a white interior...

 

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Bill Wendts. Man, that thing was bad-ass.

 

Sounds familiar...remind me (us).

 

"It's your car, do whatever you want" is like a LOT of things, it boils down to taste. Some of those "freaks" were tastefully done. The colors matched. The interiors were well thought out. The fat ass tires matched the rest of the car. The over powered engines matched the look. Unfortunately, a lot of builders, mainly those on a budget, couldn't afford to get all the high dollar stuff that those builds had, so they would compromise and end up with crap. Or they would have all the trick race car pieces and then have a single carbed SBC as the power plant, so they could drive it on the street. The goofiness came from the mis-match of parts. Like wheelie bars. A lot of times, money does not buy good taste.

Rebel, I'm trying real hard to get the image of those tires on your car, wiped from memory.

 

I like this T too, although I still think the top needs to be an inch or so lower in the front.

Also notice the origonal T frame being used, the general thought is ditch it and go with an A, or fabbed one. I like that it was used and IS up to the task.

 

I like the way this thread wanders out and comes back, like a jazz improv session, everyone takes a solo until Chip comes back in with the steady beat of the build.

I've built and re-built one in my head for decades, part Penry, part R&C "Early Times" cover car, and part of it is a green bucket with aluminum slots all around that I saw ONCE when I was about 10, and it's always been on my mind.

That T Bucket Etiquette article is great, because these things are all about proportion. Although like Jeem sometimes the rule breakers are the most amazing. Geek on this one from the first nats in Peoria. Tires too wide, sits too low, and it still manages to be TOO COOL. Wonder if it is still around in some form.

 

That "too cool" looks like a late 60's Indy racer, except the only sponsor was a tire company. I bet if he had put some decent sized tires on it, it really would have been cool.

Has anyone ever seen someone, who had the money to afford the best, but all their best stuff looked like shit? That's bad taste.

 

Ya know, when I laid out my T-Bucket "manifesto" a few weeks ago, believe I kinda said something to the effect of these are guidelines, not hard and fast rules. That thought process does continue.

Back in the early eighties, I went to work for one of the greatest builders you have never heard of, Don Marks. He was doing tons of T-Buckets at the time, and one of his fetishes is Halibrand wheels. He built several of these cars, always fairly short like Chuck Perry's car, that featured 16X11 Halibrand and 14-31X15 Firestone double diamond dirt track tires. I still do dig that look myself, and I might dig up an old Rod Action article of his most well known car so you can see. That same look could effectively be pulled off with a cheaper wheel such as a slot mag, or a replica like an E.T. Fueler type wheel, but would absolutely tank with a cheap smoothie, or say a Corvette rally, or Cragar S/S. In turn, and going backward, I was just praising my love of the mid sixties T-Buckets running a 6 or 7" Cragar S/S and narrow white wall. It's all a matter of context, and a place in history.

As I said earlier, when I'm spouting "rules" or guidelines, remember, I'm kinda thinking along the lines of my ideal traditional early sixties car.

 

Speaking of tops, there's a guy over in your neck of the woods (Phoenix area) that seems to have a nice one, in my opinion. Not too tall or cartoonish.

 

I can't supply his name right now, ( name space in my brain is taken up with say, "25 differences between a '33 and '34 Ford") But he is one of my customers here locally, and one hell of a nice guy that drives the living piss out of that pretty little car. I do look at his top though and see a bit of the reverse rake that was discussed the other night. I'm still give Royal shifter the nod for really nailing it.



I have been making some progress on some stuff the last couple of days after wailing hard on customer stuff. My hubs and Buick drums have both spent some quality time in the blast cabinet, and are currently clean, clean, Tidy Bowl clean. I took a pair of my spare windshield posts off the fence yesterday and stated plotting a 3" chop, and ended todays work with disassembling the rusty pivots and glass beading them. I think I have made up my mind at this point to go ahead with that mild chop. Tomorrow and Sunday promise to be quite a bit cooler and dryer than what we have been dealing with, (it's 115 in my shop now at 2:30) and I will layout my chop, cut, photograph and put it all back together over the weekend.

 

"...plotting a 3" chop" of the posts, huh?

 

Top is tooooo high in front!!!

 

I'll find a pic

I LOVE THIS! You sir, have nailed it!

 

It was a clearance issue that caused me to run them this way, I needed that extra 1/2 inch.

I tried to find castle nuts for the 5/8 fine thread, no one up here had them. So nylocks it was.

I did trim those cotter pins

 

Reverse rake is killing it. Looks like the deck of an air craft carrier. I'd take the top off and drive the piss out of it.

 

I'd bet that this Roadster was a wild and fun ride to drive, it had to handle like a slot car. I love it !

 

OK girls and boys....I guess I'm going to have to lurk from here on.
Royalshifter's bucket, inmyarrogentopinion is-the-most-parfect-bucket....ever.....

 

Bill Wendts bucket was significant as it was a performance deal in the time of the resto rods. Slicks, blown Hemi, cage and wing set it apart from the 307 Chev powered brown cars.

Some years later Wendt did an article to explain how he fooled everyone with his fake blower setup.

And while we are way off track and out of the 60s, heres another bucket in the Sunkist/Moonkist theme with a blown Arias engine. Probably the best looking bucket from the late 70s era. Note the roof rakes the proper way.

 

I remember both those rides and remember think how cool, yet impractical they were for daily driving. But who knows, maybe they were for those guys. Forward vision must have been a bitch with that chop.

 

xxxxx2 absolutely IMO

 

Hey, Phillips;

Thanks for posting both these pics.





One of the few cars that haunts my imagination... I've looked for a rear shot of this since I 1st saw pics of it in the 70's. Would like a side & an interior shot, too. I think the windshield needs to be ~ 1-2" higher, but, this thing flat out works. Everytime I look at it, all I can think of is Auto-crossing at near WOT. . & no, I can't (or haven't yet) figure out how to make a Volksrod look like that. Or Sunkist, either for that matter. . Hey, what can I say - I've got a one-track-mind of late... .

Marcus...

 

I hate to break it to ya Harv, but I'm 99% sire that that is a fabricated frame. I'll have to dig up the article on Royal Shifter's car, but I remember that being a sixties aftermarket frame. I have found that using 3/16 wall tubing instead of the more typical 1/8" stuff gives a more Original look to the frame simply because it has a much softer radius on it's edges.

Honestly, my main complaint in using a stock "T" frame is the time it takes to box it and do all your kick work and such. Then it's the warp issue. I have never seen any means being able to adequately clamp stuff down and hold it so that the rail doesn't warp slightly over it's length. I've seen them end up as far out as a 1/2" total. Then you get into Ford's tempered high nickel metal.

"T"s and "A"s were made to flex as the car rolled over the rutted cow trails that people drove on back then, and Ford built a certain amount of flexibility into his chassis design. To make that work metallurgically, he added a higher nickel content into the steel's alloy. To better "remember" it's natural state, the finished raw sheet steel was slightly hardened. The result was very similar to a low grade spring steel. If you start welding that, as in boxing plates the whole length, next thing you know it's doing two things - 1. warping, and 2. cracking.

Just my opinion, but I'll happily take a couple of sticks of 2"X3" .188 wall any day of the week and spend a bit of time knocking together a simple frame from fresh stock.

 

It looks to have the same taper as a T frame, very small at the front. If it is a fabbed frame it sure has a factory look, I was just going by the one side shot, thanks for the info.

 

All that said can we concede that Royal might know a little about building and wouldn't build something unsafe. Anyway I think what you are seeing as a taper is just the radius rod angling in front of the frame. And all your comments haven't convinced me that a T or A frame can't be made safe without warping or cracking. Hell they were used and raced "roundy round" for many years.
Norm's and Tom's T's were put on A frames. Not sure how much boxing if any they used. Probably not much. Ivo built more than one and raced shit out of them.
Okey rant over I feel better.

Gary

 

I dont think Royal built the frame in that car, I think he bought that car and finished it off. I could be wrong, maybe he will chime in here?

GasserTodd, thanks for finding the Bill Wendt photo.