these photos are totally awsom shows the clothing and styles of the day more please they should be in a book
A 30 roadster on 32 frame, Olds 303, dual 4's, Packard 3 speed with over drive, 48 3/4 ton rear end. Those are goodyear double eagles, the rear rims were the 48 Merc reversed rims. You can't see it but had a 56 Olds gauge set. I kept breaking the windshield frame on the right side. Me and it parted company one late night. The road curved left but I went straight over the cliff. Good thing I was "under the weather". As the car fell, I went out, good thing I did. The car hit on all 4 wheels, but hit so hard it tore out the rear end. The motor mounts broke, and the engine angled down. The car continued on for a good 1/4 mile coming to rest near some railroad tracks. Because I was "under the weather" at the time. I went out like a bean bag. All I got was a broken leg bone, a bruised heart, bruised spleen, and kidney. Only had to stay in the hospital for three days, and got to go home. Some farmers had went down with their tractor, and pulled the car out, and took it back to the farm for me. One of the real strange occurances was, I had on my ole high school graduation watch. When I got flung out, I must have flung out my arm, cause my watch was missing. Some time later, I went back just to see if I could find it. Sure enough after a while I did. The dial was now rusty, and the band was broken. The chrystal wasn't. I took it to a jewler and had it cleaned, and I still have it to this day. I wish I still had the hot rod goodies that that car had, but of course they're long gone now. HellRaiser
this car has been for sale on egay for a long long time! for cheap too. i have no idea why it hasnt sold! it has racing history and everything!
I'll have to really dig around and see if I can find the photos of my 58 Impala. That's one I wish I still had. All black, with that blue silver interior. Tube grill, wide whites. Thing I didn't like about it was I couldn't keep that center bearing in the drive shaft. A 57 Pontiac 2 door sedan, that was a good one. My sister drove that one a lot. I'll know I have the article about one of my uncles that had a 57 Olds, that was a real hot rod. He went around a curve and lost it and rolled it. Killed his brother. Uncle got 10 years in the pen for man slaughter for it. Brother in law, did a lot of hot rodding on tractors. Big deal back then was to put either flatheads, or 283's in a A/C 45's, because of the rail frame. A real easy conversion. But with no suspension, and tricycle front ends.... HellRaiser
You said it !,..... Just about 3/4 of all the roadster bodies I went to look at back years ago were decapitated coupes !
Great thread,keep it going.Thanks for the memories Dallas.Under the weather is better alternative than under the daisies.
And PUUUHLEASE notice.............all of these cars of the 50's were "PAINTED". Maybe just with primer, but painted none the less. Never did we let our cars rust nor did we think the "rust" look was cool. When I question todays kids about where did they get the idea we had rust buckets "back in the day", most of them tell me, "well isn't that the way it was?" I tell them no way and they look at me like I am stupid. I never knew of a car "back in the day" that was put on the street rusted or rusty looking. I'm just saying....................
It wasn't rusty, but according to the widow, "flat black" was the only color on my car since the 50's. The builder refused to paint it and his brother worked in a body shop. According to the builder it "always was and always will be - flat black!" Needless to say, I will repaint it flat black.
Yep. Cars were painted back then. A real cool "Daddy-O" wouldn't leave the garage in a un-painted ride, or anything that was covered with rust. As far as that goes, when a car or truck got to the point of having the rust that can be seen on cars and trucks now after a couple of years on the road, then it was either park them behind the barn or out along the hedge row. The only time we'd come out with any primer is if there was some bubbling started, then we'd sand out the spot to keep it from getting worse. then use a little "Touch up" paint, or then we might use some primer over the spot. Remember when we used to paint the inner wheel wells? Red? White? Black was ok, but it didn't stand out. Did any of you other old timers put colored truck running lights up in the wheel wells of your rides? Those were cool to have a white colored front inner wheel well, and a blue truck running light up there. LOL. I remember a tan 50 Chevy 2 door sedan I had. I was getting rust in the rear just above the rear wheel and back along the bottom side. Well to "Fix" that little problem. I already had fender skirts on it. So I used some masking tape and taped in a set of "Cruiser" skirts. Painted the skirts black. From a distance, they looked good. Looked like a 50 Chevy 2 Door with cruiser skirts . As far as painting goes. Just about anyone could paint using the good ole Laquer. Even me!!!. Paint, sand, paint, sand, paint, sand. Make a goober, then just wipe it off with laquer thinner and keep on going. With the cost of todays paint jobs, good ones, running at $8000 on up, no wonder most everyone is going with just a rattle can paint job. (Unless the builder is a guy who is a professional painter by trade. Something else I was never any good at was welding. My dad was a blacksmith by trade. He taught me how to gas weld, and this is where we used the old Carbide making gas tanks. Some good old forge welds, (I can still fire up my bar-B-Q, and use it to make some small forge welds. And Arc welding. My Arc welding looked like cottage cheese. So anytime I needed any thing welded good, then I had to have my brother in law do it back then, or even today, I've got to have someone that knows what they're doing, do it for me. (Welding is something a person has to keep in practice with) But, to the original statement, no it was not the way it was done back in the old days, to run around with a rusted out what ever, and think it was cool. Why should we...Back then a good one, and I mean a good 40 coupe could be had for $100. A 32 for $25 to $50 for good ones. Maybe $10 for one that didn't run. 33's 34's 36's.. I can also remember I had my eye on this gorgous 37 Ford fastback. All black, floor shift. Gorgous car. No rust, no dents. But my dad wouldn't let me have it because it didn't have self adjusting brakes. That one was $75. Gorgous car. My truely first car was a 48 Ford 2 door sedan. I traded my Whizzer for it. A good car. All grey in color, Flathead V8. What more could a kid want? But my really Hot, hot rod back then was a 50 Olds, with the 303 V8. (Ended up making a Whoopie out of it) But, for us, and I say us, in my era, we had some hot rods. Had some cruisers. Built some when we were in our late teens. Had fun, raised Hell. Drank some booze, porked a few gals, raced down some ole country roads. Played ditch the cops. But then it was either we went off to the service, and had to leave our rides behind, or we knocked up our sweetie, and Wa-La..Instant family. There goes the hot rod. (I went to the service, thank you, and left my 58 Impala behind) Part of the reason some of these so called "Barn" finds keep showing up, is there was a lot of hot rods made back in the day. Those that survived around me, were either stuck behind the barn, or in a machine shed, or put out along the hedge row with the other delapidated farm machinery. The reason some or I should say most of the old tin didn't go to the junk yards, was some of our towns were located too far away from the rail roads. Back then, after the big war, scrap iron was only paying a penny a pound. So it wasn't worth it, for the junk yard to try and haul all of his old iron to the closest rail head. The local junk yards didn't have crushers like they do today, or have those portable crushers come in and crush the tin, and load them on to flat beds.So with the junk yard kept it, or for only a penny a pound, it was too far for us to take it to the junk yard too. (Another little side bar) I remember as a little kid, I had found a old pot belly stove. I hauled that off to the junk yard, and thought I had struck a gold mine. I don't remember now excactly how much I got for it now, but it was over 2 bucks.) AND ANOTHER THING......For me anyway, and I'll bet a few other old timers here. Taking a picture was with the good ole Kodak Brownie camera. I remember it took 110 roll film. We could get colored pictures, but they were more expensive than black and white. So most of the pictures in the ole family album were in black and white. While I'm at it, and confessing my soul for some of my younger escapades. My one and only time at visiting the Mid-Night Auto supply was... I'll just call him %$&^%%$. He was the driver. We used his car. We spotted a 56 Merc with the 4 bar flipper hub caps. Wow, they'd look sharp on his car. He let me out about a block away, so he could cruise around the block while I went to get the hub caps. So there I go with the screw driver. I sneek up and crouch low. I take the screw driver to the hub cap...SQUEEEEK....SQUEEEK.....God, I'll bet they could hear me the next county over....Of course I'm scared.....But I got the hub cap loose. Well..I didn't know they had hub cap locks.. Those little round locks that screwed into the valve stem. So I tug, and I tug, and then a KA-BOOM!!!!...I pulled the valve stem right out of the rim. So there I go beating feet with that hub cap in my hand> &^*&%^%$ picked me up, and we beat it out of there. That cured me from ever visiting the Mid-Night Auto again. I guess I sort of got off the subject of painting our rides back in the day. Didn't they make a movie about us painting our rides back then? Oh, I remember now, it was called. . . . . . . . . . . PAINT YOUR WAGON HellRaiser
View attachment 856138 View attachment 856139 I didn't have this one back in the 50's or 60's. This one I built up just a few years back. Actually started on it in 1998. But the Mrs. got sick, and I never did anything with it for quite a while. Actually, after she died, I did get back to work on it back around 2002. This was done period correct. with a Merc Flathead, 39 Merc top loader, the proverbial full house, full dress treatment. I even kept it 6 volt.. I had this up to the Hunert Pileup one year instead of the HellRaiser. Good thing I did because at least I had a "Hades" heater in it. So I was all comfy up there that year. But, like I said, with the Mrs. gone, she never got to go for a ride in it. That and there was still a lot of stuff in it that was over 60 years old, I just didn't trust it on long distance drives. So of course, That's another one I can say I had. I'm still looking for that 58 Impala and the 50 Olds. HellRaiser
A few from Tucson, circa '54-'56. Posted them a year or so earlier but thought they were appropriate for this thread. The yellow '32 and the flamed '40 were my high school rides. Apologize if you've already seen them.
I didn't notice very many skulls either. I'm just 40. My dad graduated from high school in the 50's so that's his era. Judging from these pictures, I did notice how new they all looked new back then. No dents or rust. Nice paint. Everything fit together well. The rusted look is definitely a new style. It's understandable, though. The cars are a lot older now than they were back then. There's simply less of those cars and more of what's left are rusty. It seems like it would have been difficult to find a car as rusty as some of the ones seen now - with holes completely eaten throughout most of it's body. But I think the rat rod style goes deeper than that. The modern music, art, buildings and clothing are not as beautiful either. As you said, if someone drove an ugly rusty car back then, they wouldn't have been cool. Back then, it was generally cool to be good. Now it's cool to be bad. Without "good", beautiful girls who love their guys have been replaced by sexy girls who are self indulgent. Heroes in white hats who help the weak are not the stars of our movies, the selfish destructive villains are. If I enjoy selfishness and destruction, I can't enjoy talent that is greater than mine. No one can be better than me. I must tear it down and proclaim my own as better, even though my talent didn't take as much honing. Me, me, me, me. You are just there to be used. Creation has been tossed out. Destruction is cool now. Rust is just another example. (End of rant.)
The best period, the '50s....... Thanks Bill Van Dyke for reminding me of the Tucson scene, from the best period for 'rodding, the '50s.......
There's some more pics of the desbrow pickup in this thread, even detailed chassis shots! Jimmy B makin it happen! http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=372566&highlight=desbrow
My old roadster build pics and finished in Cobo Hall in 1956. Also my old 34 in 56. Great cars, wish I had them back.
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