Luv the drawer knob grilles !! the 53 stude brings back memories !! mid 60's my dad had a 53 stude painted royal blue with the side insets in white. My mom sewed the interior in white tuck and roll naugahyde. Packard v8 with 4 speed and 4.11 gears. Love to recreate that car today...
Thank goodness! That car lived here for a while (I think the third pic may have been taken at our spring car show) and fellas still talk about it - not in the best of ways! So much effort ..all for naught.. Dave
Curb feelers were not for customizing ....... they were a necessity when parking along the curb and for my wife .. still are
My collection of both little & big pagers started in grade school back in 1953...and hasn't stopped yet ! Mark has the ones I missed !!!!! Jonnie www.legends.thewwbc.net
Trust me when I tell you, that back in the day when all that bolt on stuff was available, no self respecting hot rodder would add any of that SHIT to their cars. There was a word for a car that had that bolt on trash installed. In the interest of political correctness I won't repeat it. SHIT wagon is however a very close analogy. .Don't know about y'all, but we were interested in going faster rather then bolting on JC Whitney garbage and kitchen cabinet draw pulls that did nothing to enhance the looks or performance. All those bolt on trinkets did was give someone something to laugh about. I can't believe that some of the current HAMB posters are still fans of bolt on garbage. I would have thought the HAMB was way beyond that kind of thinking.
Thread is titled "Easy bolt on Customizing" not "Easy bolt on Hot Rodding. Yes there was accessorized Customs. Changing the wheel covers is a basic example of an accessory custom treatment.
There are plenty of photos and magazine coverage (not to mention the installation/how-to articles) of cars with that "bolt on garbage".
I was told the reason for the dummy spots, unless you were a police officer they made the real ones illegal. People were shinnying the spot lights in guys faces while driving and causing wrecks. Guys still like the way they looked so they created the dummy spot lights. This way they had the look without the ticket...
Not sure on that one except this state had a law for a while that your spot light couldn't point forward while you were driving if what the "older guys" told me was correct. I think that a few of the guys missed the point that some of us were sharing in that in the 50's and 60's there were a lot of pieces available to swap out with the stock pieces to make your ride a bit cleaner or a bit different from the stock ones around town. Tube grills were huge, custom tail lights that changed out for stock taillights with no mods. Lots of hubcaps choices when everyone still ran white walls and hubcaps. Yep there were those guys who bought the bolt on trinkets like hood ornaments, curb feelers, port holes and other crap you often see on bomba lowriders now that was popular with the same mindset then that goes to Autozone now an buys stick on port holes or fender vents, flame decals and chrome plastic gas doors. We laughed at those guys then, we laugh at them now.
It doesn't matter wether you call it Bolt On Hot Rodding or Customizing. JC Whitney trash and cabinet draw pulls still looks like SHIT. Since when does changing hub caps equal building a custom?
I dont have any currently other than skirts on my Buick but I guess for me its traditional. I plan to have bullets, side pipes, modified aftermarket wheel covers for my current build - guess thats all bolt on. All this stuff is in magazines etc that are two or three times older than I am. to a guy my age thats pretty traditional. more so when I see dudes on here and in old mags use similar items.
I was thinking about this very subject today. Not curb feelers or hood ornaments. But the cars that I saw cruising all over Milwaukee as I was growing up. I was born in 1955 and became car crazy very young. My dad uncles and older cousins drove them. 50's and early 60's hardtops and convertibles of every make. Duel exhaust with glass packs and chrome tips, black wheels with one inch white walls and baby moons or some type of spinner hub caps, skirts , maybe a continental kit. They were not body modded customs or stripped down hot rods just cool street cruisers and all the young guys where driving them. by the time I got my license and first car in 1971 it was more about mag wheels air shocks and formula ones. But I still have fond memories of those early 60s cruisers. Larry
I know, especially anything custom related. I had a lengthy and somewhat snarky response typed out but thought better of it. Why stoop to that level?
What the Hell...... doesn't like knobs and stuff..... man there's nothing better than a nicely done knob job.... apparently he has never had one.....but every one has a right to an opinion... here's a nicely done knob job ...on a Buick....hope he is not looking...if so take some notes ...you my want to try it yourself some day.....just saying.... Sent from my QTASUN1 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I know someone years ago did a how-to on making the plastic laminated knobs. Would like to find it, anyone know how to locate it?
The Jalopy Journal
