Is the HAMB the place for muscle cars, VWs and Toyotas?

I gotta agree 100% with all this that Sam posted in fact it looks so much like what I think about the whole issue, I might have posted the same or parallel ideas last time this important issue came up.

From bottom to top, Sam has first hand knowledge of what restorer's think since his dad restored Model A's.
Currently, "we" and others are building or restoring all kinds of old cars that aren't, weren't, and wont be anything like what came off a recognized manufacturer's assembly line.
People are restoring old race cars to look like they did just in a perticular race for example.
A lot of the "traditional hotrod" builders will go to great lengths and expense to have the "right" curved lens guages, or will only build with an original '39 Ford pedal assembly no matter how rare they are getting, for example.
But then they'll turn around and try to hide electronic ignition in the distributor and a CD player in the trunk or under the WWII Bomber seat replicas.


To back what Sam said;

The almost mythical "American Hotrod" WAS a STREET ROD!
In Southern California it was, anyway
It was DRIVEN, on the STREET, out to the high desert and then the pedal went dow to see how fast it could go across a flat dirt dry lake bed.
Why? Because a handful of nuts decided that was the test/game they were going to play to pass time and entertain themselves or to show which one of them was the hottest rooster in the Pasadena hen house depending on which geek shrink or anthropologist wants to ANALize why any of us would want to waste valuable time doing anything that doesn't directly have to do with eating, fucking or pissing.
Maybe it's because the first "hotrodders" were still Victorians living with Victorian values?

Yea, DRAG RACING quickly put the licensed for the street hot rod on a trailer.
Drag racing evolved a specialized vehicle built just to go down that 1/4 mile as quick as possible.
My first awareness of strip drag racing was right around the time of the nitro ban and the fast cars were already race only rail jobs, not "hotrods".
Some guys still drove "hotrods" on the street, but they had a race version of it or a race car that they trailered to the strip behind their then new push truck. Look at the old grainy pictures from '55 or '59 or whenever. The cars that were in the parking lot with the race car's trailers hooked to them were NEW cars!
These weren't a bunch of poor depression kids piecing together a handful of junkyard parts for $15 and having a traditional hotrod. They were "we finally made it" depression kids who were lucky enoughtto come home from the war and got or made jobs that afforded them more than just what it took to feed a house full of kids
Aftermarket speed equipment, like multi carb intakes cost almost as much in actual dollars in '50-'57 as they do now, without an inflation adjustment.

HOTROD magazine (and R&C somewhat) was sometimes just a news reporter and sometimes tried to push trends, but for the most part I think they were just reporting the news.
When guys took four door sedans with the engine in the middle of the dash and the driver in the back seat to the drags, they ran a picture of it.
Then the next month they had a blurb about how NHRA had made a ruling against that in that racing class.
When EMPI designed and marketed speed equipment that would make a VW do wheel stands on the track, it was on the front page of HOTROD because it WAS a HOTROD!

Yep, REAL hotrodders jut want to go faster, regardless of the starting point or year or make of the car.
When the "Muscle cars" hit the streets they went in to speed shops and were "tuned" to be even hotter, or handle better, or both... They were HOTRODDED!

If you compare how long the HAMB has been celebrating any segment in the Hotrod dialectic, Depression 4 banger era, Post war V8 era, and then probably "the end of hotrodding as we knew it" SBC era and add up the short number of years, you'll find they are like the TV show MASH each shorter than the rememberance.
For instance, The V8 era was about '46 to '54 when the SBC turned hotrodding on it's head much more than muscle cars did.
9 years.
I think a lot of people don't like VWs as "Streetrods" because they're too easy.
A VW is a 1937 fat fendered, running boarded, car that still looks similar to any other late 30's car.
But in the late 50's early 60's when guys started buying them and "hotrodding" them they were new. They didn't have to be "restored" before you did anything else to them so that was "cheating" like building with repop glass or steel bodies now.

This Rambler's out of gas....
I bet you're glad too.

 

My world is spinning out of control! I find myself agreeing with everything SAMIYAM has posted here! ha

If this board was limited to strictly traditional rods, I think even the hardest of hardcore traditionalists would start to get bored. It's simply one of those things, Ryan or the other moderators declare "It's OK to talk of VWs, Toyotas, favorite fast food, etc." and that is when this board will slide into the great abyss of generality. Like Sammy said, it's the spirit of traditionalism that this place is about. No?!

Don't force Ryan's hand and, I believe, small tidbits of things other than black hi-boy lakes roadsters will be allowable.

Take my truck (please), for instance, no one would have built anything like it "back in the day" yet the spirit is there. If everybody started posting pics of mid 60's F-100s, the moderators would probably have something to say about it and rightfully so. Someone told me my truck was laughed off of some "Slick 60's Ford PU" web site. Hey, good for them!

The HAMB works and thrives off of FRICTION. Sometimes having to have a finite definition of what IS and what IS NOT acceptable sucks the life right out of something. People love black and white resolutions. Life isn't that simple and neither is the HAMB! Now everybody, let's hold hands!

Butt, that VW gasser-machine rules!

 

You talk alot! hahahahaha

 

A little difference; repeat, a little is fine as long as things don't start changing
the basic concept of pre '64 car. In the 50's we had varying interest that went with hotrods. I messed with outboard hydroplanes, motorcycles and
even girls.

 

I bought an old bug today, but you won't see it here.

The wife wanted it as a toy and I figured it would be a good way to get her off of my ass for my toys.

 

We should just lock and sticky this thread to the top of the board. We hash it out every year with the same results..



I think I'm going to go put a fireplace and some mirrored tiles in my van...

 

to show how lame the word lifestyle is

altia the hun led and active outdoor lifestyle

-gc

mis quoted by rmk

 

What part of HOT ROD do people not understand

 

Are we to cool for this?? I'm sure everyone will have to say yes, to save face on the HAMB

 

Oh, great...
Another VW fanatic trying to prove a point.

So because of that,



No.

 

A: I don't own a Bug
B: I have no point to make
C: I just have my opinions
D: I welcome all others

 

Make it go away!..

 

So I guess you were trying to stir shit for the hell of it then.

Its pretty obvious what a Trad Hot Rod or Custom is.

There are lots of cars that sort of fit, and lots that dont.
Variations on the theme are cool as long as it doesnt push the Trad stuff off the first pages, or create Drama.

No one Off Topic or nearly On Topic Car has a right to be here because an other Off Topic Car was tolerated.

And Drama is not cool...