Just some rambling on period correct

Speedaddicts post on WWW and bellflowers got me to do some serious thinking about this .Would we have any of the wonderfull creations by Barris or the Alexander bros. or Roth etc, etc. if THEY had to follow all these "rules"? Would George Barris look at something Sam was working on and say"Thats not how they did it back then"?By not having to allways look back they were allowed to let their imaginations run wild..sometimes this was disasterous but moreso led to some of the coolest cars ever built.Starbird is still building some wild stuff and Zocchi takes cars that no one would even think about customizing and turning them into some of the nicest cars I`ve ever seen.So ,I geuss my question would be that by trying to be period correct are we limiting ourselves to what COULD be done?I kind of get tired of seeing the same cars done up the same way,so why not try it another way,a way that hasn`t been done? Abomber30 and plowboys cars are inspirering to say the least but I would like to see more!Now I am NOT trying to stir up some shit ,but rather to get people to maybe look at there next project or what your working on now and say"Hmmm,I`ve havent seen this done yet"Think outside the box..push the envolope.raise the bar and toss the rules out the window

 

I think you are missing the point.

 

Different isnt always good, sometimes its just different.

 

Glue some wings on a Honda.

 

some things just work, some things just don't.
taste and style dont follow a rule book, they write it.

 

O.K.different is not ALLways good but if they are all the same it gets boring.Now I can appreciate a "period correct" car,but what I was getting at was why not try something different once and a while,why not take that cheap but odd car that no one wants and do something?I also understand the mixing of styles but when i go through some of my old books and mags it seems as though anything went,www,triple lines ,double lines,all kinds of mags and some damn crazy exaust systems.But then thats what made some of them leaders instead of fowellers(sp?)

 

Dont know if you are aware of this but there ARE people building stuff out there... I think they are not so limited by these "rules".
Maybe they even have messageboards.

We are kinda gathered here to share our common passion for period correct and tradition.
Did that clear things up alittle?

 

Yes, and you sit around and insult those other styles, or the builders of those other styles. It's one thing to have favorites and promote them, it's another to be as self righteously smug about your favorites that you have to act the way so many on here do towards that which isn't their favorite.

Really, what it seems to me he's talking about is using our period style to build cars that aren't being built by anyone else, that would still fit in with our period feel.

Of course, we could segregate our common hobby even more and say "we're here to promote and build cars as they would have been done in June 1956 in Bellflower, California, and any other style era or month of that year can go form their own message board" And then we can make comments like, "man, that's how they would have done it in Sacramento in July of '57. What a tragedy! The only good way to build it is our way! get out of here with that POS and join the Sacramento 1957 hot rod message board!"

I really enjoy reading about the traditional cars, both the ones that were built back in the day AND the new versions in garages around the world. But some ot the attitudes are pretty immature for people that are supposedly older than the average teenager on the modern car boards...

Now, Im off to scan some more '50s era Speed Mechanics magazines...

 

Like I said, I am NOT trying to stir up a bunch of shit, just get some of your thoughts on this.To me ,rules were meant to be broken,thats how NEW ideas evolve.I do LOVE traditional ,period correct cars,but what got me into this love of old cars was the show cars of the fifties and sixties when it seemed anything goes.Picture Roth building the Mysterion and then saying"Is this period correct?' ..THATS what I`m getting at! Either that or I`m just not good at articulating whats in my head and I forgot my meds.

 

As Jaker so well said it:
"I think you are missing the point". ??

 

caddyman65,

nobody is telling you, you have to build period correct.
look around this board,
there are probably fewer people on this board than you can count on one hand that are.
it's ok man, build what you want.

Paul

 

So what is your point? Because my point is that back then there were no set rules so why do we have them now? Thats all,nothing else...and certainly Nothing to get all hot and bothered about!

 

Merriam-Webster:

Main Entry: tra·di·tion
Pronunciation: tr&-'di-sh&n
Function: noun
Meaning: an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior (as a religious practice or a social custom)

The ENTIRE premise of this board is "...traditional hot rods & customs." You can see it at the top of every damn page.

Now I see nothing wrong w/ 24's, Lambo. doors, billet, whatever. I don't like that shit, mind you, but your car isn't going to be traditional w/ those treatments.

Come to think of it, I hate the hell out of Lambo. doors. Those are gay.

 

Starting to sound like the same ole discussion. They didn't build traditional cars in 1946 coz it was new, they were inventing tradition. There's enough labels to go around for sure. The one that bugs me most is HotRod, everybody's got a HotRod, they even have a TV show to prove it.
Maybe the point really is, do your homework, learn what you like and go for it. If you find your way to this board because of what you love to do, dig in. The are other boards for other labels.

 

Traditionalism is by its nature an anachronism...

When you talk about building something "Traditionally" or "just like the __ Bro," you’re placing yourself firmly in the present. You can't look back on a time without realizing that the time no longer exists. It's over.

Hot Rodding has progressed to its current level using the ideologies set forth by the founders of the hobby. It was designed to be progressive. There was no inherent romanticism about what they were doing at the time. They just wanted to go faster. That was the thrill.

Early Customizers were the same. They were just trying to make older, readily available cars look a little more avant-garde and stylish. They didn’t really have much love for a 40 or 50 Merc, the wanted to make it look more modern and not as much like a tired old car.

So we look back on those times with nostalgia. We romanticize what they were doing. We elevate it to some god-like level of awe. So we try to capture a piece of it for ourselves by building a car that looks like they built it. We fool ourselves into thinking we are “Building it just like they did.” We fool ourselves into thinking we have achieved our goal of building a car that perfectly represents a given time period, that it actually could have been built by the great ‘Masters’ of the hobby. We actually FEEL like we are back in the golden age of Hot Rodding.

The real original Hot Rodders and Customizers would look at us much like an American looking at a Japanese kid that is all excited about “Americana” and comes up wearing every single “American” piece of clothing possible. ‘Distressed’ Levis, Logo T-Shirt, Logo Shoes, Logo Belt, Coca-Cola Jacket, etc, etc, etc… We laugh and we almost feel a little scared….

I bet if we drove up to Harry Westergard’s shop with one of our “Traditional Customs” in like 1947, he’d be a little scared of us. It would be just too fucking weird for him to imagine WHY we had built an old piece of shit when we could go faster and look sleeker in a 2003 Honda Civic.

All in all, I stick by what I’ve said previously…

We’re all DORKS!!!… And ultimately, it’s all bullshit.

 

I think whats getting lost is that I`m talking about the state of customizing in THIS day and age,back then those guys were innovaters and visionaries, these days most customs look like they came from the same cookie cutter custom factory.I think you can still be a visionary AND keep it traditional.Do i think Plowboys Lunar Lander and spacetruck are DIFFERENT? yes,do I think there also kind of traditional? YES..he had some sort of vision and made them work and THATS what I`m talking aboutMaybe all 50`s cars should only be done 50`s style and only 60`s cars should have that 60`s style but I love to see a 50`s done up 60`s style,but is that mixing of styles??Heres my winged Honda

 

I agree. But this thread makes my head hurt.


Maybe all 50`s cars should only be done 50`s style and only 60`s cars should have that 60`s style but I love to see a 50`s done up 60`s style,but is that mixing of styles??


No.



Mutt

 

If that's your Caddy, it does all the talking you need to do, my friend. The flames look OK to me, I guess. So I see your mixed period question, but it's a very tasteful and subtle treatment of the front end and I'm a sucker that stuff. As far as period perfect, well, with candy paint, Skylarks or Astros and White interior, your car would be a Front Line car when parked at Harvey's Broiler circa '68 or so.

 

Yep... We talked about his ideas for the back end the other day and I think it'll have the same effect.... BAD ASS... and it's definately outside the box. I think some of the guys here just don't get it. You can do something in the spirit of tradition without getting weighed down by it, and with taste....

 

You can also easily draw at least two different paths of car building from a study of traditional rodding ways--each quite different from the others, but both quite different from modern street rodding thought...

1. Tradition means using the traditional technology and traditional parts in traditional recipes--kind of a restoration game, trying to recreate 1952 in your world.

2. Tradition means copying the attitudes and approaches of the paleorodder, but doing so in the modern world--in this scheme, one works with the basic approach of scrounging what is available in the current automotive environment and developing one's solutions for speed, style, and safety from the parts that are in junkyards now rather than 1937 Lincoln parts.

Streetrodding lies outside of this cosmology entirely, attempting to avoid use of actual auto parts or anything that looks old in the construction of old autos...

 

I don't look a tradition as a set of rules.

I look at it as a set of guidelines.

I think there is plenty of ways to be creative and push the limits of a particular style, but stay within the guidlines of a particular era.

It's simple really.

 

Making my head hurt also,was just trying to understand some things and open a dialouge about customizing,like why it`s O.K. to put skinny wites and astros on a 54 Chevy but not O.K. to put WWW`s on a 60`s car?Or why people keep using the same custom tricks instead of thinking of some new ones once and a while..instead I`m looking at the Japanese for inspiration.Sorry to open a can o` worms,I`ll just keep my thoughts to myself from now on

 

Thank you, thats what I was getting at, just wondering why I dont see more of it...And the flames on my Caddy we were just practicing on my car since it`s to be repainted anyway before I tried it on a friends car,

 

I'm also a fan of the Japanese and Euro group-maybe they spend less time worrying and more time building what they dig
If you told a group of Civil War recreationist that they really shouldn't walk right up to each other in lines and shoot each other, they'd probably agree. An Abrams tank would have made quick work of any of the major battles, or don't get me started-a f-14. But what would be the fun in that? I like getting dirty working on my car and opening my hood and knowing what everything does.I've always been a fan of classic art,architechture,and design work because I like the lines.
My two cents...

ps-your Caddy rocks, but you need some caps or bullets or something in the middle of all that black steel wheel

 

There's no need to keep your thoughts to yourself - any more than you need to care what others say about what you do to customize your car.Most of the "experts" weren't around back then anyway - or they were in diapers. The 60's were the "If it feels good - do it" era. Take it from there.

By the way, guys didn't throw away their wide whites because new cars came out with them (Well, maybe the poseurs did) - we used them until we had to buy new tires, and bought what we could afford. Guys actually (gasp !) ran wide whites and narrow whites at the same time.

Mutt

 

It had caps but they were crap, getting bullets instead but after everything else is done and I got a lot of work ahead of me on this

 

It comes down to building what looks good to you...

If you've been into 'traditional' customizing for any period of time, WWW on a 65 Chevy won't look good to you. You will also realize that you can build a 53 Chevy to a later era and still have it look cool.

You can do whatever you want. There are no rules.

Build what you like. If you don't want to build a period correct car, you don't have to. I think the trouble arizes when someone builds a car that is clearly not built to any given era, but they insist on calling it a "Traditional Custom."

But then again I'm a DORK and it's all BS.

 

As I've said too many times before, most folks in the goofy magazines and such are building "modern" traditional cars. Taking parts from multiple eras, putting them together, and calling it traditional.

It's all stupid and I guess I don't really care...but I do.

Whatever makes you happy. I like the front end on your car. Very cool.

 

As long as you enjoy what you're doing, it really shouldn't make a shit to anyone at all. Fuck a big bag of labels...using them puts you in the same category as a Nazi as far as I'm concerned, and the fanatical elitism starts looking pathetic. I see exactly where Errol's coming from.

On the other hand, I don't think WWWs would flow with the thin lines of your Caddy, but they seem to look OK on my Segway.