Quick question- when did the "billet movement" begin?

I'm not looking for a long discussion, just a year that sounds right. My gut tells me 1985-1987 or so. I'll post a photo that explains the question, shortly.
Thanks, Dan

 

I would say '87 or so is about right. It came in right behind the "Dare to be Different" movement, IIRC.

 

I would have to say it was around 79-82 with Lil John Buttera's Model T sedan. Also Jim Ewing's 33 coupe.

 

Personally, I wouldn't consider Buttera's T "billet". To me that was typical late '70s/early '80s street rodding.

 

The T sedan is pure resto-rod, but the Ewing 33Ford is probably the first, having the first Buttera carved wheels(I think it was the first, wasn't it?).
I think they should have all gone home and started weaving afgans after Lil'John's 33 Willys though.
That car had TASTE and STYLE and QUALITY that has only been mimicked since

 

'84-85 for me. Living in Tulsa/Broken Arrow at that time Guy's like Jerry Hill, Tim Pogue (HAMBer Junior Stock), ect. were making one off part's for Street Rod's and Pro Streeter's. Like everything that start's out cool and different, It get's OVERDONE and so mainstream it became sickening. But it does give work and provide's a living to many people.

 

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I would have to say it was around 79-82 with Lil John Buttera's Model T sedan. Also Jim Ewing's 33 coupe.

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You are correct sir. 'Lil John was always,lets just say "Thrifty" . So when it came to building his own cars he wasn't about to pay big bucks for aftermarket parts. What little there was in those days, there were still things like w/s post and chrome alt. brackets, that he knew he could make himself.

The guy is a fabracating genius('Lil that is) and is capable of making anything. SO it was only natural for him to make his own streetrod parts.

Boyd got hip to this, and 'Lil, and the rest is as they say "history"

 

For me it started in '79.
When I read the article Gray Baskerville wrote about Buttera's '32 3W in HRM.

 

When did the Marketing of Billet begin? A builder that was capable of machine work on his own car is one thing but convincing the masses that they really wanted it on their car and that they should pay for it- that's another thing entirely. Was it Boyd's wheels?

 

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When did the Marketing of Billet begin? A builder that was capable of machine work on his own car is one thing but convincing the masses that they really wanted it on their car and that they should pay for it- that's another thing entirely. Was it Boyd's wheels?

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Probably right after pics of Buttera's car circulated.

I remember seeing carved out aluminum stuff on magazine cars '81-'82 time frame (junior high)


How much longer until those cars are nostalgic?

 

yeah i would say 79 ,after the hrm came out ,

John used to have a big sign in his shop that read "If you're just wasting time....go waste someone else's!"

 

Thanks for the input guys. Here's the reason for the probing question. Just for fun I made a tombstone shaped knob to cast.

 

As usual, Buttera would DO something, then Boyd would see it, copy it...and try to sell it.

I remember seeing billet engine accessories as early as 1983, and soon after that they became more widely marketed. Mr Gasket offered a selection of billet parts under their "Rodware" designation throughout the 80s.

The billet stuff was/is used just as commonly on street machines as it was on street rods...and even seeped into other areas such as 4x4s, VWs, ricers, mini trucks and motorcycles. As with anything else, it got to be "uncool" when it got to the point that ANYONE could just BUY the parts and slap 'em on their ride.

(Guys like Buttera used raw material to fabricate what they needed when the part(s) couldn't be bought off the shelf...others sought to copy the 'look' of his cars by just sticking store bought billet parts on their heaps...and it kinda ruined the whole idea!)

I made a billet shifter for my car 'cause billet aluminum is very light and easy to cut and drill. I ended up changing the final design a bit to make it look a little less "billety", but it still qualifies as a billet item. Do I care if it's uncool or not? Shit no! I just built it 'cuz I couldn't afford a Gennie or Lokar shifter...cost me about $12 in materials and a few hours time!

Personally, I like alot of the billet stuff available today...if used tastefully, it can flow with the whole look of the vehicle. However, most people go overboard so that all you see is a ho-hum car with expensive billet parts hung all over it. THAT'S what really gave the whole 'billet movement' a bad name to home builders I think.

 

Buterra built a roadster for himself, and another just about identical for John Corno. Both were painted white, and I remember them parked nose-to-tail at the NSRA Nats in Saint Paul (1977). These cars got much-deserved ink, and are the ones that were at the point of the spear as far as custom billet parts are concerned. By the way, both of these cars were bitch'n hot rods, as was Vern Luce's red Model 40, which was built with Centerline wheels, and later fitted with Buterra's first set of billet-center wheels.

 

Probably in the early to mid-forties.

More than likely some guy working in an aircraft factory during the war was able to glom onto some billet pieces and proceeded to whittle out his own fuel blocks et al.

Not just a smart assed comment . . . I saw more than a few hand-made things that my dad's hot rod buddies turned out on the company lathe - including one guy who ground his own camshaft on an oil company 12 x 36" Craftsman lathe in the mid-fifties.

All you need to do stuff is the right tool.
Making tools - in my book anyway - more important than the project....

 

The roadster mirror was where the famous "I took a chunk of aluminum and carved away everything that didn't look like a mirror." comment came from if my memory serves me right.

 

I always related it to Buttera's first white 29 roadster. Wasn't he the one that when asked how did you make that mirror, he said "you take a block of aluminum and cut away everything that doesn't look like a mirror". The "Vern Luce coupe" that Coddington built really escalated the competition.

I'd have to go back to the magazines to get the dates but those are the cars that I remember that started the trend and made every hot rodder want to go out and buy a mill and a lathe. I know I did!

I think it was Buterra that talked about removing the "hic-ups" from the body like the door hinges spawning a whole industry of hidden hinges. (I cherish my hic-ups so much that I put chrome acorn nuts on the rear fender studs to draw attention to them)

I personally can't call the "Super Bell coupe" billety. To me that is pure B'ville. We may have different interpretations of what is billet.


That was Buttera right Dennis?

 

But the original question was when did the movement begin. When I think of the billet movement, I don't think of the ones who originally did a few things on their own cars. I think of HOT ROD & Street Rodder magazines that had every car feature done about some billet-ized rod. I think of the "movement" as the same thing as the "trend". Like the current "rat rod" trend, the old "pro street" trend, & the "billet-ized" trend. A movement involves a large number of people doing it to various cars, not Buttera's few one-off parts done for his T. Thats why I said the late '80s.

 

You guys (Hack, Tommy, Animal Ain, etc.) have got it right. Lil' John Buttera was a ruler, and still is as far as I'm concerned.

If mass marketing hadn't taken over and flooded the industry with ball-milled valve covers and the like, the late '70's Buttera cars and even Boyd's earlier work would be much more appreciated. As it stands, they are still works of art, and the guys that can appreciate ingenuity and workmanship will still recognize them for what they are...groundbreaking cars that shaped at least a decade of hot rodding history.

I don't think we'll see a resurgence of billet in the same way it was used in the '80s-'90s anytime soon, but if you'll notice, there are more and more traditional cars being built with handmade one-off parts. The difference is that the ones we're seeing now are used in a manner which still leaves the car as a whole with a trad feel, and don't overpower any other part of the car.

Another point of interest is texture. In the '80s just about everything was satin finished or painted. Now the variety is way beyond anything that has been seen before. I think the Zero bikes from Japan may have helped start this, and if you'll notice...you'll see everything from bare metal, raw cast aluminum, chrome, candies, metalflakes, you name it....I think that really makes the cars being built right now interesting.

C9 brings up another interesting point...even the most traditional of cars have had handmade parts from the beginning of hot rodding. In a way, history is continuing to repeat itself...just evolving each time it comes around.

Back to the subject, my answer to the original question about the "movement" would have to be '86 or so. It seems like this was about the time that billet wheels started to become as common as Centerlines in shows, and billet parts like mirrors and valve covers became readily available.

 

Buttera

 

I think he's getting at when was it avalible in Blister packs

 

doesn't anyone remeber Reed Liliard?

 

Just go through the old Hot Rod Magazines..Early 1980's is when it really started to take off about the era of simulated woodgrain and centerlines....

 

If I remember correctly, it wasn't called "billet" back then, the movement was named "hi-tech" A prime example was when Boyd installed a complete Corvette suspension on a '33 phaeton or something similar. It was brand new and came complete with ABS brakes, but he dumped that for a single-circuit system...

 

I like Billet it leaves more of the cool aftermarket and stock pieces available for me.....

 

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I like Billet it leaves more of the cool aftermarket and stock pieces available for me.....

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You are exactly right. I bought most of my cool traditional parts at give away prices when the vendors were ditching their rest-o-rod parts and stocking up on the aluminum craze. New 32 Running board mats for 15 bucks?!!

I've always noticed that the vendors are a couple of years behind any shift of style in our hobby. It takes a year or two to discover a trend and then gear up for production. It took a couple of years for Drake to repro 50 Pont. tail lights after they got pricey for our traditional croud. The parts producers are followers not leaders. They make what the "Lemmings" are looking for. If you go back and find when they first started to reproduce the stock Ford headlights, it will be a few years after the King Bees were being ditched for the resto-rod looking stockers. (don't be surprised if someone starts to repro the "Guide style" lights.) now that they are pricey.

I just think you can go back a couple of years before the repro parts of any kind were available to find the start of a movement. The demand for billet parts was there and the machinists stepped in and met that demand. Boy! did they ever!

 

I agree with what many guys have said about Buttera and Boyd. The seed was planted in the late seventies. I was looking through my stack of old Street Rodder and PHR mags a few weeks ago. I remember several ass kissing articles about Buttera and what a visionary, and hero he was. I dropped my subscriptions in the early eighties when all they featured were pastel pussy cars.

The trend followed the boom in CNC machine tools. Which followed the birth of the PC. By the late eighties, billet was booming. The "billet movement" was the product of the factors of most fads, mass media, mass production, and mass marketing.

 

The Pride of Kenosha, Wisconsin..Lil' John Buttera pretty much started it all (after his emmigration to California)

 

Buttera did a White '33 Willys for Joe Hudurka(sp),the guy behind Mr.Gasket.
SBC up front,transaxle in the back.Just like the latest 'Vettes.
He machined up his own wheel centers from solid aluminum.
The wheel halves came from Centerline.

Boyd commercialized the idea,
then everyone else clued into CNC machines,and followed suit.

 

Since Van Halen's "Hot for Teacher" and ZZ top's "Shes got Legs" hit MTV....