Thread: So That's a Traditional Hot Rod????

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Dave is such a dreamy guy!

Originally Posted by flh4speed

Dave is such a dreamy guy!

Where ya been, man??? Ya still have that dang bug crawling on your screen!!!!

We get yelled at by antiquers for hot roding "good " cars instead of restoring them to original, Now we are getting yelled at by Traditionalist for hot rodding " good" cars instead of remaking them with outdated parts.

My dad replaced the flatty in the '35 with a 283, 3 speed, 3 dueces, '55 chevy rear, etc. It was in primer and never painted, but the plan was to paint it eventually. This was about '59-'62. I'm too young to know for sure, but that sounds like the traditional definition of "traditional". Did my dad think in 1959 he was building a traditional rod? Nope. He was building what he could afford and what he wanted. He could have replaced the flathead with another (block cracked), but chose something that had under 10,000 miles from a junk yard with more power off the bat.

That to me is exactly what we are doing now while rebuilding it. We took out the 283 because it had been sitting for decades and chose to use the LT1 I had with only 80k miles on it..plenty to get us through tens of thousands of more miles with about 300hp and 25mpg on the highway (mpg being a newer factor on the mind these days probably). We are using the overdrive 6 speed because that is what is hanging on the LT1 just like the 3 speed was stuck to the 283. Am I claiming we are building it as a traditional rod? Of course not, but I do think we are building it with the same thought process as someone from the 60's. How do I know? because my build partner was a senior in high school in 1959 when he bought the car.

A 70's t bucket with brass all over and big wide tires could be considered traditional over the new low riding ones. The problem with the term traditional is that since we are not all the same age, we have different definitions. For me, sadly, traditional could be considered those pastel 80's cars with tires sticking outside the fenders. As in Dave's first post, most would agree a 60's styled hot rod is traditional, but that is only because those still alive that paved the way say it is. I am on the lookout for a 30-34 Ford pick up and I hope to use the 283 with the offy 3 duece manifold, straight axle, wire wheels with radial tires. It will be fairly low budget, but will not be anything close to a rat rod...I have too much pride for that. Will it be traditional? Well I guess I'll have to wait and see what people tell me it is when I'm done

a lot of the old hot rods i remember from the 50'sand 60's would be called rat rods today.some never painted.just put together out of what was around at the time.i like em all. from the show cars to the rats.to me their all hot rods.some shinny and some not.some old ,some not.i just like em all.

Originally Posted by geezer69

a lot of the old hot rods i remember from the 50'sand 60's would be called rat rods today.some never painted.just put together out of what was around at the time.i like em all. from the show cars to the rats.to me their all hot rods.some shinny and some not.some old ,some not.i just like em all.

Well I think the difference is a rat rod is built to LOOK like it is a rat rod. The early hots rods were NOT built to look like that as they were only in a transitional stage due to lack of money time or whatever. JM2CW
I am not a fan of labels on cars/periods etc but I think mine is purely Kustom with no timeline involved other than "I built it the way I want it"

Hell I just build mine for me, hot rod, rat rod, custom with a K, traditional, vintage mod, whatever,,,,hell next they'll be trying to use "organic" to describe em. to me hot rodding is building your car for you the way you want out of the parts available. traditional to me is listening to the guys that used to run the streets and build their cars to scream. my buddies dad gave us some greif cause we picked up some ole flat heads, he said "what is this 1950? hell me in my boys were trying to get the new stuff" but he did give us some props for tackling an old vintage flatty, but traditional?? hmm i think it would be really hard to build a true traditional cause then your talking about which period? pre war? post war? 60's? 80's?

i guess the bottom line is to build a hot rod the way you want, with what you can afford. just don't go building a credit card coupe build it custom, if you need help, that's what networking with your buddies are for! heck now that's "traditional" pooling your talent with your buddies to get the work accomplished in your garage to complete your project

It’s funny, most of us build our vehicles with an eye them being something unique and different than what everybody else has..... but them try define them in to a category to be part of a particular crowd.

Originally Posted by Mike P

It’s funny, most of us build our vehicles with an eye them being something unique and different that what everybody else has..... but them try define them in to a category to be part of a particular crowd.

i wanna stand out and be a rebel
i already got the funny hairdoo and fake rockabilly
but my latest build will be a dragster/lowrider/pogostick/helicopter

Originally Posted by billy zz

i wanna stand out and be a rebel
i already got the funny hairdoo and fake rockabilly
but my latest build will be a dragster/lowrider/pogostick/helicopter

vrooom! Scrape !boing! Whupwhupwhup

I suppose it is just a constantly evolving thing, just like the world around us. We, overall, like labels. And as someone pointed out give it some time and the easter egg rods of the 80's and 90's will be traditional to some. Just a personal observation, but as I grow older, I like change less and less. So what you thought was cool in the 60's might be considered lame by some now. And that might be part of what gets some of us all lathered up. We were taught it was purple, for years we thought it was purple, now someone comes along and tells us it isn't purple it's lavender.

Maybe just maybe labels suck. And even if the car gods spoke thru a Smokey burnout and laid out the 10 classifications, and they were chiseled in stone. Simple, clear definitions for all ten. Well some would dispute weather it was their car god or someone elses............... I'm as guilty as any. Maybe if we just stuck to car and truck..................... Crap........ what about an el camino????????? I know my 48 truck, (thats what Texas title says) has been called a car more than a truck. I guess if your not hauling 2 tons of fertilezer it's hard to tell.......................

Charlie, I doubt you have any trouble hauling fertilizer....................




Let's all say it together:
I want to be different..........
Just like everybody else...........

i guess i'll label my 57' work truck as a mutt, cause it's got influences from everything

@lifestylz, I think true "rat rods" have taken on a total life of their own, with intentionally themed rods that are built to look like rolling suicide traps using vintage parts that have either been restored to look like they were just freshly pulled from farmer johns back 40 or are the original piece, but still installed to look like it's a piece together. most i've seen are well built machines that only have the appearance of ready to fall apart but then theres the guys who don't really know what their doing who assume the motor mounts are supposed to fall off going down the road.

My thoughts are this...
By todays standards a lot has been overlooked with "traditional" hot rods, like the fact guys went out picking junk yards to find parts and yes installing them after doing a bit of a modifying for performance. much like the offroad scene does in any small podunk town to build their buggys n crawlers. but traditional to me is pretty much the golden age of hot rodding during the post war era where cars ran the salts and ran the streets and were built to go as fast as they could (braggin rights) and have something that they could park next to anyone and not look the same. it was about standing out in the crowd with the coolest looking car (braggin rights) and that performed as well as it looked. Bobbed was definately the way to go as the lighter the faster. many ran without as much of the extras as possible, including fenders, hoods, running boards, even roofs, or chopped to still have a lighter car but driveable in all weather.

but to try and label the cars being built today is far too difficult since; although is theory they may look upon first glance to look like a traditional lowboy, when you really start looking at the after market poly bushings, disc brakes 4 way, upgraded electrical firing systems, power steering, AC? it starts to lose it's "traditional" tag really quick. so trying to label or put a build in a class is pretty hard to do when most i've seen are a blend of old and new, with some "thinking" that theirs is more of the old or even labeling themselves as purists??? purists???

purists are those who understand that pure hot rodding is rooted in trying to get the most out of what is available, if that means a fresh crate for your dollar with EFI cause it will "out perform" a carbureted system then so be it. personally i like the latter, but given that hot rodding was and always has been about the need for speed and getting what ever or making themselves what ever they could install to go faster and looking different while doing it, then i'd say that purists need to rethink their whole philosophy on what it means to hot rod. IMO

I wish this had been posted in the late 50's or early 60's, I could have built a traditional rod instead of a plain old hotrod.