As the responses indicate, it's all a matter of personal taste. Just a couple thoughts.

What you see in the "rat rod" movement (admit it, that's what got you started thinking this way) is a cartoon caracature of reality. Not all cars on the streets in the '40's & '50's were rusty, bomb canned pieces of crap. By the '60's there was an economic shift and fewer people were building cars from scrounged parts. Thus the Muscle Car era was born, and buying a hot car emerged.

You can go to a Barnes&Noble, or Borders bookstore and go to the "transportation" or "automotive" sections. You'll likely find a number of books there that are reprints of period correct publications (such as Hop Up magazine), or collections of photographs taken during that era to get a flavor of "the real world". Or go to www.motorbooks.com for Classic Motorbooks, they've got a bunch too. Dean Bachelor, Andy Southard, and others have period accurate books. Now granted, the vehicles shown in the magazines will be the better quality cars of the period, but it at least makes the point that not everything was a POS, and that people then had both building skills and taste. Not everyone was a failed corn binder mechanic that could only cobble a car together.

Once you look through all that stuff you'll learn that there was a broad range of interest then too. People really haven't changed that much as far as car lust goes, their choices were just a bit more limited.