The "real" cool cats.

Stearmen said:

You're spot on about Hot Rods. Outside of car shows, I don't recall, in the 60s-70s ever seeing a true Hot Rod on the street! I think it was in the 80s, when they started to become common. and now, they are big money! And Rat Rods, were just some poor chump that could not afford paint!

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This also, to quote Caleb Bogart, would depend on the area in question. Southern California was steeped in car culture years before the rest of the U.S., so hot rods were seen almost regularly here during the 60s, and more so during the 70s. In those days rat rods were known as "beaters" and were in various states of disrepair simply because their owners couldn't afford to fix them up, not because it was "cool", "fashionable", or "trendy" like the modern rat rods. In fact, most of the "old school" hot rodders dislike modern rat rods for the simple reasons that the look is so obviously manufactured, and the workmanship is often shoddy and unsafe.

There were 'greasers' who drove hot rods and wore blue jeans with cuffs rolled up 4 - 6", T shirts with a pack of Camels rolled in the sleeve, black leather jackets, work boots and a greasy pompadours like Elvis. But they were outside the main stream and generally looked down on.

More mainstream guys wore chinos, plaid shirts, a brush cut and penny loafers. If you had a car at all you were lucky, if you could afford a 5 year old Ford or Chev convertible you were really livin.

Zombie_61 said:

This also, to quote Caleb Bogart, would depend on the area in question. Southern California was steeped in car culture years before the rest of the U.S., so hot rods were seen almost regularly here during the 60s, and more so during the 70s. In those days rat rods were known as "beaters" and were in various states of disrepair simply because their owners couldn't afford to fix them up, not because it was "cool", "fashionable", or "trendy" like the modern rat rods. In fact, most of the "old school" hot rodders dislike modern rat rods for the simple reasons that the look is so obviously manufactured, and the workmanship is often shoddy and unsafe.

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Must have been a SoCal thing! I was in Pleasanton CA in the late 60s, and no Hot Rods. There were Jalopies, like a 32 five window coupe with aftermarket wheels, hood removed and headers, so loosely the forerunner of Rat Rods.

I can see how the rat rods of more recent times might seem more than a tad contrived to the "real" hotbrodders of yore, just as the '90s vintage (and even more recent) rockabilly scenesters look phony to the guys who might have been called greasers back in the '50s and '60s.

Still, I've seen some pretty cool rat rods.

tonyb said:

I can see how the rat rods of more recent times might seem more than a tad contrived to the "real" hotbrodders of yore, just as the '90s vintage (and even more recent) rockabilly scenesters look phony to the guys who might have been called greasers back in the '50s and '60s.

Still, I've seen some pretty cool rat rods.

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I do like a wide variety of rat rods myself, though my tastes tend to skew toward cars that are simply older and wear their hard-earned patina well more so than the overly stylized and obviously manufactured cars and trucks that have increased in popularity in recent years.

Speaking of "real" cool cats, years ago I was at a local gas station filling the tank when a wonderful 1949 "shoebox" Ford rolled in. The interior had been flawlessly restored to factory specs and the suspension had been lowered ever-so-slightly, but it was otherwise left alone and had that beautiful patina (i.e., paint worn through in some spots and the steel beneath had some surface rust) that I mentioned above. I was so enamored with the car that I almost didn't notice the driver--a 30-something male who was dressed like a "greaser" but wore it so naturally that it looked as if he had just stepped right out of the 1950s.

tonyb said:

That was when smoking was cool.

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It didn't kill you back then either, or at least we didn't know that it did.
On our side of the pond we had The Teddy Boy. A sub culture that will take more than a few paragraphs to explain. Click on the link and read it for yourself. In the main we did tend to mimic America.

Original bands are revered, certain automotive aesthetics or tattoo styles preferred, but they're not trying to live as if its still 1956, or look as if they stepped out of 1956. Rockabilly to them is a living, breathing thing that has continued to exist, and has adapted and evolved in its own way.

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I have to disagree with Edward about the adapting and evolving part, although he's right in that we have some very good Rock & Roll and Rockabilly young bands that are in much demand on the circuit. Maybe it's just the crowd that I knew, but when my wife and I were into that scene, it seemed as though nothing ever happened before the rise of Elvis and nothing ever happened after the death of Buddy Holly.

At one of the many 50's inspired weekend events, it was called GI Joe meets the Teddy Boy, we saw the clothes, both civilian and military from a time before Elvis, we were mesmerised, it was wonderful, never looked back. But, I did keep the five records that I have of Elvis, on the Sun Record Label.

When I was growing up in the '50s-'60s, I never heard the term "greaser"except as a racial slur meaning Mexican. Young hooligan types were called "hoods,"short for hoodlums. In truth, most were wannabes who affected the sideburns and D.A. hairdos, the pegged jeans and engineer boots and, if they could afford them, the black leather jackets. For most it was a stage they outgrew. Eventually they got jobs and got married or were drafted and that was that. Typical examples are the Pharaohs from the aforementioned 'Ämerican Grafitti," the feared gang who were just another bunch of confused kids who covered their insecurity with a lot of tough-guy affectation. The modern-day equivalent are the middle-class suburban kids who are enthralled with hip-hop "gangsta"culture. They would be terrified to encounter the real thing.

I think you got a few years on me, 'wretch, but not many. I recall "hoods" and "greasers" used almost interchangeably in my early years in Wisconsin.

As to the Pharoahs in "American Graffiti" ...

Recall the scene with the Richard Dreyfus character being told by the head Pharoah that every kid in town aspired to membership in that "gang." Dreyfus's expression spoke volumes. The audience knew that the lofty regard in which the Pharoahs held themselves was unique to the Pharoahs themselves.

And that pretty well summed up the attitude toward such characters everywhere I lived back in those pre-hippie days. Clowns, is what we thought of them. Losers. It wasn't until years later, long after "greaser" style was rarely seen anymore, that I developed a somewhat more nuanced take on the phenomenon.

Pardon the misspelling of "pharaoh." And why the hell can't we edit posts anymore?

tonyb said:

Pardon the misspelling of "pharaoh." And why the hell can't we edit posts anymore?

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The "edit" button is on the bottom left of our posts now, next to the "delete" button.

tonyb said:

Pardon the misspelling of "pharaoh." And why the hell can't we edit posts anymore?

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Thanks for that. For some reason unknown to me, it isn't appearing on my screen. On the bottom right I see a "quote" and "reply" button, but on the lower left nothing but time and date of the post.

tonyb said:

Thanks for that. For some reason unknown to me, it isn't appearing on my screen. On the bottom right I see a "quote" and "reply" button, but on the lower left nothing but time and date of the post.

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I wonder if the "style" settings have something to do with that, or perhaps the device you're/we're using to post. I'm using "Vintage Lounge", but noticed the other three styles place the "edit/delete" links on the left just below the "signature" field in an extremely tiny font size. I post on my laptop and don't know the first thing about posting from Tapatalk or any other mobile devices/apps, so I have no suggestions for that.

It might be worth visiting this thread - http://thefedoralounge.com/threads/the-origin-of-the-fifties.76303/ There's some good discussion of how the romantic vision of the 1950s was created and a lot of great contributions from Lounge members.

The hot rod thing emerged from just a few towns. It started before WWII but really grew up in the post war years and gained momentum. The earliest "rods" were not built to be attractive looking at all, just performance. Patterson, NJ; Speedway, IN, and Culver City, CA along with Detroit and Dearborn (of course) were places were early Hot Rod culture grew up though in those days it had no real connections outside of car culture. By the early 1960s it had gone main stream. I can remember EXTREMELY exotic hot rods cruising the sunset strip in the mid to late 1960s, cars you would never race built just for effect. I was young but aware of them because part of my family was into racing and they also resembled some of the more exotic hot wheels cars I had.

Here in LA, Orr's Speed Shop, Norden Machine Works, Halibrand Wheels, Ed Iskenderian, and maybe Vic Edelbrock were all making performance parts in Culver City by 1950, some of their operations were considerably older than that. The stuff these guys built and services they offered were open to the public. Not surprisingly a lot of hot rodders (the guys into racing) came out of the WWII military where they had been trained as mechanics but had gone on to other jobs. In those days a custom cam, exhaust cut outs and an expert tune could work wonders to "open a car up."

I knew Doane Spencer slightly and Dick Guldstrand for a long time. Dick actually came out of the Army Rocket Program in Huntsville, he'd worked with Wernher von Braun. Those two contributed enormously to racing in the 1960s but were working before that. Doane's cars would have the oddest little details engineered down to the n-th degree. Amazing brackets, shaft driven mechanically lubricated differentials, just crazy stuff you'd never expect but would make a car competitive. These guys were the bleeding edge, though, it was the rare civilian that got his car worked on by them.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/doane-spencer-deuce-hot-rod.htm

http://www.superchevy.com/news/1509-dick-guldstrand-1927-2015-passes-away/

It's also worth noting what generational psychology you are looking at. I like referring to the central reference section of Strauss and Howe's The Fourth Turning to quickly get a picture of the cultural environment a person in any ear would have grown up in. It's not quality research but it can quickly lead you to good research and a good overview.

GHT said:

It didn't kill you back then either, or at least we didn't know that it did. ...

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Never underestimate the human capacity for denial. My contemporaries and I knew that smoking was hazardous to our health. Terms such as "cancer sticks" and "coffin nails" predated us.

But, you know, bad things happen to other people. And those adverse health effects that might manifest in 20 or 30 or 40 years? To a teenager, that may as well be a thousand years.

And the potential dangers of smoking made it all the cooler, sort of like motorcycling (especially sans helmet) and sexual promiscuity.

Caleb Bogart said:

yah, Indiana is behind the times a bit. we still don't allow alcohol sales on Sundays.

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lmao new castle Indiana born and bred
Indiana is still behind the times.
yet its where I prefer to be it is common knowledge that crusin on broad street new castle Indiana was voted Americas best crusin strip in the 80's by rolling stone magazine and we still have monthly cruze inns from april till oct we even have model specific cruze inns oct 2016 is jeep wranglers (my input )

tuco1963 said:

lmao new castle Indiana born and bred
Indiana is still behind the times.
yet its where I prefer to be it is common knowledge that crusin on broad street new castle Indiana was voted Americas best crusin strip in the 80's by rolling stone magazine and we still have monthly cruze inns from april till oct we even have model specific cruze inns oct 2016 is jeep wranglers (my input )

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I started cruising Whittier Boulevard here in southern California when I was 5 years old. My older sister would be getting ready to go out, and Mom would issue the ultimatum: "Either stay home and babysit your brother, or take him with you." So off I went. I spent most of the time peering out the rear window over the back seat like a Kilroy cartoon so that I could warn my sister or her friend about police cruisers approaching from the rear, but it was a lot of fun. And I cruised the same stretch of road years later when I had a driver's license and a car of my own. At some point in the mid-80s the local police decided they'd had enough and put an end to it, but it was great while it lasted.

For a contemporary look at Hollywood's take on rockabilly culture here is a Peter Gunn episode from 1958. The hot rod is Norm Grabowski's iconic T bucket that later gained fame as Kookie's car in 77 Sunset Strip. It was not a movie prop it was built by Norm in his back yard garage, and was his regular transportation in high school. You see him behind the wheel and later in Rockabilly's .