Hot Rods, Rat Rods, and Classics

[Matt Crunk]

My '49 Chevy "shop" truck. A work in progress. Old School all the way.

 

[David Conwill]

I love seeing shiny chrome grills on faded paint, whitewalls, good pinstriping.

I’ll agree with this. There’s something about worn, original paint juxtaposed with fresh chrome, wheels, and tires that speaks to me.

I still say your average rat rod is built more for shock value than anything else, however, and like everything there’s shades of gray.

-Dave

 

[Fletch]

Deconstructing street rods

This past Saturday, I attended a car show on Main Street here in Ames, IA (sorry, no pix), and something struck me. Whatever you think of street rods of David Conwill's Type 2 - and they're not my taste, but they were the overwhelming majority in this show and in this region - we ought to try to view them culturally as well as historically.

They're an expression of a particular kind of pride - really, several kinds in one: mechanical aptitude; esthetics (not the art values of taste or originality, but the craft values of effect and execution); the belief in making something work and look perfect that was once a barn-bound husk; and the value of an ethic and tradition that is pure, unmediated, workingclass male American, owing very much to the tastes of the 1970s when many of the rodders were young.

Building a rat rod of Type 3 in this day and age could be criticized as an exercise in retro minimalism. You could even say, and I think back it up, that they're more honest in form but less so in concept - that they're meant ironically, implying that the rodder is aware of and considering an "art" esthetic, just not using it in the car. The moment you possess that awareness, though, you are no longer the unmediated workingclass American - someone who defines himself by not having that esthetic.

If true, then perhaps the Type 2 streeter is the simple, unironic, truthful approach to customizing - an expression of more fundamental values like work and craft and execution. Not that a well crafted rat rod doesn't embody those things - but the street rod flies them proudly, in-your-face, like the flags you see on many a T shirt and belt buckle at rod-ins.

 

[David Conwill]

This past Saturday, I attended a car show on Main Street here in Ames, IA (sorry, no pix), and something struck me. Whatever you think of street rods of David Conwill's Type 2 - and they're not my taste, but they were the overwhelming majority in this show and in this region - we ought to try to view them culturally as well as historically.

They're an expression of a particular kind of pride - really, several kinds in one: mechanical aptitude; esthetics (not the art values of taste or originality, but the craft values of effect and execution); the belief in making something work and look perfect that was once a barn-bound husk; and the value of an ethic and tradition that is pure, unmediated, workingclass male American, owing very much to the tastes of the 1970s when many of the rodders were young.

Building a rat rod of Type 3 in this day and age could be criticized as an exercise in retro minimalism. You could even say, and I think back it up, that they're more honest in form but less so in concept - that they're meant ironically, implying that the rodder is aware of and considering an "art" esthetic, just not using it in the car. The moment you possess that awareness, though, you are no longer the unmediated workingclass American - someone who defines himself by not having that esthetic.

If true, then perhaps the Type 2 streeter is the simple, unironic, truthful approach to customizing - an expression of more fundamental values like work and craft and execution. Not that a well crafted rat rod doesn't embody those things - but the street rod flies them proudly, in-your-face, like the flags you see on many a T shirt and belt buckle at rod-ins.

Fletch you have a far different take on Type 2 than I. To me the Type 2 is generally (though, admittedly not always, particularly with regard to people who originated the look like Coddington and Buttera) the opposite of an expression of mechanical aptitude, aesthetics, or re-using something old and decrepit. Those attitudes are alive and well, but they rarely touch on pre-war cars these days. They’re confined more to those who are building from the pool of “what’s affordable is what’s available is what’s buildable” and usually results in hot rodded cars from the last 25 or 30 years.

To me the average Type 2 is an expression of trying to buy cool, not build it; it’s a me-too aesthetic that only copies what’s seen on the cover of national magazines, and hides in the garage when it’s dated; and it’s about what can be purchased from a catalogue or on eBay, not scoured from barns and junkyards.

The Type 1 car these days isn’t squarely within your hot rodding ethos, either, but it’s at least a tribute and an attempt to recreate (maybe even perfect?), what was once the very embodiment of the American hot rodder spirit you’ve described.

-Dave

 

[The Captain]

This was parked near me (last year) and I couldn't
resist shooting a few pics.

 

[Fletch]

Captain, great analysis - shows we don't all see the same things, or if we do, maybe not in the same places.

You're right that the younger generation of car nuts aren't focusing on the pre-wars (or even post-wars). It is really the guys who came up in the '70s, who are now in their 40s and older, that dominated my little show. With the younger guys, muscle cars are the beginning and the end - at least around here. We have a few rat rodders hereabouts, but none showed up at Ames.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

My '49 Chevy "shop" truck. A work in progress. Old School all the way.

It looks clean. Does it happen to have any cancer?

 

[David Conwill]

This was parked near me (last year) and I couldn't
resist shooting a few pics.

...

Very nice. Tractor grille notwithstanding, there's nothing "rat" about that one.

-Dave

 

[Edward]

Captain, great analysis - shows we don't all see the same things, or if we do, maybe not in the same places.

You're right that the younger generation of car nuts aren't focusing on the pre-wars (or even post-wars). It is really the guys who came up in the '70s, who are now in their 40s and older, that dominated my little show. With the younger guys, muscle cars are the beginning and the end - at least around here. We have a few rat rodders hereabouts, but none showed up at Ames.

Looking at this from the outside, I'd say there must be a few factors that affect the dominance of 'newer' cars on the scene nowadays. For one, I imagine, there's immediately a question as to whether the owner can afford to run a hobby car, or if this is a daily driver. If it has to be a daily driver, that rules out pretty much all prewar for pretty much anyone, the rarity value pushing up the value of the original car (my feeling is that the less comon the car, the less likely folks are to be happy making such major mods), and also making parts rarer and more epensive to source....

I'm sure its universal with any "hobby" / "collectable" market.... I remember not so many years ago when in the guitar world it was all about "pre-CBS" Fenders, then as those became unaffordable, CBS era guitars became more popular, and now even the once widely derided 70s Fenders are soaring in value. Then of course there's the personal nostalgia factor - a lot of folks now want a 70s Fender from the year they were born, or because a hero of theirs played one..... I'm sure these sorts of things affect the car market too.

 

[David Conwill]

(my feeling is that the less comon the car, the less likely folks are to be happy making such major mods)

Edward, I agree, to a point. That point being that with a pre-war car that is complete, I think folks are less likely to modify one that is unusual (say, a Graham) than one that is common (a Ford, although a stock, pre-war Ford is getting to be an unusual thing these days). However, when one has an orphaned body for something unusual, it is often easier to gather other disparate parts, and combine them into a hot rod, than it would be to find the appropriate parts and build a complete stocker.

It’s also interesting that you make a guitar analogy, as there’s quite a bit of crossover between enthusiast cultures. I don’t know what “pre-CBS” means exactly, but it sounds like Harley-Davidson culture, where pre-AMF bikes were the standard by which others were measured until they got too rare, now lots of folks want an AMF bike because they’re pre-EVO. Time marches on.

Even in car culture, cars that were once unthinkable (1970s and 1980s American cars), are now becoming more and more collectible because of a mixture of factors - a big one being that there’s a segment of the population my age and a little older who were kids when those cars were new (or slightly used and rebuilt into hot rods), and therefore a bit more nostalgia interest in them.

-Dave

 

[jamespowers]

Even in car culture, cars that were once unthinkable (1970s and 1980s American cars), are now becoming more and more collectible because of a mixture of factors - a big one being that there’s a segment of the population my age and a little older who were kids when those cars were new (or slightly used and rebuilt into hot rods), and therefore a bit more nostalgia interest in them.

-Dave

Feel free to hot rod any Fiero you can lay your hands on but keep your hands off my 1955 through 1957 chevys.

 

[Flat Foot Floey]

If it's black and the radio is playing The Cramps, you're a ratrodder.

I don't know nuthin bout cars but I want to have a beer with a rat rodder now.:beer:
RIP Lux Interior

Sorry for the fftopic: and carry on with the nice car stuff.

 

[Edward]

It’s also interesting that you make a guitar analogy, as there’s quite a bit of crossover between enthusiast cultures. I don’t know what “pre-CBS” means exactly, but it sounds like Harley-Davidson culture, where pre-AMF bikes were the standard by which others were measured until they got too rare, now lots of folks want an AMF bike because they’re pre-EVO. Time marches on.

In 1965, rather than sink a substantial amount more into the company, Leo Fender and George Fullerton sold the company to CBS Inc. CBS opted for a 'stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap' approach to marketing the guitars: high sales volume in their eyes being the way to maximise profits. It is commonly acknowledged that, especially as the Seventies wore on, this led to a drop in QC standards, and a lot of shoddy guitars left the factory. Gibson went through a similar phase during the Norlin-ownership era. Both companies changed hands again in the mid 80s - Fender was bought out by its own management team in '85. Guitars from that era came to be viewed as lesser. At the time this gave rise to the idea of "vintage" guitars ('they don't make 'em like they used to...'). Later, the earlier guitars were still worth more, until recently, as per my previous post.

 

[John in Covina]

Out this way, hotrods tend to be a finished completed project that has been painted for a final look.

Ratrods are always a work in progress which is why the tend to be in primer black the concept and work is not finished so we can't paint it yet. Ratrods also tend to have a higher percentage of home made - home designed concepts. These often have an "experimental" rough cut aspect to their construction which is very American in nature embracing a scary but can do concept. So a rat rod will be still in primer unfinished type of look.