Hot rods, street rods, kustoms and a few other things
Discussion
brizey said:
Blib said:
Excellent thread. Here's the only photo I have left of my '32 Ford.
Sorry to correct, but this sedan is a Model A Ford, not a `32. A`s were built between 1928-1931. 1932 Fords were a completely new car to the Ford range for that year and were built with a choice of a 4 or 8 (V8) cylinder motor. 4 cylinder equipped cars were designated as the "Model B", while (V)8 cylinder cars were designated as the "Model 18" 
Good to see 'Brizey' posting here, I hope he (and others!) will contribute soon for the british rodding history..
As the 80s progressed into the 90s the hot rod world seemed to see an upturn, No big surprise, muscle cars were just an old car by now and new cars were.. well.. rubbish.
More and more hot rod shops sprang up with enthusiastic amateurs turning professional, also more parts manufacturers and suppliers started to appear. Part suppliers were nothing new of course but now there were so many - suspension parts, electrical wiring kits, engine mounts, steering columns, even air conditioning systems - almost everything you could think of.
Coddington had established Hot Rods by Boyd in Stanton, CA as well as Boyd Wheels, during this time he really was a leading light. During this time a guy called Sam Foose had a shop that built hot rods but also made film props, his son, Chip helped out in the shop from an early age.
Chip had a real talent for drawing and design and went to college to study design. He then worked for a company that did design work for OEM manufacturers, eventually ending up leading the design side. In 1990 Foose had finally graduated and was working part time for Coddington, the job went full time a few years later and Foose ended up president of Hot Rods By Boyd. During this time he designed wheels and cars, including the Boydster cars, a series of custom bodies built exclusively by Boyd. Based on the early ford roadsters but stretched, chopped, tweaked they certainly created a stir, the Boydster II won AMBR in 1996 (AMBR is an award for Americas Most Beautiful Roadster).
Boydster ii
Boydster iii
Foose is the youngest person ever to be inducted in to the hot rod hall of fame at 31 years old.
I don't know exactly what happened, it seems Foose had financial or business interest in the Boyd company. It went bankrupt, Foose and Coddington fell out. It seems there were some sharp practices, Coddington held on to the wheel company and soon set up again in the shop we all saw on TV.
Also in the 90s another 2nd generation car builder was on his way, having built some cars and received accolades from Hot Rod magazine and Goodguys he formed Rad Rides in the mid 90s, his name ? Troy Trepanier.
90s, we're in Tennessee, Bobby Alloway, a general manager at a Ford dealership quits his job and opens up his hot rod shop. Alloway was already no stranger to top level car building, he'd won the 1985 Ridler award with his '33 Ford Victoria. He lost the entire shop to a fire in 1998, but already had a reputation for really, really nice cars. His trademark look is to use a tyre with lots of sidewall in the rear and less so in the front, giving the cars a rake purely from the tyre height differences. I really like his stuff.
Bobby Alloway
The average street rod in the 80s and 90s was all a bit Miami Vice really. Pastel colours, pinstriping gave way to graphics, the dralon buttoned interiors of the 70s had given way to tweed. As with most of the 80s we'd consider it pretty poor taste now!
A typical 80s/90s street rod, ick!
The escalating costs of the top cars and the relative lack of taste of others turned some people off. They liked what they considered hot rods not street rods. They'd build a traditional looking car, steel wheels, maybe even wired wheels with a beam front end, definitely not a small block engine, they tried to use original parts that the street rodders were throwing away and so on. they soon got the name "low buck" cars, because compared to the high costs of a state of the art street rod, they were.. the street rodders got the name "goldchainers" on account of their show of wealth.
As we said goodbye to the 90s street rods started to become more tasteful - like the Miami Vice jeans the pastel colours were gone as were the dodgy graphics. Thanks to people like Alloway cars started getting a good stance - until now street rods hadn't had the nice rake of a hot rod, but it was coming back.
Foose revamped a Boyster for Chuck Svatos, now renamed the 0032 it won AMBR in 2000. Svatos traded the car to Foose for work on a '32 3 window. Foose sold the 0032 to the Petersen museum and used the money to start Foose Design. In 2002 he won the Ridler with Wes Rydell's '35 Chevy 'Grandmaster'.
Wes Rydell's 'Grandmaster'
For what it is I love the car, graceful lines, its a bit like the 30s european cars. Above all else its just so well executed. Every single panel gap is 1/8th of an inch. There is a build gallery here: http://www.garagescene.net/gallery3/index.php/Buil...
Just a year later he was back with Ron Whiteside's Stallion, a '34 3 window. It took the ridler award. Again a tweaked body and just perfect execution of the build.. Foose was the target that everyone had to beat
Ron Whiteside's Stallion
Build pictures here: http://www.wallesdator.com/Foose%20design/Stallion...
2004 Foose sat out the Ridler, the car he was building for Ken Reister wasn't ready. He was back in 2005 with Reister's car and again took the top trophy. Impression is loosely based on a '36 Ford, but was a scratch built body (by Marcel Deley). I've seen this one up close and its just beautiful, the details are so subtle and its proportions are just right. Looking back, the problem is was this still hot rodding ? you could argue that this was bespoke coachbuilding of luxury cars. For everyone else, how can you beat this ? it sort of left everyone with nowhere to go.
Ken Reister's 'Impression'
Build pics here: http://wallesdator.com/Foose%20design/Impression/P...
Back to Troy Trepanier, in the mid/early 90s he had built a '39 Chevy and took it to some of the big shows, one of the guys he met was George Poteet.
Poteet is a car nut, a very rich car nut. He owns Shelby Cobra #1 and a bunch of other exotic race cars. He's also a hot rod nut and is permanently having cars built - at least 2 or 3 a year, every year.
Poteet asked Troy what he was going to do next, Troy said he wanted to do a Plymouth Savoy and already had ideas for the changes. Poteet replied that he'd had one of those years ago and commissioned the car.
Troy had already chatted to Chip months before and whilst they were talking on the phone Chip had scribbled a drawing and faxed it to Troy.
So, here's a 1954 Plymouth:
Here's the car that Troy built, nicknamed Sniper
This car really put Troy on the map, first of all it was a custom - the custom/kustom scene had been quiet for a while, it'd sort have gone out of fashion. Firstly the car was top quality work, but it also had another trick up its sleeve.. that swoopy body was covering a full Dodge Viper drivetrain. Troy had the idea before starting the car, but this was mid 90s, the Viper a supercar - how do you get hold of one without selling the kids ?
Simple, you phone Chrysler and ask for one. Thats exactly what Troy did, a short while later they said "Come up here and bring a trailer". They gave him a development car "Use what you want, just bring the rest back so we can crush it".
Cars for Roger Ritzow (traditional '32 roadster with lots of modern tricks), Glen Grozich ('62 Chevy with 1200hp from its twin turbo engine).
Roger Ritzow's '32 Roadster
Glenn Grozich's '62 Chevy
Then some guy called Ross Myers asks Troy to build him a '36 Ford. Myers had owned the car since he was a teenager. Named First Love the car won the 2007 Ridler award. You'll note that the car although sporting quite a few body mods is very representable of the '36 Ford - quite a change from the Foose car just 2 years before.
Ross Myer's '36 Ford
There are a few build pictures here: http://www.radrides.com/photos/gallery/images?albu...
The entire underside of the car is just amazing, pretty much the entire lot was machined in house, the brakes, the hubs, wishbones, axle casing, you name it.
Some good pics of it here : http://www.pinupsandkustoms.com/blog/rad-rides-by-... Beware - some of the background images on that site are NSFW.
Again its attention to detail and high quality work. Foose crawled all over the car when it was unveiled and proclaimed himself glad that he wasn't competing against it. A year alter I watched Roy Brizio do pretty much the same with Troy.
There is a lot to look at with this car - some cars you take a good look at and you've seen it. This one each time you happened to walk by you noticed something else, a little detail here and there. I could see there was something going on with the wheels, took me a while and a chat with a mate to figure it out - the wheels are different size front to back (not unusual) but they've changed the PCD of the wheel in proportion to its diameter, just another little detail..
Troy & Roy Brizio look over First Love at the 2008 Grand National Roadster show, note the removed shoes in the background
These cars are what I call the ultra street rods at their height, just incredible workmanship and quality. It wasn't to last...
Meantime some of the low buck guys had gone one step further and were building rat rods. This all started as an antithesis to the high buck stuff remember - criticism was given for trailering street rods to shows (which had been going on years), liberal over use of billet (machined aluminium parts) and so on. The irony is that as rat rods got more and more extreme, they were being trailered to shows as they were undriveable, whilst street rods in the 80s and early 90s were a bit tasteless I'd venture that rat rods are no better, but I guess thats subjective.
Basically the rules of rat rod building are : find some rusty car bits, throw them together, cut up anything you can and then look cool.. The more dangerous the better - we're talking no floors, no front brakes, suicide front end setups and so on.
To be fair the "rat rod" name gets thrown around a lot, a rusty truck isn't a rat rod, a flat black roadster or coupe might be "old skool" but it isn't a rat rod.
I don't really have much time for rat rods and the arrogant attitude that some owners have. I'm sure there are some safe, well built cars out there but christ there is lots of dangerous junk too. Asthetically they do little for me:
Over the past maybe 10 years things have met in the middle a bit, rat rods seem to be less prevalent, the high end stuff is a bit more subtle and low key, traditional looking cars are popular and pretty much everyone is keeping original trim and detail parts that might have been removed previously. Some of the guys building rat rods have grown up a bit and have stopped doing dumb stuff, even the "old skool" boys have got tired of flat black paint with red wheels...
Apologies for the long post, I wanted to get the timeline stuff finished, if you guys are interested there is stacks more history stuff - people who owned or built cars or made parts, styles, personalities and so on but we can't hope to cover it all so I'm sure bits and pieces will come up as we go.
So, am I talking to myself yet ? Does anyone have any questions or stuff you'd like to know more about ?
Random pictures..
John Mumford's Brizio built '27 T roadster, 2012 AMBR winner
Ron Cizek's Checkered Past '40 Ford. Built by Andy Leach who is an ex- Rad Rides employee. 2013 Ridler winner
Bobby Alloway built '32 Vicky, 2013 Goodguys street rod of the year
60s inspired T bucket
Model A roadster
'32 3 WIndow in build at SoCal Speedshop
'36 Roadster
'64 Falcon
'37 Sedan
'32 3 window
'59 Impala
Model A roadster pickup
Any photo marked 'Tom Davison' is from http://www.socalcarculture.com - great site, well worth checking out.
As the 80s progressed into the 90s the hot rod world seemed to see an upturn, No big surprise, muscle cars were just an old car by now and new cars were.. well.. rubbish.
More and more hot rod shops sprang up with enthusiastic amateurs turning professional, also more parts manufacturers and suppliers started to appear. Part suppliers were nothing new of course but now there were so many - suspension parts, electrical wiring kits, engine mounts, steering columns, even air conditioning systems - almost everything you could think of.
Coddington had established Hot Rods by Boyd in Stanton, CA as well as Boyd Wheels, during this time he really was a leading light. During this time a guy called Sam Foose had a shop that built hot rods but also made film props, his son, Chip helped out in the shop from an early age.
Chip had a real talent for drawing and design and went to college to study design. He then worked for a company that did design work for OEM manufacturers, eventually ending up leading the design side. In 1990 Foose had finally graduated and was working part time for Coddington, the job went full time a few years later and Foose ended up president of Hot Rods By Boyd. During this time he designed wheels and cars, including the Boydster cars, a series of custom bodies built exclusively by Boyd. Based on the early ford roadsters but stretched, chopped, tweaked they certainly created a stir, the Boydster II won AMBR in 1996 (AMBR is an award for Americas Most Beautiful Roadster).
Boydster ii
Boydster iii
Foose is the youngest person ever to be inducted in to the hot rod hall of fame at 31 years old.
I don't know exactly what happened, it seems Foose had financial or business interest in the Boyd company. It went bankrupt, Foose and Coddington fell out. It seems there were some sharp practices, Coddington held on to the wheel company and soon set up again in the shop we all saw on TV.
Also in the 90s another 2nd generation car builder was on his way, having built some cars and received accolades from Hot Rod magazine and Goodguys he formed Rad Rides in the mid 90s, his name ? Troy Trepanier.
90s, we're in Tennessee, Bobby Alloway, a general manager at a Ford dealership quits his job and opens up his hot rod shop. Alloway was already no stranger to top level car building, he'd won the 1985 Ridler award with his '33 Ford Victoria. He lost the entire shop to a fire in 1998, but already had a reputation for really, really nice cars. His trademark look is to use a tyre with lots of sidewall in the rear and less so in the front, giving the cars a rake purely from the tyre height differences. I really like his stuff.
Bobby Alloway
The average street rod in the 80s and 90s was all a bit Miami Vice really. Pastel colours, pinstriping gave way to graphics, the dralon buttoned interiors of the 70s had given way to tweed. As with most of the 80s we'd consider it pretty poor taste now!
A typical 80s/90s street rod, ick!
The escalating costs of the top cars and the relative lack of taste of others turned some people off. They liked what they considered hot rods not street rods. They'd build a traditional looking car, steel wheels, maybe even wired wheels with a beam front end, definitely not a small block engine, they tried to use original parts that the street rodders were throwing away and so on. they soon got the name "low buck" cars, because compared to the high costs of a state of the art street rod, they were.. the street rodders got the name "goldchainers" on account of their show of wealth.
As we said goodbye to the 90s street rods started to become more tasteful - like the Miami Vice jeans the pastel colours were gone as were the dodgy graphics. Thanks to people like Alloway cars started getting a good stance - until now street rods hadn't had the nice rake of a hot rod, but it was coming back.
Foose revamped a Boyster for Chuck Svatos, now renamed the 0032 it won AMBR in 2000. Svatos traded the car to Foose for work on a '32 3 window. Foose sold the 0032 to the Petersen museum and used the money to start Foose Design. In 2002 he won the Ridler with Wes Rydell's '35 Chevy 'Grandmaster'.
Wes Rydell's 'Grandmaster'
For what it is I love the car, graceful lines, its a bit like the 30s european cars. Above all else its just so well executed. Every single panel gap is 1/8th of an inch. There is a build gallery here: http://www.garagescene.net/gallery3/index.php/Buil...
Just a year later he was back with Ron Whiteside's Stallion, a '34 3 window. It took the ridler award. Again a tweaked body and just perfect execution of the build.. Foose was the target that everyone had to beat
Ron Whiteside's Stallion
Build pictures here: http://www.wallesdator.com/Foose%20design/Stallion...
2004 Foose sat out the Ridler, the car he was building for Ken Reister wasn't ready. He was back in 2005 with Reister's car and again took the top trophy. Impression is loosely based on a '36 Ford, but was a scratch built body (by Marcel Deley). I've seen this one up close and its just beautiful, the details are so subtle and its proportions are just right. Looking back, the problem is was this still hot rodding ? you could argue that this was bespoke coachbuilding of luxury cars. For everyone else, how can you beat this ? it sort of left everyone with nowhere to go.
Ken Reister's 'Impression'
Build pics here: http://wallesdator.com/Foose%20design/Impression/P...
Back to Troy Trepanier, in the mid/early 90s he had built a '39 Chevy and took it to some of the big shows, one of the guys he met was George Poteet.
Poteet is a car nut, a very rich car nut. He owns Shelby Cobra #1 and a bunch of other exotic race cars. He's also a hot rod nut and is permanently having cars built - at least 2 or 3 a year, every year.
Poteet asked Troy what he was going to do next, Troy said he wanted to do a Plymouth Savoy and already had ideas for the changes. Poteet replied that he'd had one of those years ago and commissioned the car.
Troy had already chatted to Chip months before and whilst they were talking on the phone Chip had scribbled a drawing and faxed it to Troy.
So, here's a 1954 Plymouth:
Here's the car that Troy built, nicknamed Sniper
This car really put Troy on the map, first of all it was a custom - the custom/kustom scene had been quiet for a while, it'd sort have gone out of fashion. Firstly the car was top quality work, but it also had another trick up its sleeve.. that swoopy body was covering a full Dodge Viper drivetrain. Troy had the idea before starting the car, but this was mid 90s, the Viper a supercar - how do you get hold of one without selling the kids ?
Simple, you phone Chrysler and ask for one. Thats exactly what Troy did, a short while later they said "Come up here and bring a trailer". They gave him a development car "Use what you want, just bring the rest back so we can crush it".
Cars for Roger Ritzow (traditional '32 roadster with lots of modern tricks), Glen Grozich ('62 Chevy with 1200hp from its twin turbo engine).
Roger Ritzow's '32 Roadster
Glenn Grozich's '62 Chevy
Then some guy called Ross Myers asks Troy to build him a '36 Ford. Myers had owned the car since he was a teenager. Named First Love the car won the 2007 Ridler award. You'll note that the car although sporting quite a few body mods is very representable of the '36 Ford - quite a change from the Foose car just 2 years before.
Ross Myer's '36 Ford
There are a few build pictures here: http://www.radrides.com/photos/gallery/images?albu...
The entire underside of the car is just amazing, pretty much the entire lot was machined in house, the brakes, the hubs, wishbones, axle casing, you name it.
Some good pics of it here : http://www.pinupsandkustoms.com/blog/rad-rides-by-... Beware - some of the background images on that site are NSFW.
Again its attention to detail and high quality work. Foose crawled all over the car when it was unveiled and proclaimed himself glad that he wasn't competing against it. A year alter I watched Roy Brizio do pretty much the same with Troy.
There is a lot to look at with this car - some cars you take a good look at and you've seen it. This one each time you happened to walk by you noticed something else, a little detail here and there. I could see there was something going on with the wheels, took me a while and a chat with a mate to figure it out - the wheels are different size front to back (not unusual) but they've changed the PCD of the wheel in proportion to its diameter, just another little detail..
Troy & Roy Brizio look over First Love at the 2008 Grand National Roadster show, note the removed shoes in the background
These cars are what I call the ultra street rods at their height, just incredible workmanship and quality. It wasn't to last...
Meantime some of the low buck guys had gone one step further and were building rat rods. This all started as an antithesis to the high buck stuff remember - criticism was given for trailering street rods to shows (which had been going on years), liberal over use of billet (machined aluminium parts) and so on. The irony is that as rat rods got more and more extreme, they were being trailered to shows as they were undriveable, whilst street rods in the 80s and early 90s were a bit tasteless I'd venture that rat rods are no better, but I guess thats subjective.
Basically the rules of rat rod building are : find some rusty car bits, throw them together, cut up anything you can and then look cool.. The more dangerous the better - we're talking no floors, no front brakes, suicide front end setups and so on.
To be fair the "rat rod" name gets thrown around a lot, a rusty truck isn't a rat rod, a flat black roadster or coupe might be "old skool" but it isn't a rat rod.
I don't really have much time for rat rods and the arrogant attitude that some owners have. I'm sure there are some safe, well built cars out there but christ there is lots of dangerous junk too. Asthetically they do little for me:
Over the past maybe 10 years things have met in the middle a bit, rat rods seem to be less prevalent, the high end stuff is a bit more subtle and low key, traditional looking cars are popular and pretty much everyone is keeping original trim and detail parts that might have been removed previously. Some of the guys building rat rods have grown up a bit and have stopped doing dumb stuff, even the "old skool" boys have got tired of flat black paint with red wheels...
Apologies for the long post, I wanted to get the timeline stuff finished, if you guys are interested there is stacks more history stuff - people who owned or built cars or made parts, styles, personalities and so on but we can't hope to cover it all so I'm sure bits and pieces will come up as we go.
So, am I talking to myself yet ? Does anyone have any questions or stuff you'd like to know more about ?
Random pictures..
John Mumford's Brizio built '27 T roadster, 2012 AMBR winner
Ron Cizek's Checkered Past '40 Ford. Built by Andy Leach who is an ex- Rad Rides employee. 2013 Ridler winner
Bobby Alloway built '32 Vicky, 2013 Goodguys street rod of the year
60s inspired T bucket
Model A roadster
'32 3 WIndow in build at SoCal Speedshop
'36 Roadster
'64 Falcon
'37 Sedan
'32 3 window
'59 Impala
Model A roadster pickup
Any photo marked 'Tom Davison' is from http://www.socalcarculture.com - great site, well worth checking out.
Edited by Crafty_ on Sunday 6th July 20:00
Edited by Crafty_ on Sunday 6th July 20:24
Great post dude. Interestingly the return to traditional rods as a backlash to Street Rods in often attributed to a group in the UK rather than the US who formed the Low Flyers club. http://www.low-flyers.com/history.html
Nick Grant said:
Great post dude. Interestingly the return to traditional rods as a backlash to Street Rods in often attributed to a group in the UK rather than the US who formed the Low Flyers club. http://www.low-flyers.com/history.html
Not convinced that in the UK it was ever a backlash to street rods - just the influence of the extent of the Rockabilly scene of the time and that fact that people were into that period - traditional styled rods being one of them. Traditional rods and kustoms were all you'd see at somewhere like the early Hemsby Weekenders circa late 80's/early 90's.Certainly in the USA it can be considered a street rod backlash.
HaloGen8 said:
On the other hand.......;)
Awesome thread. I've always loved the 32 coupes.
Some of the rat rod stuff is way too daft. But then again some of the high end scene cars are totally unusable. So somewhere in the middle is ideal ime.
Does anyone have a link to the home built rod which was made to lap circuits as well as looking cool? It was 4WD and had an odd engine (maybe volvo or saab turbo?)
Some of the rat rod stuff is way too daft. But then again some of the high end scene cars are totally unusable. So somewhere in the middle is ideal ime.
Does anyone have a link to the home built rod which was made to lap circuits as well as looking cool? It was 4WD and had an odd engine (maybe volvo or saab turbo?)
Some high end stuff doesn't get driven for maybe a year or two because they are contracted to be on a tour of shows. I can remember a Rad Rides car that was for sale part built, part of the deal was the show contract.
After that, they do get driven, all of the 3 Foose cars above are driven, about 6-8 years ago there was a TV series called Rides that did some episodes on hot rod stuff, one of which featured Stallion & Grandmaster being prepped for a show across country (IIRC Phoenix), they being driven there.
I think you mean one of these Volvos ? all built by the same chap in Sweden, never really heard much more about them other than he worked for Volvo and ransacked parts bins to build them !
After that, they do get driven, all of the 3 Foose cars above are driven, about 6-8 years ago there was a TV series called Rides that did some episodes on hot rod stuff, one of which featured Stallion & Grandmaster being prepped for a show across country (IIRC Phoenix), they being driven there.
I think you mean one of these Volvos ? all built by the same chap in Sweden, never really heard much more about them other than he worked for Volvo and ransacked parts bins to build them !
k-ink said:
Does anyone have a link to the home built rod which was made to lap circuits as well as looking cool? It was 4WD and had an odd engine (maybe volvo or saab turbo?)
Doesn't ring a bell....You're not thinking of the totally mental stock looking '29 Model A fitted with a Group 4 Escort BDA engine that belongs to former World Rally Champion Juha Kankkunen?
This one....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFSGSL3Nrmc
For fans of John Dodds "The Beast", there are plans for it to be here :
http://www.santapod.co.uk/e_dragstalgia.php
and actually run down the quarter mile.....
http://www.santapod.co.uk/e_dragstalgia.php
and actually run down the quarter mile.....
This video is very interesting showing some new tech direction for hot rods...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w7_N9Aenn8
ps
This is the 4WD hotrod I was thinking of:
"1:48 lap times at Anderstorp Raceway, which was just 10 seconds slower than the Porsche Carrera Cup cars".
http://www.hotrod.com/featuredvehicles/hrdp_0905_1...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDMOV_fmuLU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w7_N9Aenn8
ps
This is the 4WD hotrod I was thinking of:
"1:48 lap times at Anderstorp Raceway, which was just 10 seconds slower than the Porsche Carrera Cup cars".
http://www.hotrod.com/featuredvehicles/hrdp_0905_1...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDMOV_fmuLU
Edited by k-ink on Tuesday 15th July 13:38
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