Hot rodding-the outsiders view

[jez r]

I wouldn't normally link to another forum but I found this discussion on the Retro Rides forum which I thought might provoke some opinions over here.
Retro Rides - Has the Hot Rod scene "given up"?

Some interesting views on the rod & custom scene. I've not quite made my mind up about it yet but most of the comments seem fair and well informed.

[Stiff]

Yeah, I've been following that thread with intrest. Lots of differing opinions. I wondered how it would go down on here. Maybe another one of those 'can of worms' threads possibly.

[Pughy]

Some interesting comments for sure, especially reading as one of these 'younger rodders'.
Saying that though, can anybody translate what 'team blitz' has said into english please
Tom

[spacer]

Slightly concerning is the misinformation some quote regarding BIVA etc. I guess they don't modify their cars at all or certainly not to the extent of it being applicable to them. (As far as they know )

This is where the sterling work of ACE is worth it's weight in gold so they can be pointed to the correct information rather than hear-say.

[rodster]

Yeh thats an interesting disscussion but i don't think Matt the first post really gets it to be honest, you got to be a rodder to understand i recken.
I personally think the scene is now emence compared to say 10 years ago, looking at the evidence, a full show field at the nats and quite literally hundreds of rods, customs etc not present, and look at all the traders there are these days.
Yeh fair enough we are all getting older but i don't think there is a lack of young blood, its just an easy option doing a retro than a rod and thats what a lot of young ens pick i guess, I know when i was in my early 20s all my spare cash went in my pop which i built then, any other type of car didnt interest me.
Have to say it is rather strange though that we only have one uk shop mag for our scene when you think back to what we did have all them years ago, considering how many landy, vws ford, etc mags there are i recon its time for someone to jump on the band wagon, how about it Si fancy taking on another anglle aswel.
There has always been top buck rods, but more choice and goods are now available to the rodder it terms of bodys, chassis, hardware, bolt on goodies etc, and as rodders get older they generally have more surplus cash, ie no mortgate etc, not sure what one guy says about young lads not being able to afford these expensive rods because if they totted up how much they spend on there shopping trolleys i would have thought would buy them a tidy rod.

[Crafty]

I can only describe some of the opinions there as odd. 80s BMW a hot rod ? a scratchbuilt car dull because its not made of junkyard parts ?

hmm.

The current trend for trad cars I think started to keep costs down, but now these cars are costing as much as "high tech" cars to build or get built. The "next generation" are already busy with muscle cars and the "pro touring" look.

Where does rodding go from here ? more re-pop steel bodies I reckon and a wider acceptance of later cars. I read that US NSRA now have a rolling 30 year cut off - lots of the older guys are ****ed off, but it might just be the right thing to do - we'll see, I think it is maybe a little too broad, I reckon UK have it about right with pre 69..

[kapri]

The Retrorides guys are NOT the bottomless pocket Ricer /Max Power type modifiers . Think more along the lines of early customs over here in the 70's , modifying what you had / could afford but looking at the slightly older, but still affordable, cars. They have also been priced out of the early Ford market by the ' Classic / Retro /Performance Ford guys .

[HotRod]

I agree with some of the comments about the scene sometimes being cliquey and your frowned upon if your car isnt of a cetain age or style, alot of the guys on there do have the hot rodding spirit (old car, bigger engine and better parts they can find cheap) ok the cars are modern compared to what most of us call a hot rod but the thinking is the same, i personally think the scene in this country is too small to be having pre 49 cut off dates, while i consider myself a hot rodder through and through i do like to look at what other people are doing with cars be it modern cars, old skool fords or vw's, sometimes you can learn a lot by looking in to other scene's.

[kapri]

The fact that rodding is defined as pre '49 is what it is , same as vintage and veteran definitions by the classic guys surely ?. The modifying scene in general is HUGE , just that we don't mix, probably for the best .
I still fail to see why everyone wants to move that definition to make 'their' car a hot rod. When I was building customs / kustoms I had no desire to call it a hot rod , I knew that it wasn't.

It appears that many hold the hot rod as the pinnacle of modifying ,in that case what better thing to do to keep the definition pure rather than try to stretch it to encompas stuf that isn't ?

Not a biased elitist rodders view by the way , built all sorts of stuff but knew what all of it was and I'm still not building hotrods , I'm building 'rods'.

[vince-305]

Ive not been over on the other forum yet so going a lil half cocked but im guessing the content just from whats been posted here

Would you say that the heyday for our scene in the UK was the 70s ???

When 32's were 40yr olds the mk1 CZZ were less than 20 and mk2 parts were on the shelf at fords

Today when you go back 40yrs you get the mk2 cortina's, go back 20yrs and theres astras and escorts (and horrible FWD) and whats on fords shelf now even the scoobys are at the age of modding ........... Can you imagine if we could get 300 bhp as easy as they do (geez 300 is factory)