Matt Crunk
One Too Many
- Messages
- 1,029
- Location
- Muscle Shoals, Alabama
My '49 Chevy "shop" truck. A work in progress. Old School all the way.
Sisu said:I love seeing shiny chrome grills on faded paint, whitewalls, good pinstriping.
Fletch said: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.
It looks clean. Does it happen to have any cancer?Matt Crunk said:My '49 Chevy "shop" truck. A work in progress. Old School all the way.
The Captain said:This was parked near me (last year) and I couldn't
resist shooting a few pics.
...
Fletch said: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.
Edward said:(my feeling is that the less comon the car, the less likely folks are to be happy making such major mods)
David Conwill said: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
I don't know nuthin bout cars but I want to have a beer with a rat rodder now.:beer:Senator Jack said:If it's black and the radio is playing The Cramps, you're a ratrodder.
David Conwill said: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.