john hennessy wrote:
excellent pictures!
there is still a small amount of hard core fabricators about but for the most a "car guy" is someone with a check book and car shows are full of cookie cutter 32's and 34's
i was at a show last year parked next to a 63 chevy pickup, the guy asked if i had built my car myself to which i replied yes, he then told me that he had also built his truck himself, it was on an 87 pickup chassis with a crate engine and he farmed out the bodywork, paint and upholstery so i asked him if he worked at the plant in Detroit in 1963, he answered no.
so it seems that if you contract out everything to someone else, you built the car, as opposed to just buying a completed car on craigslist.
we here are a dying breed gentlemen!!!
Thank you for the nice compliment on the photos, John.
You are correct. There are fewer and fewer real builders out there. At the same time, the ones actually designing and building their own cars are working to higher standards than in the past, and that's great to see. I spend most of my day at the show wandering around the 100-200 acres of the fairgrounds looking at what I think of as the "authentic" cars and talking to people.
To me that means the ones with unique ideas and which have largely been done by the builders themselves. You're the exception, John, but it's pretty hard to develop all the skills necessary to do
everything yourself. So, I don't fault a builder who may want to pass off the paint job to a pro, or friend with that kind of expertise.
The good news is that they're still out there. You just have to look a little harder. Also, women are starting to appear as builders now. A couple of years back I met a young Hispanic woman who built a really cool, little, rat rod truck. She did everything herself. It was great to see.
My wife is an artist. Each year we visit places (galleries, museums) that serve to inspire her to reach further with her own art. This show serves as my equivalent for car building.
Cheers,