2013 America's Most Beautiful Roadster Winner! Totally Traditional!

[Draggon]

Allow me to hijack this thread for just a second since I know virtually nothing about old iron. What kind of power could you expect to get out of an engine like that with the Ardun heads, multiple carbs etc?

Its all about the fun. I had a built VW in the 70's, it was a heck of a lot of fun, especially against the multitude of late 60's 283 powerglide Camaros. Maybe pushing only 80 hp on dual Webber carbs. Never got 'em on the top end, but played havoc at the line. Thats real fun! Fast forward a decade, and I had a 5.0 T-top Stang. The only thing fun about it was the donuts. The worst car I've ever owned. Fun and cool isnt all about horespower!

Edited February 2, 2013 by Draggon

[oldcarfan]

Love this car! Color is great too. So good to see cars that look like hot rods that could be driven. I like Chip Foose and all those guys, but there cars lack personality. They are sort of the Toyota Camry of hot rods, competent but bland.

[Chuck Kourouklis]

and nothing sounds quite as awesome as a hopped up flattie

Man, you can say that again! It's kinda like what, four Harleys with custom pipes in one?

[Guest G Holding]

and nothing sounds quite as awesome as a hopped up flattie

And a BLOWN flattie is even better

[Bernard Kron]

Great thread! I’ve enjoyed the various reactions to this car and have been surprised a bit by the strength of emotion it has triggered. AMBR winners have always reflected the prevailing trend in state-of-the-art rod building at the time. The 1950 winner, the Niekamp roadster pictured above, was a serious, bucks-up piece of kit at that time, with it’s fabricated aluminum track nose and full bellypan and full house flattie under the hood. When Fad-T’s were the fad, Fad-T’s won the AMBR. When show rods were all the rage the hot rod equivalent of a show rod would win.

This year the Traditional movement may appear to have broken through, but not before 20 years of trying. Elements of this style have shown themselves among the AMBR’s of recent years, but not to this level of purity. The Rodder’s Journal style modern recreation of a traditional postwar hot rod has finally achieved its AMBR win. But this style of building has been around since it emerged in the final decade of the last century. It is a reaction against the hi-tech excellence first launched by the late Lil’ John Buttera and the late Boyd Coddington at the end of the 70’s; a trend that would establish itself with a vengeance in the next decade and come to be known, unfortunately, as “Billet”. Buttera, Coddington, and their contemporaries made a conscious attempt to propel rod building into a more technically and stylistically modern idiom. As recently as last year this trend still informed the aesthetic of AMBR winners. The result, inevitably, was a longing for a more “roots” experience, an emerging trend documented in the pages of TRJ. 2013 marks the emergence of this trend onto the very top step of the hobby’s hierarchy of recognition. (But not before authentic restorations of historic rods and customs have been shown on multiple occasions at Pebble Beach.)

This years’ AMBR, like most years, represents the current establishment in the rodding world. Longtime traditional rod re-creation and restoration enthusiast John Mumford bankrolled this “continuation” of a 30 year old project started by Kelly Brown. Roy Brizio’s shop (rod builders to the stars, much as Barris was in his day) built it, mainly from scratch, except for the more obvious bits like the beyond-rare Ardun V8-60 heads. It was even a bare-metal feature a couple of issues back in TRJ. It seems to me that Brizio and Mumford knew what they were on to since they totally nailed the color (an evocation of Ford Honduras Maroon, a popular customizer’s color on either side of WWII) and trim. It’s instructive to compare this car with last year’s AMBR which was, highly significantly, also a ‘27T style track roadster, in that case built by Jimmy Shine and Pete Chapouris. Shine and Chapouris are also members of the Traditional establishment, but didn’t quite “turn the corner” into such a hard core build as this one.

Personally, as much as I love traditional rods (they are at this point the only style of car I model), I feel myself longing for the day we will be able to take the lessons we learned from Buttera, Coddington, et al, and blend them with the powerful beauty, the near perfection of form and function, of this exquisite little car, and create a new idiom. The Aluma Coupe was a spectacularly brilliant piece of design and engineering, the Boydsters a brave experiment in creating a New Age rodding idiom which unfortunately got grotesquely played out in the ensuing years. As Bill has pointed out, scale modeling gives us the means to start this journey on a modest budget. Let us begin!

The Bill Lindig "indy" Roadster - 2012 AMBR Winner

Edited February 3, 2013 by Bernard Kron

[Harry P.]

Personally, as much as I love traditional rods (they are at this point the only style of car I model), ...

Why do you put such a tight, arbitrary limit on yourself? There's a whole wide world of automotive subjects out there.

[CadillacPat]

I really don't see what "new idiom" of cars could be "created" by further whittling down cars like this.

If you removed anything else from this "design" it would be just a shell, much like the boring cars Coddington "designed".

Smooth. sleek, functional, all those terms already describe cars like the XK-150, MGA, Talbot Lago. Corvette, Ferraris of the past, Datsun 280-ZX.

Cars that had shape, style and function.

The word minimalist is just that, minimally appealing.

CadillacPat

[Dennis Lacy]

Why do you put such a tight, arbitrary limit on yourself? There's a whole wide world of automotive subjects out there.

Maybe, because that is where his passion is?

That is the only style I build in too, because it is what I'm passionate about and don't have an interest in building anything else. I don't find I'm putting a limit on myself.

PERSONAL PREFERENCE

How about this: Mind your own business and YOU build what you want to build and WE will build what we want to build.

[Draggon]

Well said B. I've got a few Buttera kits, and the Aluma Coupe and Smoothster. I'm saving them because I expect in a decade or two they will come back around. What is old, is new again. Although I'm a traditional guy like you, and build nothing else right now, I've already felt some nostalgia to build a billet-rod.

[tim boyd]

Great thread! I’ve enjoyed the various reactions to this car and have been surprised a bit by the strength of emotion it has triggered. AMBR winners have always reflected the prevailing trend in state-of-the-art rod building at the time. The 1950 winner, the Niekamp roadster pictured above, was a serious, bucks-up piece of kit at that time, with it’s fabricated aluminum track nose and full bellypan and full house flattie under the hood. When Fad-T’s were the fad, Fad-T’s won the AMBR. When show rods were all the rage the hot rod equivalent of a show rod would win.

This year the Traditional movement may appear to have broken through, but not before 20 years of trying. Elements of this style have shown themselves among the AMBR’s of recent years, but not to this level of purity. The Rodder’s Journal style modern recreation of a traditional postwar hot rod has finally achieved its AMBR win. But this style of building has been around since it emerged in the final decade of the last century. It is a reaction against the hi-tech excellence first launched by the late Lil’ John Buttera and the late Boyd Coddington at the end of the 70’s; a trend that would establish itself with a vengeance in the next decade and come to be known, unfortunately, as “Billet”. Buttera, Coddington, and their contemporaries made a conscious attempt to propel rod building into a more technically and stylistically modern idiom. As recently as last year this trend still informed the aesthetic of AMBR winners. The result, inevitably, was a longing for a more “roots” experience, an emerging trend documented in the pages of TRJ. 2013 marks the emergence of this trend onto the very top step of the hobby’s hierarchy of recognition. (But not before authentic restorations of historic rods and customs have been shown on multiple occasions at Pebble Beach.)

This years’ AMBR, like most years, represents the current establishment in the rodding world. Longtime traditional rod re-creation and restoration enthusiast John Mumford bankrolled this “continuation” of a 30 year old project started by Kelly Brown. Roy Brizio’s shop (rod builders to the stars, much as Barris was in his day) built it, mainly from scratch, except for the more obvious bits like the beyond-rare Ardun V8-60 heads. It was even a bare-metal feature a couple of issues back in TRJ. It seems to me that Brizio and Mumford knew what they were on to since they totally nailed the color (an evocation of Ford Honduras Maroon, a popular customizer’s color on either side of WWII) and trim. It’s instructive to compare this car with last year’s AMBR which was, highly significantly, also a ‘27T style track roadster, in that case built by Jimmy Shine and Pete Chapouris. Shine and Chapouris are also members of the Traditional establishment, but didn’t quite “turn the corner” into such a hard core build as this one.

Personally, as much as I love traditional rods (they are at this point the only style of car I model), I feel myself longing for the day we will be able to take the lessons we learned from Buttera, Coddington, et al, and blend them with the powerful beauty, the near perfection of form and function, of this exquisite little car, and create a new idiom. The Aluma Coupe was a spectacularly brilliant piece of design and engineering, the Boydsters a brave experiment in creating a New Age rodding idiom which unfortunately got grotesquely played out in the ensuing years. As Bill has pointed out, scale modeling gives us the means to start this journey on a modest budget. Let us begin!

The Bill Lindig "indy" Roadster - 2012 AMBR Winner

Bernard...extraordinarily well spoken. You don't have to like the winner this year, but this is a terrific explanation of why it won, and the backroom considerations and influences that often have impacted the choice of this award over the years. I can assure that this will be a very, very popular choice with most of the street rodding community.

Like almost all the vehicles Roy Brizio and his team build, I expect that this will be a highly roadable vehicle, not a show pony. (Trust me, there's nothing like watching the front wheels on a Roy Brizio driven highboy as they are rotating at triple digit speeds).

Full disclosure - I've been a friend of Roy since the early 1980's and I could not be more happy for him - or John - for their win.

And again, Bernard, great job explaining what is going on here an taking the time to explain it to other people. TIM

Edited February 3, 2013 by tim boyd

[Danno]

Well said, well written, well thought out, Bernard!!

Speaks volumes.