Current Hot Rod / Street Rod trends

[vincen47]

On 5/25/2020 at 10:26 PM, CabDriver said:

Not following trends is the new trend! ?. 
 

I read something once that said something like “the internet lets anyone with an interest in the most obscure, weird, narrow subdivision of any possible subject or hobby find millions of other people just like them”

I think that luxury that we have now makes it possible to build what you like without thinking “I don’t really have anyone to show this to who will GET it”.  Not that I worried too much about that anyway, but it’s cool that even if I build the most hideously dated and unfashionable thing I can imagine someone will say “I LOVE it!  I’m gonna build one just like it!”

All that said, I wonder what the next big trend in hot rodding will be?  Something will happen in 1:1 sometime and then, like rat rods and TRoGsters and street rods and custom vans and whatever else before them will make the modelling community BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH up it’s ears and start to build stuff to replicate the cool full-sized stuff that has gripped their imagination.

I couldn’t agree more! The internet has provided everyone with a voice of opinion that will provide both criticism and praise for anything you build. Anything and anyone can have a following, so even though trends still exist, you don’t need to follow them for inspiration or be in sync with them to be followed.

[Spex84]

"BLAH_BLAH up it's ears"??

Perk up its ears?

I can't even imagine what other word could fit there, let alone a word that would be auto-censored.

////

RE: trends...I've been noticing that lots of older trends and styles are being re-born and re-mixed, like 1970s vans and chopper bikes, '80s synthwave music, '90s styling (splash graphics, "Xtreme" everything) adopted in a tongue-in-cheek nostalgic fashion. It's all interesting to me!

Street-rod specific trends, though? Hmm. I feel like the Rat Rod thing is played out, Traditional has turned into a hobby for the absolute 1% Rodders Journal/Pebble Beach crowd, and the Neo-Trad America's Most Beautiful Roadster trend is feeling a bit stale.

The 80s had the easter-egg colored Pro Street builds, which morphed into 90s billet Hi-Tech. The 2000s were still Hi-Tech but Rat Rod and Traditional started creeping in. I feel like things have settled into a bit of a holding pattern, and the edgy stuff is happening in other branches of the car hobby.

For instance, I'm kind of waiting for the skeletal, deconstructed, cyberpunk styling on recent supercar projects to make its way to hot rods. In a few cases it has, but hasn't become mainstream yet. I'm talking about the "folded planes" surfacing, cantilever and flying buttress forms, floating LED headlight and taillight clusters, exposed tube frames, etc.

That, and the drift/time attack/stance design features that have been appearing on euro and tuner cars for years now.

The funny thing is, the "half stripped" styling of some of these supercar projects was probably inspired by traditional hot rods in the first place!

*edit* The yellow Firebird below is perhaps one of the better examples of hybrid trends that I've seen lately: It's a '70s car, with Rat Rod patina, huge splitter and fat lettered tires, AWD Nissan GTR system...but also some of that good old American hot-rod flavor in the form of a roots-blown V8...but the engine is set back in the frame to prioritize handling. Weird, and I love it.

 

 

Edited May 30, 2020 by Spex84

[Ace-Garageguy]

^^^   Kewl, all of 'em. I still love the traditional stuff, but the mix of styles and technologies is fascinating.

[Snake45]

47 minutes ago, Spex84 said:

 

 

That poor Firebird deserves a better fate than to be made into something that looks like a Hot Wheels that was played with in a gravel pit and then left outside all winter. 

[Spex84]

And you've just described exactly why I love that Firebird, Snake! I'd take it over a cookie-cutter 'bird any day.

[CabDriver]

10 hours ago, Spex84 said:

"BLAH_BLAH up it's ears"??

Perk up its ears?

I can't even imagine what other word could fit there, let alone a word that would be auto-censored.

////

RE: trends...I've been noticing that lots of older trends and styles are being re-born and re-mixed, like 1970s vans and chopper bikes, '80s synthwave music, '90s styling (splash graphics, "Xtreme" everything) adopted in a tongue-in-cheek nostalgic fashion. It's all interesting to me!

Street-rod specific trends, though? Hmm. I feel like the Rat Rod thing is played out, Traditional has turned into a hobby for the absolute 1% Rodders Journal/Pebble Beach crowd, and the Neo-Trad America's Most Beautiful Roadster trend is feeling a bit stale.

The 80s had the easter-egg colored Pro Street builds, which morphed into 90s billet Hi-Tech. The 2000s were still Hi-Tech but Rat Rod and Traditional started creeping in. I feel like things have settled into a bit of a holding pattern, and the edgy stuff is happening in other branches of the car hobby.

For instance, I'm kind of waiting for the skeletal, deconstructed, cyberpunk styling on recent supercar projects to make its way to hot rods. In a few cases it has, but hasn't become mainstream yet. I'm talking about the "folded planes" surfacing, cantilever and flying buttress forms, floating LED headlight and taillight clusters, exposed tube frames, etc.

That, and the drift/time attack/stance design features that have been appearing on euro and tuner cars for years now.

The funny thing is, the "half stripped" styling of some of these supercar projects was probably inspired by traditional hot rods in the first place!

*edit* The yellow Firebird below is perhaps one of the better examples of hybrid trends that I've seen lately: It's a '70s car, with Rat Rod patina, huge splitter and fat lettered tires, AWD Nissan GTR system...but also some of that good old American hot-rod flavor in the form of a roots-blown V8...but the engine is set back in the frame to prioritize handling. Weird, and I love it.

Great post!  These are just the kinds of things that I was interested in hearing about.  A lot of the things you mentioned make me think of those Ken Block Hoonigan builds:

Old bodies, new running gear but a long way from the resto-mod style, with influences from drift and drag cars thrown in the mix.  I’d like to see a Hoonigan Deuce, bet it would be pretty wild.

[Spex84]

I was going to post the Ken Block Hooni-vehicles but skipped 'em because they're race-only, but yes, they're a reflection of some of those trends!

Another funny thing....because '80s/90s styling is coming back in the drift/stance/tuner world (apparently; I don't know much and judge purely on the visuals), some weird time-loops start to happen. Here's a contemporary neo-80s Corvette and a stanced Testarossa (I know, I know). Remember when every Fiero owner was trying to turn his car into a Testarossa?

 

 

So now if we imagine taking supercar styling and merging it with traditional hot rod forms, then slather on a thick coat of '80s "Hi Tech" nostalgia, we get...

...the California Star, built 1981-83. Throw some LED lights on it, and lettered low-profile tires big wheels, and boom. Everything old is new again! I photoshopped a version that spoofs some of these trends (or celebrates them??), just for fun:

[CabDriver]

I like all of those ?. Your version of the California Star totally brings it up to date I think - as much as you can without a total redesign anyway.  Amazing what a difference the changes you made make!

That blue Vette immediately made me think of Eric Ritz’s Slambo:

 

[Richard Bartrop]

And as the Traditional movement shows, out of date is not necessarily all that bad.

[CabDriver]

2 hours ago, Richard Bartrop said:

And as the Traditional movement shows, out of date is not necessarily all that bad.

I was thinking about this today - it’s probably possible for someone with even a semi-keen eye to spot the difference between a ‘traditional hot rod’ built at the time, versus twenty years ago versus today.

I wonder what the future has in store for traditional hot rods? ?

[Spex84]

I can definitely spot the 1980s and the early 2000s versions of "traditional custom", haha. Maybe I'll look back and the past decade's worth will look super obvious too. I don't know...lots of traditional rods and customs are being built now as if they just rolled out of the '50s and '60s, sometimes as literal clones of those early cars. In that sense, they're timeless and more difficult to pin down than a "1980s trad" car with the triple lake pipes, fuzzy dice and other "glorified 50s nostalgia" accessories.

 

Edited June 5, 2020 by Spex84

[Greg Myers]

The Tee Bucket world seems to be embracing the "Zoomie" header thing in earnest.

[Greg Myers]

Through the past sever years, a few more "Bandwagon" trends

[Greg Myers]

let's not forget the "artillery" wheels.?

[Jon Haigwood]

Personally I think "Flames" are over rated, 

 

Prefer "Scallops" 

 

 

[keyser]

I'd think some simple kits of Hoonigan cars would sell like mad. Mustang alone, version 1 and 2 would go insane. People would "prlck" up their ears and open wallets. 

[Greg Myers]

Aw come on Jon, they're iconic

[Snake45]

1 hour ago, Greg Myers said:

Aw come on Jon, they're iconic

 

Speaking of classic, isn't that KC Winkler, sort of the Barbara Eden of the hot rod world? 

[Richard Bartrop]

16 hours ago, CabDriver said:

I was thinking about this today - it’s probably possible for someone with even a semi-keen eye to spot the difference between a ‘traditional hot rod’ built at the time, versus twenty years ago versus today.

I wonder what the future has in store for traditional hot rods? ?

Oh, you can definitely, spot the differences between say '80s traditional, and something built in the 21st century. When what we now call "traditional" was originally built, that wasn't tradition, that was just people trying to built cool cars, and if you look bad at those old magazines, it's pretty obvious that not everybody built them the same way back then. I guess it's like that old parable about the blind men and the elephant.  Everyone picks a different part and says "This is what it's all about!"

As a point of interest, here's what Joe Gemsa thought a traditional hot rod should look like back in 1967

That in itself would be an interesting exercise, building traditional style rods that are themselves revivals of different style revivals, but I think there's a lot to be said for building what you want, and not worrying about fashion.   Who knows, maybe other people will get what you're doing, and before you know it, you've started a trend.

 

[Jon Haigwood]

3 hours ago, Greg Myers said:

Aw come on Jon, they're iconic

 

 

Your proving my point < almost everybody has them. And how many different styles of flames can you name ? 

[gotnitro?]

Flames..Mike Lavallee ( sp?) True Fire 

[Greg Myers]

Hollywood flames

[Greg Myers]

Ed Roth Flames

[Snake45]

6 hours ago, Jon Haigwood said:

And how many different styles of flames can you name ? 

Traditional, crab claw, seaweed, tribal, and real fire are the ones I can think of right offhand. I think there are several others. 

[Jon Haigwood]

2 minutes ago, Snake45 said:

Traditional, crab claw, seaweed, tribal, and real fire are the ones I can think of right offhand. I think there are several others. 

You can add Pinstripe and Ghost to them