While the kids might disagree, the tuner car culture has it’s roots firmly planted in the history of hot rodding. Take a run of the mill car, tear it apart and tweak it till is suits your own vision. The styles and the canvas may have changed a bit, but the substance remains the same. Fortunately for all of us, there are some amongst us who are still envisioning classic style.
Friend of The Garage, Aaron Von Minden has been entertaining us with his classic vision of kool for some time now, so we thought we’d get you up to date on the 34 Ford coupe he’s been working on for the past year or so. Well, maybe not really an update so much as a few cool shots of the maestro at work.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
It’s great to see that the Hot-Rodding culture is still around but I sometimes wonder about the future of customizing. Let’s face it, what true car guy hasn’t played around with their rides in the past in order to “personalize” them. However, as I see it, nowadays the cops seem to be clamping down on that more and more. I feel sorry for the younger generation as a lot of this is aimed at them.
Let me tell you a story…back many years ago I owned a Toyota Hilux pickup in which I transplanted a Rover V8. I then lifted it with modified suspension and put 44 inch Micky Thompson’s underneath. With a trick paint job it really looked the part, especially when you consider that this took place in England in the 80’s/early90’s. One night at London’s famous Kings Road Cruise, I was challenged by a young copper because my tires protruded further than the wheel arches. He was about to write me up when an older Sargent came along. He asked if the exterior mirrors were standard on the truck, and when i replied yes, he explained to the other cop that this was therefore the body-line and so the tires were fine. As they walked away the Sargent looked back, winked and smiled at me!
That’s how things used to be, but the old-time common sense coppers are fastly disappearing and being replace with ticket chasers who would nick their own Grandmother’s.
A kid puts on a louder tailpipe and the cops are all over them, and yet the car’s still quieter than the cops Harley Davidson motorcycle!
In Ontario now we have a street racing law which makes amongst other things spinning your wheels illegal. Think about that…we live in a country which is covered in snow for 3-4 months of the year.
Where’s it all going to end? Kids will finally give up, buy boring little eco-boxes and the days of the car enthusiast will be over, and without them who do you think will be buying the Minis, Beetles, Chgargers, Mustangs, and Challengers of the future?
So if your a cop and your reading this…By all means do your job. If a car is unsafe or the driver’s acting like an idiot, throw the book at him, but try to remember back to your youth at other times, and give the kids a break!!
With all due respect I must disagree. For the most part nothing is any different today than it was in the 60’s or even before. Youngsters build their cars and that’s great, each adding/creating their own personal touch and that’s just fine but the problems arise when they feel the desire to “show off” and that typically includes exhibition of speed and that’s when the problems arise. For the most part, young drivers feel they “know what their doing” and that is accompanied by them believing they are invincible.
I remember an ass chewing I got form a judge for the first speeding ticket I got which was for doing 113 in a 35. He started out by telling me he was positive my parents like so many others had given me the lecture about how responsible they had to be when they were growing up, “back in the day.” God knows every kid has heard that one. But then he threw me a curve by saying, “Well I am here to tell you your parents are wrong. Back in our days, cars wouldn’t even do 60 miles per hour and even if we did run off the road, for the most part there was nothing to hit and nobody to hurt except our self. If you did hit anything like a mailbox you simply pulled over and put it back. However today’s kids have cars that can easily do in excess of 100 mph and there are many other cars sharing the congested roadways where cars are expected to average 65 mph. The bottom line is today’s youth have a lot more to be responsible for.”
That same lecture that judge gave me continues to apply today as does the fact that young drivers still love cars and that same love is all too often accompanied by the desire to make ‘em cool and fast. This is where and why the police are needed and if it weren’t for them we would all be in a bad place. When we’re young, it seems to be a double-edged sword but without this love/hate relationship many would die.
One thing I do know is if young people today would learn what so many of us learned back in the day with regard to “you can catch a lot more fly’s with sugar than you can with vinegar” still applies today and I have has a hell of a lot more police let me go than give me tickets simply because I treated them the same way I would like to be treated… with respect.
Gary, I think we’re running down different lanes here. Like I said, I’m all for throwing the book at driver’s who act like complete idiots on the road, and in court for 113 in a 35, I’d probably have to include you in that one mate…What were you thinking Gary!!! Seriously though, I guess we’ve all done dumb things in the past and it sounds like you learned your lesson on that one.
What I’m talking about though is why “some” cops out there seem to target kids for little or no reason, I’ll give you an idea… A friend’s son had his mate come around with his jazzed up Honda. Basically, it was a stock powered vehicle with a few bolt-on goodies. My friend, who is in his 50’s, was talked into going for a ride around the block in it. Half way round they got pulled over and ended up with 7 tickets, including one for excessive noise, even though the cop carried no means of actually testing the noise level. It was simply down to the sensitivity of the cops ears. And no, he wasn’t ticketed for speeding. In fact, he was stopped for having the wrong color light lens on his car (That should be a hanging offense eh
). My friend said that he couldn’t believe the attitude the cop gave the kid. He’s a mechanic and said that he thought the vehicle was in excellent shape.
I could give you plenty of examples of this kind of thing.
Now don’t get me wrong…I don’t want to see kids dead, and I’m all for making the roads safer for everyone, but a lot of this appears to be purely money generating police work, and the youngsters seem to be paying the price big time.
In my opinion, if we really wanted to make the roads safer, then we’d concentrate more on driver training and education, but of course, that costs the Government money!!
Crash,
No problem. I think we are on the same lane, just different venues. There both good intentions with the same goal in site.
I would definitely agree with u crash. And these days the attitude of cop’s has been annoying. And it’s really important to keep the roads safe.