[andyg]

Frank-no harshness intended....i'll say it up front.

I totally respect where your coming from. Someone that's been there and done that and has moved on. There's not a thing in the world wrong with that. I'm 36 years old and love to hear the older than me guys and girls talk about what they started out building in their younger days. I think my car started out as a curiousity to find out what an early car was like...the sounds, smells, looks, and everything else about living with an early car. It always seems that when I here an older than me person talking about their early days of working on an old car they are smiling. They restored, modified, made fit, and made due with whatever they had available. And although very little or no reproduction parts were available, there were quite a few nice original parts to be found. Some feel like this "skill" as a car guy enabled them to go to the junk yard find, make, or modify whatever they needed to get / keep the car on the road or make it better / faster than the next guy. To them the "skill" has been lost and thus the "check book" comments.

Fast forward to today.....I can relate to both sides of that story. I love to fabricate, change, make better the things on my car. It's nice that we have aftermarket parts that we can do that to as a lot of nice original pieces have been modified in the past 80+ years and far fewer still exist than "back in the day". That's why many on here get upset that someone has modified yet another original car or part.

When my 4 banger pooped out on me and I decided I would put in a v8 flathead to keep it on the road until I could get my "B" motor fixed, I searched and found some mint 1932 V8 motor mounts....skipping over all the ones that had notches in them....wondering why anyone would do that. As I bolted them up to my 39K original mile 1939 flattie (pulled out by someone else that wanted a sbc) I realized that the belt would not clear the lower leg gusset without being notched. Imagine my horror and new problem...do I notch these or not. Well after posting a number of adds on the old ford barn and searching for several months on the internet and swapmeets for some that were already nothched i gave up. After I got NO responses from anyone that wanted to sell me already modified motor mounts, I finally bought a 1936 LB 21 stud flathead so I wouldn't have to notch my nice origianl motor mounts.

I love hotrods and originals. I just don't like to modify nice original parts. If I personally need a modified original part then that's what I look for. I'm not always successfull in that search but I will at least try. I love and respect all the street rodders out there and repect the evolution that they have been through as people, as you yourself talked about. I love the traditional hotrodders...many are in the next stage of the evolution and coming back to what they had as kids. Some are like me and I personally found that a few years ago I could not afford the "aftermarket" parts and was FORCED to find orginal parts instead. I wanted an old car that bad. Now times have changed again and original parts are higher than aftermarket parts a lot of times. And I love the purist that preserve the history of the automakers and preserve the original cars and parts for later generations to see.

I expect that as I collect more nice original 32 parts such as fenders, etc, I will eventually have what I need to restore my car back to original condition if I chose to do that. But until I have those good fenders, I like it fenderless...a personal dedication to those who raced them before WWII.

I guess what I'm saying is this. Personally I love the streetrodders just like I love the tradional rodders just like I love the purists. There's everything right about searching, scrounging, sniffing out that part that you need. But there's nothing wrong with writing a check for it either when you need to "get on with it". I love the hunt but some don't. I'm not better than them or they better than me. Thank goodness people want to build cars themselves and thank goodness people want to sell cars finished.

Let's enjoy this hobby and have some understanding, each to the other, that we can all enjoy this in each our own way...and not be-little anyone else for having a little different opinion than ours.

"can't we all just get along?"....now someone sell me those nice parts you've got stashed....I know you got'um!!!