(Photos from the BangShift Archive) – If I was given a stack of cash and told to build a hot rod, it would come out looking like most of the stuff in this gallery. These aren’t rat rods, by my definition anyway. There’s not hokey stuff in here that looks like it was glued together with the idea of shocking someone. Some of these cars have nice paint, some of them have no paint, some of them have faxu-tina, and some of them are genuinely rusty and weathered. I like the honesty, or what I see as the honesty in these cars. At their very base, hot rods have always been a direct reflection of their owner and these cars definitely have a respect for the past. I dig that.
There is obviously no “right” way to build a hot rod but we all have our favorite look and methods. There is at least one severely chopped deuce in this gallery that I would contemplate selling a kid to own…especially if it has a Hemi in it. The idea of a “traditional” hot rod to me is that it encapsulates what was going on in the 1950s/early 1960s before the muscle car era went into full swing and a guy in a GTO could wipe the floor every day and twice on Sunday with a hot rod that a dude screwed together in his garage.
I purposefully started with some of our oldest galleries to grab these photos. Why? Because they have not seen the light of day in ages and you have not seen them probably ever. Does my taste suck? Am I wrong on my opinion that these are “trad rods”? Whaddya say?
HIT THE LINK BELOW TO SEE MY PICKS OF COOL TRADITIONAL HOT RODS FROM THE BANGSHIFT ARCHIVE –
LINK: 
I dig it. Personally, I’m not a fan of “faux-tina”. Real patina and such tells a story. Traditional rods are the way to go, they’ve outlasted all the trends and fads of hot rodding. It’ll never go out of style.
I’m not personally into street rods but I’d rather see them than them stupid rat rods any day.