'41 Plymouth Gasser Barn Find - Patina and TRaKability

[Bernard Kron]

I just thought I'd post a picture of the motor as I work on it. I think it may turn out to be legit enough to perhaps qualify the car as TRaKable, since at least it's guideline correct...

[spex84]

Looks good to me! Looks like triple Revell '37 pickup carbs?

[Deleted]

Engine looks good. Is that a 4 Banger?

[Plowboy]

I don't know about the engine Bernard. To me, it just doesn't say "gasser". Maybe the Firedome Hemi with the angled injectors from the '53 F-100 or the Wedge engine from the '49 Mercury with a blower or injectors? But, it's your model and your vision. I'm having trouble with my own vision of my '48 Ford. I keep teetering back and forth between old school traditional and more modern street rod.

[spex84]

There were a number of different gasser classes. With a hopped-up 6 banger, maybe this car would be D/gas or something.

[Johnny]

There was a great deal of Chev/GMC sixes at the drag strips in the sixties, I'd say yes! Maybe even as low as H/gas, concerning the classes...

[Deleted]

www.nostalgiagassers.com/rules/

[Bernard Kron]

Thanks guys. It looks like a four banger because the Chrsyler Corp. flathead six is a veritable festival of siamesed pots. The inner four cylinders have siamesed exhaust ports in pairs which makes it look like a four banger. In addition, the intake ports are all paired so that there are just three intake ports. Regarding the class, if you look on the passenger side quarter window you'll see I have it in F/G based on a web search. I couldn't come up with the appropriate Plymouth or Chrysler Corp. six powered gasser, so, based on the fact that the Hudson 308 cu. in. flathead six ran E/G and that the Chrysler Corp. P12 (it's actually molded into the side of the block on the kit engine!) came in at 201.6 cu. in stock form, I knocked it down a class, assuming that the Plymouth probably weighed somewhat less than the Hudson. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

The carbs are my last resin copies from the late Ron Royston at Early Years Resin. Some of them are a bit the worse for wear from kickin' around in the parts box, but I think I have three clean examples I can use. The have pretty nice detail. They'll be hiding under a sheet metal "dog house" so it should look OK.

[krassandbernie]

For me (personally) I too feel that the level of weathering is a factor on whether or not it fits 'traditional'. There were many 'barn finds' even back in the day; but they had not been sitting for 50+ years like we are use to seeing them today! LOL!

[reedeezel]

I likely haven't read all the posts on this thread, but a period-correct car rescued from a barn 50 years later had never even entered my mind. By rights, the car meets TRAK guidelines, but it hasn't been encased in a hermetically-sealed time capsule. Survivors are a big part of the rodding, as well as antique car collector cultures and are revered for having everything "as it was". I think the concept has merit, and should be given consideration as TRAKable.

[Deleted]

I do also and am even working on a similar 48 Ford myself ( Which was sitting in an old barn for decades.) I think allot of modelers are missing out on some fun on this forum.

[Bernard Kron]

This is a great thread and the discussion has explored the issue I raised just as I hoped it would. As you may have noticed, I did post my Barn Find Plymouth On The Freakin' Shelf after all. I thought I'd take a moment to share my thoughts about patina and TRaKability.

As I may have mentioned, I'm a pure automotive modeler. I've virtually never built a plane, ship, sci-fi or fantasy figure, diorama, or railroad subject. Part of this narrow focus is the result of the fact that throughout my adult life I was too occupied to build anything at all, and part is the result of a lifelong passion for automobilia in all its forms. Why, when it came time to take up modeling again, I chose traditional hot rods and customs as my period of focus I'm not sure. Perhaps it has to do with what was most easily done with my limited initial skills and modeling knowledge...

I any case, this means I was never a railroader, fantasy/sci-fi builder, or military modeler, so any thoughts about weathering were strictly in the hopes of adding more realism to my models. But I have learned that for many modelers weathering is an end in itself - a whole genre of modeling in its own right. Quite a few modelers only do weathered subjects. So it was inevitable that there would be subjects which are almost entirely about the fact that they're rusty, crusty and beat to crap. One of those subjects, of course is the rusty rat rod.

It's this aspect of "patina" (the politically correct term for rust, crust and general decrepitude), when the patina becomes an end in itself, that holds the key to whether a rusty rod is TRaKable. There are whole styles of rusty, broken down, truck wheeled, skull adorned, slammed, chopped, inliner powered extreme rods of the rodent persuasion which are undeniably non-TRaKable. They are purely modern style hot rods born of the whole rat 'n' tats movement. For many younger modelers and automobile enthusiasts these are the very cars which have been their introduction to the Traditional Hot Rodding aesthetic. In many  cases even when they do clearly TRaKable subjects you can see this influence in their choice of finish, detail and stance.

I think we should allow for this influence in our consideration of TRaKabilty. One of the finest patina modelers whose work I have ever had the pleasure of seeing is an active member of this forum but has chosen not to show his work here because he thinks it's too ratty and perhaps not genuinely representative of "real" Traditional rods. I see them each year at the NNL West. I will again this year and I look forward to meeting up with them and with their creator.

I have often thought we should make room for these styles of cars on our forum, but the point is that we would have to do just that - allow for them as an evolution of Traditional Hot Rodding. In fact I think we should do just that and I would support it. Unfortunately, exactly where we would draw the line is very troubling. But then again it's perhaps no more complicated than the fact that a bad car or model is just that, a bad car or model - ill-conceived, aesthetically doubtful and shallow in its conception. I know we have turned the other way and allowed for them on many occasions when the model was a good model of a good car, patina and all. (I would call attention, for example, to the phenomenon of the Weesner art model.) Perhaps we should be more accepting and realistic about our attitudes.

Anyway, in the end I posted my Plymouth because I thought that, in addition to being down-the-line TRaKable as far as equipment and dates is concerned, the hopped up motor was sufficient evidence that my heart was in the right place and that you all would accept it...

[robtrat]

You Rocked It!

[Deleted]

Couldn't have said it better!