Is anyone building Street machine type cars??

The thing is, Britain was a different place back then. With the enforcement of thing like the VIC and SVA/BIVA I think that people are re-thinking the direction of modifications, either to avoid a BIVA or to comply with one.
I think we're gonna see a lot more subtle cars about, and also some milder specs as an attempt to keep within the 8-points criteria.

It isn't quite that simple. The economy's gone down the pan, and the scene reflects that; there isn't as much money floating around. Add to that, you can argue why build a wild car when a lot of old cars with the right lowering and wheels get as much attention due to the fact they are now rare? Also, there isn't a magazine that directly covers 'Street Machine' type cars; not CC (with some exceptions, like the Corsair they featured a while ago), not RC, not PPC (mostly, although they have featured some overseas cars that would have been slap-bang in SM gunsights).
I think you're quite right that a lot of builders aren't net-savvy or just don't care about it; I know of a few cars being built (that I can't show pics of) and the builders don't frequent forums. Add to that the traditional outlet of seeing these cars isn't there.
Also it touches on another point: people are terrified that what they build won't pass BIVA so maybe don't build the wilder cars, even though we're just starting to see that if you use the rules to your advantage, that isn't necessarily the case.
Out of curiosity, how strict/lax are the regulations in the Scandinavian countries?

I think there are some in the works, but building these things requires a very large amount of commitment, something that can be hard to sustain over the 1-2 yrs it takes to build a car to this level.

Also given the net has turned us into people who wait with baited breathe for the next update, it's easy to forget builds that have gone a bit quiet - it takes even more commitment to build the car, and have a complete and up to date build thread!

For many of us getting a car running is a big achievement - making it look stunning is a lot of work, that only increases the number of nice comments you get from people who care how car about looks - don't make it any more fun to drive (unless the fun is the nice comments, obviously, that for me is missing the point of a car - you want comments for nice looking things become a fashion designer/artist etc. etc.) Though I admit I do think its a shame to make a great car and spoil it with "scene" rust/matt black! If you're going to put time into body work, make it nice

I agree it would be nice to see some more cars like this, but I get the feeling RR sits in a place where things of a, not lower quality as such - that's far too harsh, but certainly achievable in a shorter time are acceptable, and as such the possible diamonds are easy to miss. But we need RR to be like this to encourage us to give it a go - the skill to make a great car can only come once we've make an ok car, then a good car

Here are some things I love right now, and some I'm looking forward to that I think could, with continued effort and luck, fit in with what you're talking about.

AshW's mini - proof quality end results don't take a fortune or a million hours - just out of the box thinking
retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=readersrides&action=display&thread=70681

Wow is all this ever makes me think
retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=readersrides&thread=58505&page=1

Just love this, and what it will become
retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=readersrides&action=display&thread=90589

and this has the potential to be stunningly good
retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=readersrides&action=display&thread=63047

That is a tiny number of the great cars in build at the moment I've missed so many it's silly

Also, turbosport has a few builds of this standard - but it also has far fewer builds. Here's my current favourite

www.turbosport.co.uk/showthread.php?153832-Cyco-s-tuscan-Escort

Personally, I think this is too much work, for me 1/2 the amount of work would give you a great car, that you wouldn't be scared to use - but I'm totally glad someone doesn't think so and is getting on and building it ;D

In all honesty we all have to start somewhere, and all need encouragement even when our skills aren't quite capable of our vision - with this encouragement we'll keep going and one day make our vision a reality. I tend to think RR is pretty good at this, and long may it continue to be

P.S. I have a silly plan of my own to build something similar to what you're talking about, with a silly amount of work it might even turn a wheel at RR'11 - I'll reveal more once I'm back in the UK around the end of Novermber.

P.P.S. hopefully my (very) mild custom E-type project won't be too far off a good enough standard, and that's planned to be done around March/April - watch this space, cars with shiney paint and a bit different from the norm are on the way

i'm currently building 2 cars 3 if you count the chevette project that I would have loved to have seen in the pages of street machine I take a lot of inspiration from the type of cars that street machine use to cover
the mk3 tina estate/van has just had a run of bad luck this year but hopefully will be out next year and the victor i have a lot plans for that will see it being very different but not in ways people may think . the chevette has a definite direction it has to follow but i think it stands out from most others out there in a good way .

Amazo, the Scandanavian rules are strict , I was talking with some European rodders from various countries back at the Euronationals ,including Finland , Germany ,France, Spain and even Romania and believe me we have it good compared to them. Finland are allowed fenderles rods but only original components and so many kw per kg , worked out a mild flathead in an A or B is all you'd get away with and no GRP bodies.

Hotwire, my take on all this , and this is modifying in general, is that 'rat' has made people lazy . You can spend a fraction of the time and effort that a Street Machine quality car would take to build and that 'rat' would be acceptable. In the SM heyday they were a very small ( the growing 1% ) that drove ratty rods and it hadn't hit other scenes at all.

Before anyone gets up on their high horse I'ev been at both ends of the scale , feature cars and daily driven 'ratty' beaters and wil continue to flit from one end of the spectrum to the other dependent on what I feel like and what the car deserves.

Back when most of the SM cars were being built that is ALL we did and a fortnightly trip to your local car club .Now we can sit here and tell the world what we are going to build and never really have the need ( or time) to actually get on with it.

You don't need huge amounts of money to produce good cars... a vision, dedication and TIME are most important.

The regs vary from country to country and only a few have an IVA ( Individual Vehicle Assessment ) test in place, they are however all allowed it if their Government so choses. New Zealand and Australia had a pro active approach and have their own rules firmly in place by being the ones to broach the matter and they still build great cars.

We intend putting up a Dummies guide over at ACE and we are working with mags to get some 'passed ' cars into print.

We can still build the Street Machine style car based on the retro cars loved here. Most of the stuff to 'worry' about is already dealt with by OEM design and under BIVA you can still have blowers sticking through hoods and roof chops ,light changes, body mods etc etc , just need to read a couple of pages to make sure what you do is carried out under the rules laid down.

To be honest I've had a quite many PMs on here with plans for wild cars and very few have I had to say "Sorry , not possible ".

I think it's worth noting that the types of cars being modified now are a lot broader. So you have the Euro type, the rat type, the yank type, the VW type, the japanese type, the max power type etc etc, all of which could probably be broken down in to their sub-categories.

I don't think it's easy to compare whats happening now with what happened 20/30 years simply because the types of car are a lot wider in scope.

I'm sure there are many impressive builds out there, it's just that you'd have to go through 20 odd magazines and 50+ forums to find them.

I see many builds out there which are great from my perspective.

My 'Arrocuda' project car probably qualifies as a mildly customised SM type car. It will have something a little more interesting under the hood by the time it's 'finished'. (if modified retro's and the word 'finished' can ever occur in the same sentence).

ACE's point regarding time I think is probably the most relevant.... in that these days a welding rig for the home builder and the basic body building tools can be had for surprisingly little money, but finding the time needed.... with all the other things that make demands like work, GF, horse, etc can be tough! (replacing the word 'horse' with 'kids' would probably be more relevant on here).

This country also has the longest working hours in Europe I believe, which for a lot of people turns a build project into a bit of a luxury when, as was pointed out earlier..... you can buy a nice retro, adjust the stance...... pop some really nice wheels on, and have a stunning car that gets noticed.

EDIT - sorry for Longs. I'm good at typing lots about nothing in particular. ;D



I know exactly what you mean. I suspect that it's a combination of finding a different way to make our car stand out from the flood of moderns, and not being inspired to go the extra mile and turn a rins'n'slam into something unique that you just can't buy - something that you really, really want, with all those features, both aesthetic and functional, that are important to you.

I suspect that one of the differences between now and 20 years ago is that people are happy with the exposure that they get on the internet so they don't bother to send their car into the magazines - meaning that a wider population don't get to see their car. And due to the huge scale of the internet, people are going to be increadibly spread out so there isn't one place that is a centre of excellence, which IMO is what the magazines were. As a result, we don't see the very best of the cars out there, so we don't get our fix of inspiration, which largely comes from exposure to different ideas.

Also, people tend to segregate between different websites, depending on thier interest (eg autoshite/RR/Rods'n'Sods), so that we are (on RR) surrounded by other people who are also doing things by the different way - which is largely rims'n'slam. A possible outcome of this is the constant refining of rims'n'slam, but not going much further.

As for the reason that the different way of doing this developed, this could be due to a variety of contributing factors - rat being more mainstream, the economy, the relative ease of building a 'glass rod, and the threat of impending legislation putting people off doing silly things to an interesting Monocoque car. Add to these things the fact that a retro car will stand out even with simple treatment (and most retros being easily usable) means that we reach a stage where the car is both different and usable and think 'that'll do' - especially since others are also doing things the 'Rims'n'Slam' way.

I think that therwe are plenty of really special cars out there, but they are swamped by the less interesting ones. As examples, I think Nightmare's Cortina Van and MM's Delica are right up there in terms of both build quality and custom touches - although they are very different approaches. Also see Coes Sunday Lows for different cars, well finished.

Don't forget Matt Jones's fabuous V8 Mercedes:
retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=readersrides&action=display&thread=35923

Or Dez's A rod:
retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=readersrides&action=display&thread=36703&page=1

Personaly, I'd really like to build my car(s) to a very high - albeit not hugely radical - standard with those details that make it a bit more special but at the moment I lack both the skills and money to make it happen.

James

BTW, I don't mean to offend anyone - I'm just saying what I think has happened here, and why it hasn't developed as HTW hoped.