found myself staring into the abyss (traditionally referred to as my garage) and noted that while I have plenty of hot rods and stuff, there are no projects that require the talent of “working” … fabricating. As is often the reality in my life, tech personality Ron Ceridono immediately pointed out, “You have no talent. When was the last time you’ve done any work?” While a brutal retort, it pains me to say, “There is a modicum of truth in his words.” Ugh!

I’m sure each of us spends time removing and replacing, servicing, and, of course, the obligatory dusting and polishing or waxing, but could it be that less time is spent with a grinder in hand? Based on the very tech stories we do and the garages we visit, plenty of engines and trans tinkering continue, and the likes of power windows, air conditioning, stereos, gauges, wiring, and a little upholstery here and there are still to be installed.

But what about fabricating, bending metal, making motor or tranny mounts, and so on? You know, actual building. Well, that seems to have slowed down for many at-home hot rodders. Now, before you run off and pitch a fit or have an episode, I’m sure “you” and all your like-rodding buddies still do your share of welding and hammering. But it seems like I am seeing less than I used to. Maybe we are truly getting a bit older. Maybe the cars we are working on don’t need this phase, and maybe there just isn’t a new project in our rodding life. We all eventually get to the time of our existence when things slow down.

Now, having said all of this, there are plenty of younger rodders who are clearly hammering up a storm, and there is no shortage of hot rod shops turning out any number of great builds. And that’s great.

But I will tell you what I see. I see many more cars built that don’t need copious amounts of fabricating. In fact, the rodders building the cars of the ’50s-70s accepted these cars for what they were and employed nominal sheetmetal mods. As for under the skin, there may be a slight change, or there may be an entire chassis dropped in. However, dropping in an entire chassis by a rodder takes significant skills and understanding but does require a controllable amount of modification. (I realize this may be a bit of an oversimplification, but you see where I am going.)

I remember working on my first new factory muscle car, a ’66 Nova SS. It came with a 327 and four-barrel, a four-speed, limited-slip rear, and dual exhaust and was pretty much ready to rumble. It wasn’t long before the four-barrel came off and on went the early Corvette mechanical Rochester fuel injection along with a Duntov cam and solid lifters, dual point ignition (yes points, the kind you could adjust with a matchbook cover), headers, street slicks, a Hurst shifter, Bill Thomas traction bars, and an assortment of gauges. Not much was needed in hand fabrication, just a good knowledge of what was offered at your local speed shop.

Now fast-forward to the mid ’70s and to my first honest-to-goodness “early hot rod,” an A fiberglass ’29 Ford roadster body that would be dropped onto an original ’32 Ford frame. (I remember running out to the freight truck that delivered it to my house. What a great feeling dragging it into the middle of my garage and letting my imagination run wild.) To it would be the addition of an even-fire Buick V-6, 350 trans, and a Ford 9-inch rear. Next up was one of the very first Super Bell drop tube axles, fabricated four-bar, rear radius rods, and on and on. There was no end to the little and big fabrication projects that were undertaken to put this hot rod together (thanks to Magoo).

Clearly, these are two different worlds, but the result was (still is) a hot rod. Something that reflected my likes of the time and something that I could drive and enjoy. Something that would allow me to be a hot rodder and enjoy the world of cars with others of like mind.

To this day, the process of building an early hot rod is still the same. Nevertheless, with the industry we now have behind us, it is often a reminder of what it was like building a Detroit hot rod, where much of the work is about mixing and matching components and less about having to fabricate to make something work. Maybe we are doing less of our own work, maybe not, but it’s still fun whatever we are doing today. That’s my story, and I am sticking to it.