hotrod kit cars?

[crumble]

THIS IS NOT A GLASS VS STEEL QUESTION.
whats the difference between a hot rod and a kit car? i know hot rodders hate their cars being called a kit car. the area i meen is the glass hotrod type body cars. the chat i had with a rodder today was about this, he said that you can buy 99.9% of the parts from new to build a 32 roadster or coupe for example. you can start off with a new rolling chassis or a pair of chassis rails. they only thing you have to do is weld in cross members and brackets then everything will bolt up just as you would kit car. the only difference is you dont normaly need a donar car for a rod as it can be a bought new.
then he fired off all the parts. ie chassis axles steering engine g/box body ect ect. the list went on and on and on.
when i sat down a thought about it later after he had gone i think the guy was right. their are other glass body types out their that are not so catered for so would be harder to build and find parts. i do know that some rodders will make one off parts for their cars but so do kit car builders.
so the question is why should the 32 not be classed as a kit car when you can build one with all new parts, and their is no need to have to go to a breakers yard in the middle of freezing winters day to find a steering colum or a pedal box for you project. lol
whats your thoughts on this then guys?

[new2rods]

sounds like a question begging to start an argument to me, i should know i usually accidentally ask them too!

[crumble]

come to think about it ratty. i think you can build a morris minor and mgs from all new parts and in steel. how would this be classed a new car a replica or a kit. i dont know.
its a dicussion thats all no need to fight. lol

[Russ]

i think you can buy 100% of the bits to build a 32 roadster or coupe, glass and steel bodied versions,

[English Impala]

IMO a kitcar is a car that is designed to look "unique" by the manufacturers and is designed to be knocked together by Mr Average in a few weekends by using a set of instructions & recommended parts.

A 'glass bodied rod is a "replica" of a steel car that is built to any style that the builder so-wishes with the ultimate goal to out-perform the standard model on which it is based. If you lined up 12 Cobra replicas, Spartans, Westfields etc, chances are that they would all look near enough identical. Do the same with a dozen rods & the differences would be obvious even to someone who had never seen a rod before.

So there you go, a rod is a "replica bodied hotrod". A kitcar is a, well, a home built clone.

In my opinion.....

[speedemon]

Most kit cars used to use a donar car to get the running gear, and just bolt on a differany body, long time since i looked at them

[crumble]

were the original jago t buckets bought in kit form?

[jsf55]

So there you go, a rod is a "replica bodied hotrod". A kitcar is a, well, a home built clone.

In my opinion.....

I think theres a lot of kit manufacturers that will sell u a fully built car for a price, just like a hot rod, but at the end of the day i know what i'd rather be driving !

[Paul B]

Whats the difference between a hot rod and a kit car?

Don't know, don't care

[scottie]

kit cars are alluminium with bike engines and hot rods are fibreglass with V8's

scottie

[Japchris]

Years ago things were a lot clearer - hot rods were often modified using junk yard parts that had to be 're-engineered' to fit. With the demise of junkyards and easily usable modern parts, a whole market in 'pre-engineered' bolt together hot rod parts are now available. If you are just bolting SoCal, etc, parts onto a repro-chassis with all the brackets already put in place by the chassis manufacturer - then that could be construed, in my opinion, as a kit car and a hot rod. Not saying thats a bad thing because bolt together kits have opened up hot rodding to whole new lot of people and was inevitable bearing in mind what I have said about lack of easily usable 'junkyard parts'.

[harty]

IMO a kitcar is a car that is designed to look "unique" by the manufacturers and is designed to be knocked together by Mr Average in a few weekends by using a set of instructions & recommended parts.

A 'glass bodied rod is a "replica" of a steel car that is built to any style that the builder so-wishes with the ultimate goal to out-perform the standard model on which it is based. If you lined up 12 Cobra replicas, Spartans, Westfields etc, chances are that they would all look near enough identical. Do the same with a dozen rods & the differences would be obvious even to someone who had never seen a rod before.

So there you go, a rod is a "replica bodied hotrod". A kitcar is a, well, a home built clone.

In my opinion.....

A Kit Car is a hobby, a Rod is a way of life.

[langysrodshop]

In my opinion its almost impossible to produce a kit car 32 as 99% of the parts will need modification to fit although they should bolt straight on !!! GRP bodies are nowhere near a straight forward fit, They always need some sort of modification. I can see a Brookville body being the nearest thing to a kitcar but even they need the sort of work most kitcar people wouldn't want to do.

[Jumpin Jim]

WH Sm*th have made their mind up. For all those still looking for the new copy of CC just look in the K*t C*r Section.
Bit of a cheek really as the Retro / Classic / Performance section is at the other end of the stand!?

[h0tr0dder_uk]

I do believe that it is now a whole lot easier to build certain cars because of the availability of the parts. It should be a hell of a lot easier to build a 32 coupe than a v8 engined morris minor and after seeing so many similar 32's lately i think i'd opt for the morris.

[Paul]

generally a kit car is built using a doner car from which the majority of the mechanical and electrical parts come from. The rest is supplied in a kit of parts, body, chassis (maybe) trim etc to produce the finished car, All of these parts come from one manufacturer/supplier and also come with instructions on how to build it and how it should look. They are also designed to fit together easily with the minimum or no modification. Go to a kit car show and you will see lots of well built, finished cars all looking pretty much as the book says.
Yes Rods can be built from all new parts but you will find that generally they're not built using 1 doner car, mine has a Chevy motor and a Ford rear neither of which came from a doner car.
Rods don't come in kit form from one manufacturer or supplier and as such most will need some modification or proper fitting to work (OK TCI can do a T kit but they buy the parts in and your still not using a donar car). You also don't get instructions and it's up to you how it should look.
go to a rod show and you will see lots of early Fords (real and reps) but looking very different to each other.

[Brizey]

My thoughts on that question are that Kit cars are built from a chassis/body unit bought from the relevant manufacturer of your choice, there`s probably a few dozen out there.
Then, finished with parts sourced from either a donor car (suspension, motor/trans, axles, springs, steering etc) or from the same make of donor car in a breakers yard. Invariably, a Kit car manufacturer will design his product around a specific model of donor or parts car, so each make of Kit car tends to have the same chassis/body/suspension etc combination relevant to that manufacturer.
A Kit car will normally resemble an old style (Lotus7) or modern exotic (Ferrari) sports car etc.
Our own (British) `specials` were basically Kit cars.

A rod is normally built from an original old car. Or, the chassis/body can be bought new, as per a Kit car, but that's where the similarity ends.
Rods styles tend to be based around the older style of major factory (Ford etc) built everyday cars, and, by their very nature are a customized/individualistic statement by the builder, so tend to be built using parts sourced from whatever vehicle(s) or parts manufacturer the owner chooses, then the frame is adapted to accept those parts.
Even rods built by rod shops are not kit cars, as all the parts used are sourced from a myriad of different manufacturers before being put together, just the same as if you`d built it yourself at home.

Some people say that a lot of rods look the same. This may appear so in the surface, but underneath, because of the amount of various parts manufacturers out there and also the individual requirements of the builder, they are ALL different (customized)...

[IanT]

With a kit car, somebody else has already decided what it'll look like when it's finished...



A kit car is assembled .. a rod is built ..



awww .. whatever !

[EireRodder]

A kit car is assembled .. a rod is built ..

I think you're on to something with that definition !!

We have a Cobra owner over here who bought a glass Model A and I think he's finding exactly that, as the difference between the two. ie there is no manual, and you can make it fit if you want to !!

[Battersea Boys]

A hot rod is the alteration of an exsisting car for higher performance on a tight budget speed being its primary goal. Tradition dictates that the emulation of this form adheres to the vehicles from back in the day,fibreglass was introduced to cater for the pocket of 'hotrodders' when steel became scarce
use of parts from whatever source cannot by defintion make it a kitcar, I believe.............