Full disclosure. I grew up in a family shop that had been building race cars and hot rods since the model A up hrough racing on the beach at daytona and drag cars in the 70's and hot tords in the 80's. It was old school (outdated) by the time I came along I was exposed to a lot of things people thought was nuts even in the lat 80's early 90's so my perspective is probably skewed.
But I was thinking about how a lot of the things that my grandad and great grandad did are lost due to a bunch of reasons.
I mean who re-arches leaf springs with an anvil and a hammer? Who builds slant sixes for a dirt track car? Who has factory crank counterweights machined down and knife edged anymore? Who modifies a chassis to use two different length torsion bars on a dirt car? Who the hell hotrods old Plymouth flatheads?
A lot of these practices are lost dues to better options now days and many due to it being more cost effective to just buy a crank or a cylinder head than spend the man hours or machine shop bill necessary.
But as I look around the world is changing. Things that were cheap and readily available a couple years ago are hard to come by and suspect quality now. I'm finding myself out of necessity dipping back into some of the things I learned as a kid. Hell Im planning to weld a carb flange into a jeep efi Intake. Something I never would have considered had I not seen it as kid.
Are any of you experiencing this? Or I am I just maybe overly nostalgic?
Are these kind of things being lost to time?
