OLD SCHOOL…
A couple of weeks ago I was having lunch with a friend of mine when I overheard a conversation from the next table about cars. Most of the talk was about building cars. One of them talked about “changing out components on the engine, one being a computer chip, he said it was “Old School”. Well, “Old School” to me was not back in the “90’s”, it was more like the ’50s and ’60s; when we built cars with a torch and hammer and not with a computer.
My 1952 Studebaker Coupe was the first racecar that I built for stock car racing. I cut out the fender wells and built front and back crash bars, and also fabricated headers and a rollbar.
There were no computers back then or places you could order parts “online” like there are now. I (we) cut templates out of cardboard and cut metal out with a torch and drilled holes on a drill press – if we were lucky enough to own one. The brackets were welded into place with an arc welder and you hoped they held.
Today it’s all computer stuff – fabricated aftermarket bolt-on components, computer ignition systems, fuel injection. If you can use a computer you can build a car.
There are companies out there building aftermarket components that are “Old School”, but with high-tech materials and technology. Some of these components are better than factory-made and make the cars safer and more responsive. I noticed in an ad somewhere that an aftermarket company designed and built a 4-link arm and rear suspension for the early Camaros. It is all bolt-in and looks great!
So to me when someone says “Old School” it takes me back to the fifties and sixties and not the 90s!