Just me thinking out loud.
I see our old Mopar hobby evolving as everything does. . The true hotrod petty much started with the 32 Ford right? Then we get to the street rod with the 40-50s cars, then the revitalization of musclecars started having value and an audience in mid 80's fianally reappear, throw in the "prosteet movement). Then the NEW muscle cars appeared. Now a 1000 crate Mopar gen 3 hemi will soon be available to the public. Rest rod and custom this and that. A car guy has so many choices.
Now the thing that has become so common is the resto rod, looks like the OEM on outside ( except those funky bandaide tires and 10 inch wheels!), but all new custom inside and drivetrain. This ain't new. But the number of shops doing this work gets bigger every day.
Then there is the guy that can afford to send his ride of for the total custom deal, a resto rod with the inique doo dahs.
I have nothing against the guy that goes to the other stuff rather than restoring the OEM deal. I understand it all. Just another form of hotrodding, which ever route is taken. Sure a FI engine has many advantage over the old carb, big discs are great, ( he who has the biggest brake roter is the biggest macho- ist guy right? ha) everyone love good seats, custom gauges in the dash is eye candy, so yes I see it all.
The future? I bet as time marches on we will see more of this resto rod stuff for sure, but these will still be the original cars, restored back to OEM we will still see the updates OEM cars, with better brakes, and warmed on SM or will it be the magnum most every time? The 60-70's cars are fast going the way of the GoodGuys street rod scene!????? Just move the 40-50 cars and put in 60-70-s cars!
Back to Mark and his niche. Lots of guys that do the resto rod deal, the total custom deal, will the OEM resto is boring, going the way of the Do DO bird or it is Doo DOO bird????/