MattH, I would put up Mr. Vic Seipke (right) agains any of today's bodybuilders, but I know what you mean.

What a lot of these old timers have told me is that bodybuilding is so different now then it was in their day...so many of the guys now are way too big due to the drugs that have became increasingly available since the late 60s...rather then creating a work of art, as some of the guys of old were doing, many of those now-a-days are trying to be bigger then the next guy.
Clarence Ross (below) is another fine example of one of the guys from the 1940s who, to me, had a perfect figure....

Clarence, and Harold, and Steve Reeves, and the others didn't have the fancy machinery and the drugs that they have today...and many of them didn't even have
any equipment when they began...they just improvised with cans full of cement, or rocks, or pieces of furniture or whatever was on hand when they were starting out. It was a lot of work, but they sure did (and still do) enjoy it.