The term "hot rod" has been used for decades to describe a car that epitomizes individual performance. Whether it be acceleration, braking, or handling, it's all part of one hot rodder's dream. The ultimate hot rod blends aspects of performance and good looks to create one of one.inline_mediumwraptextright27098482/features/1001sr_1932_ford_highboy_five_window1001sr_01_o+1932_ford_highboy_five-window+front_view.jpgTrue

You might not expect a 37-year-old to have 20 years experience in building hot rods, but once you see the work Jason Graham turns out of his shop in Portland, Tennessee, you soon become a believer.inline_mediumwraptextright31283631/features/1001sr_1930_ford_model_a_coupe1001sr_01_o+1930_ford_model_a_coupe+driverside.jpgTrue

Though there has been a lot of talk recently about how some car shows exclude cars from the '50s and '60s, the Goodguys Rod and Custom Association has been practicing equality for all rodders for many years. The organization, founded in 1983, has held their national event in Columbus, Ohio, for the past 12 years, and it seems to keep getting bigger and better.

These days, it's hard to argue the merits of modern conveniences like independent suspension, fuel injection, power steering, and air conditioning without someone mentioning how it's not traditional. And while I typically agree with these naysayers, there are conditions that I'll grant a guy amnesty. As a hot rodder who's more akin to the postwar build style than the contemporary, swoopy designs, I cringe just the same as other so-called traditionalists when I see things like clunky EFI setups atop a flathead or a roadster with independent suspension jutting out from the framerails. Unlike some of those "old-timers," I can be partial and give guys who want those modern conveniences some slack; all within reason of course.

Throughout the history of SRM, we've built just about everything under the sun; from roadsters to coupes to sedans to phaetons, hell we've even built a school bus (see SRM August 1993), but classic trucks never seemed to get the same amount of attention. A good part of that could be due to the fact that we share offices with the two largest truck books on the market: Classic Trucks and Custom Classic Trucks. But as we mentioned last month, there isn't a genuine, dyed-in-the-wool hot rodder out there who couldn't benefit from having a truck at their disposal. And it should go without saying that if you were to ask a hot rodder what kind of shop truck they'd like to have, the answer would not be a lifted Toyota Tacoma. No, we're thinking it'd be something more akin to an early '50s pickup with the perfect lowered stance and a nice set of wheels. Adorn the door with a graphic declaring the shop name and you've got yourself one helluva neat little parts hauler. Bolt on a pushbar for the dry lake or dragstrip and all of a sudden you just added a sport factor to the utilitarian vehicle for a most traditional SUV! That was our thinking anyway when we approached Josh Shaw and had him whip up a sketch for our latest project: a '47 Chevy 3100 Thriftmaster pickup.

What started back in January has come full circle, as the saying goes, with our Factory Five Racing '33 hot rod going from a really big box of parts to a driving hot rod. The gang at Perewitz Cycle Fabrication in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, gets credit for puttin' in the time turning parts into a driver.

Every year one of the most contested competitions at the NSRA's Street Rod Nationals in Louisville, Kentucky, isn't found outside in the parking lot but rather in an air conditioned room just off of the north end of the exhibit hall.

Fabricating, or building, goes hand in hand when building a hot rod. But for many of us, we don't have welding skills, nor do we have a shop full of fabrication equipment to actually construct complex pieces. If that fits your skill and equipment set, how do you fabricate the simple little bits? What we're talking about are flat-mounting brackets, block-off plates, backing plates or "doublers," and so on. These are pieces typically fabbed from aluminum, and they're things the average guy can build himself in his own garage with a minimum of specialized tooling or shop equipment.

Recently a company called RCD Classics figured out a way to install a conventional cover on a Bilstein shock. It's actually a noteworthy achievement. Though a Bilstein looks like most other shocks, its construction doesn't lend itself to a metal cover. Instead, they usually feature a plastic shroud, which most people in the hot rod world forego altogether. The bare look doesn't exactly turn everybody on though-the vintage/traditional crowd in particular loves that OEM look, and OEM shocks almost always have that metal cover.

With the 40th Anniversary of the Street Rod Nationals, it was a perfect time for Street Rodder and Ford Racing's recognition of street rodders who install a late-model Ford engine in a Ford hot rod. Our search led us to Gary Salter of Broomfield, Colorado, who is our latest award recipient with his '34 Ford sedan delivery fitted with a new Ford 302ci crate V-8 engine linked to a C4 transmission. As co-owner of Rocky Mountain Street Rods in Arvada, Colorado, he wanted to build a signature, traditional hot rod to showcase his shop's talents. Starting with a rarely seen body style, he perched it atop a Roadster Shop chassis with a Heidts Superide frontend and Ford 9-inch rearend. Its body was massaged to perfection and coated in PPG black by Brad Aregood, while Jim Skinner at Auto Weave laid down the hides to cover the interior. Rolling on Wheel Vintiques wire wheels topped with BFGoodrich rubber, the car achieves a classic look. Congratulations to Gary who will receive a limited edition jacket and be in the running for the grand prize-a brand-new Ford crate engine.

It was Friday, the 14 of August 1970, and the first Street Rod Nationals was about to begin. Six hundred street rods and many more rodders were coming from across the country to see how other rodders enjoyed and built their cars.

The Model T has always been a major force in the world of street rodding and it was quite apparent everywhere you looked throughout the weekend at Henry's most simple offering. With nearly every body type represented through a myriad of build styles covering decades of development, it indeed proved that the mighty T is timeless. Regardless of whether you turned it into a stripped-down, modified rattle-canned in flat black, or if you chopped and channeled it hard and covered it with candy gloss, the passion for the early years of Ford proved itself amongst the 11,003 cars cruising the fairgrounds on Saturday.

The starting point of the AMSOIL Road Tour was the NHRA Hot Rod Reunion with the end being the famous St. Ignace Car Show in St. Ignace, Michigan. After our Sunday morning driver's meeting the AMSOIL tour participants headed north on I-65 and made our first stop about 90 miles up the interstate at Jason Grimes' shop, known simply as The Garage.

All of us have a story about the one that got away, not the fish but rather the hot rod. It's the car you knew deep down you should have never let go-but you did! Imagine being one of the lucky few who managed to hold onto their pride and joy through the decades of change.

For the third installation of our "dream build" series, we sent Josh a series of swap meet photos in the hopes of conceptually building one of the most popular styles as of late: a highboy A-V8 coupe. We started with a decent body found at the Los Angeles Roadster Show swap meet and proceeded to whack the top a few inches before mating it to a chassis built off a pair of Deuce 'rails. A complete front suspension setup from a '35-40 Ford was found, split 'bones and all to support the front of the chassis, while out back a banjo rearend and radius rods were hung off a Model A spring to make adding that quick-change later that much easier. Of course, it wouldn't technically be an A-V8 without the obligatory Flathead motor, which we "scored" for $325. Ford steelies from a '40 were shod in bias-ply rubber and sit all around, big 'n' littles of course. A Deuce grille was added to drive home that V-8 vibe, as was a hood top to finish off the front end.

Dan Olsen has a modest way of describing his striking '37 Ford sedan. "It's just a basic street rod with fancy paint," he says.

It's hard to imagine that there has been a '32 Ford highboy sedan built in the last 27 years that doesn't take some trace of influence, directly or indirectly, from the famous Eastwood & Barakat sedan from 1982. Eastwood built the chassis and Barakat built the engine. Together, they finished the car in not much time and for not much money, using stuff from their garages, plus lots of talent and taste.

Stromberg Carburetor is proud to announce its sponsorship of the Suede Palace at the 2010 Grand National Roadster Show, L.A. County Fairgrounds, Pomona, CA, January 29 - 31, 2010.inline_mediumwraptextright25995542/hotnews/0911sr_stromberg_carburetor_announces_suede_palace_sponsorship_at_2010_grand_national_roadster_show0911sr_01_z+stromberg_carburetor_sponsor_2010_suede_palace+gnrs.jpgTrue

When asked to describe the Chrysler Corporation in the '50s we've always characterized it as the company that produced cars engineered by experts, designed by lunatics, and assembled by amateurs. Our hunch is that while the guys with the slide rules were coming up with the Hemi, Torqflite, and torsion bars, the stylists were involved with the government's psychedelic drug research and the quality control staff was working their way through a school for the blind.

Second Time Around
One of the best ways to build an attention-getting street rod is to start with something out of the ordinary and finish with something out of the ordinary. Kind of what Crawford Byxbee did by building this '32 Ford roadster pickup.inline_mediumwraptextright25950101/tech/1001sr_1932_ford_roadster_pickup1001sr_01_o+1932_ford_roadster_pickup+crawford.jpgTrue

It seems like just yesterday that I climbed into a blue '33 Ford Coupe with white racing stripes and headed out on what would be a 15-year and counting adventure that would cover over 300,000 miles. Since 1996 it has been a wild ride and I still find it hard to believe that I am the lucky guy to have this job of a lifetime.inline_mediumwraptextright27138682/roadtour/2010/0911sr_2010_amsoil_street_rodder_road_tour_schedule0911sr_01_z+2010_street_rodder_road_tour_logo+.jpgTrue

Brake and suspension upgrades are usually one of the first things to be done to a newly acquired old car and oftentimes one of the most needed. Big heavy drum brake systems that were antiquated when new don't perform like a modern disc brake system and fail to offer the safety that contemporary brake packages do. But simply slapping on a new pair of binders is not that simple. Many of the existing brake and suspension components need to be addressed as well.inline_mediumwraptextright31320492/tech/1001sr_1963_chevy_impala1001sr_01_o+1963_chevy_impala+front_fender.jpgTrue

The ability to find anything you could possibly ever want to think about on the World Wide Web is both a blessing and a curse. Who hasn't spent mindless hours adrift in front of a computer looking and clicking on the most inane subjects? (What are those town names between Amboy and Essex in the Mojave Desert?) But the web is also one of the best ways to find something you really want, such as your next vehicle.inline_mediumwraptextright31318665/features/1001sr_1957_ford_ranch_wagon1001sr_01_o+1957_ford_ranch_wagon+passenger_side.jpgTrue

Being a fan of late '50s and early '60s American iron, it's no wonder Charles Shane chose a '58 Chevy Impala in which to build a mild custom of the same period. While the late '50s-era Chevys are commonly built as either restored drivers or as typical '50s customs with spotlights, wide whites, et al, Charles decided that a more mild approach would be more appropriate for the second-owner, 55,000 original-mile car. As he put it, "I had a different idea."inline_mediumwraptextright27135208/features/1001sr_1958_chevy_impala1001sr_01_o+1958_chevy_impala+front_view.jpgTrue

By the time Paul Howard of West Bridgewater, Massachusetts, was ready to enter high school, he was a regular at the Elm Square Pharmacy where he would buy countless "little pages," studying what was happening in the world of hot rodding. Knowing that his parents believed hot rods were the Devil's handiwork, he would stash his magazine collection under his mattress. While letting them believe he was doing homework, he was really absorbing everything he could from countless features and tech articles; everything from Bonneville to the dry lakes.inline_mediumwraptextright25924022/features/1001sr_1931_ford_highboy_roadster1001sr_01_o+1931_ford_highboy_roadster+passenger_side.jpgTrue