Most people looking at Don Webb’s ’32 three-window coupe would probably not call it a restoration. Most people would reserve that term for a Ford built the way Henry did it. The difference with Don’s Deuce is that it’s built the way Bill Webb did it.

For decades Posies has been building hot rods that push the design envelope by infusing just the right amounts of creativity, vision, and excitement within each build. It’s one thing, however, to produce cars with such highly redeeming features that look great in the show world, it’s another to put them to the test on a yearly basis by running them hard cross country through the elements. Sometimes it only takes two words to make a statement that speaks in volume: driven dirty. Back in 2006, Posies conceived the Driven Dirty Tour, which consists of a group of dedicated hard-core hot rodders who were ready and willing to drive their hot rods cross country from Posies shop in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania, to SEMA in Las Vegas, covering on average 2,500 miles each way. The trip however isn’t just about putting their rides to the ultimate test by merely driving non-stop (stopping only for fuel and a bag of burgers) to see who gets there first. It’s about plotting a course (which changes yearly) that includes plenty of breaks to visit with friends, shops, manufacturers, various auto collections, points of interest, and some great restaurants along the way. The best part is that Posies puts a fresh build to the test every year and when the cars finally arrive at SEMA, they are shown dirty covered with all the remnants of their journey on the show floor. While most real hot rodders get it, there are always a number who pass each car while scratching their heads in confusion.

Let’s start with the question most asked at this year’s Grand National Roadster Show about the America’s Most Beautiful Roadster recipient. “What’s with the No. 3?” We asked owner Bill Lindig of Houston the same question. “What’s with the No. 3?” The “Indy Speedster V-8” is a tribute to the great Indy roadsters of the past. Bill noted in his research that the No. 3 came up as the most frequent number on the winning cars. There you have it; one winning tradition begets another.

Though the look has been around since the earliest days of dry lakes racing, Lakes Modifieds and One Man Modifieds are enjoying a resurgence in their popularity. John Geesner, a hot rodder who in 2008 opened up his own shop, A&J Southern Rod Shop in Mooresville, North Carolina, liked the look of those cars, too, and found one for sale in California.

A show of hands, please: Who among us has dreamed of owning a full-on custom car, something so sexy and stylish that it begs to be eyeballed stem to stern, side to side, and top to bottom? We’re talking about a set of wheels the likes you’d expect from D’Agostino, Winfield, or Zocchi. You know, a showpiece for the show circuit.

The evolution of street shakers can actually be traced back to the dawn of hot rodding, when young car builders first started stripping down their coupes and roadsters to create early hop-ups. By dumping the extra weight, adding more horsepower, and dialing in an aggressive stance, their cars easily stood out among the rest, thanks to an infusion of attitude and performance.

Funny how nostalgia works. For most people, it’s safe to say that their first car was not their best car, just the one they have the best memories of.

This is really a story about three guys and two cars. Denny Martin built this ’57 Chevrolet street gasser in the early ’70s in Massachusetts, not far from the famed M&H racing tire factory. Meanwhile, in Floyds Knob, Indiana, Randy Riall was driving a similar straight-axle ’57 Chevy. After Denny Martin was done racing and prowling the streets, the car was retired and parked in his garage for better than 15 years before relocating to Kentucky. When a friend mentioned this former gasser to Bob Sargis he purchased the car from Denny and promptly put the car in storage for another couple years. As Bob told us, “I wasn’t particularly looking for a ’57 Chevy, but this was a good solid car and since it was already a gasser I had a vision for the old car.”

STREET RODDER Top 100 celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2011 and the program, sponsored by Painless Performance Products, seems to grow larger every year. When it first started in 1995, it was called STREET RODDER’s Top 10, and we highlighted 70 cars—10 each from 7 Goodguys shows around the country. No overall winner was picked in that first year. There was an overall winner picked in 1996, but it wasn’t called Street Rod of the Year (that title didn’t come into existence until 1998).

If there is one thing that might draw all hot rodders together it’s the fact they all like to see, study, and fiddle with anything mechanical. From steam locomotives to mouse traps, rodders would rather take something apart to see how it works rather than keep it together and keep wondering.

As just about every rodder on the planet probably knows by now, Tom Medley, creator of Stroker McGurk and one of the patriarchs of our hobby, had a catastrophic garage fire. It destroyed that structure, along with most of its contents, and severely damaged his 1940 Ford coupe.

If it’s true that one’s basic nature eventually reveals itself no matter how well hidden, you need not look any further than Don Jackson’s ’50 Chevy as a perfect example. Initially, Don wanted a 1950 Chevrolet with a small-block V-8 for power and an updated suspension. Simple enough. There are many cars out there for sale to choose from and, if by chance he didn’t find one he liked, he could have one built by nearly any hot rod shop in the country. But when you start to modify and tweak the basic formula, you’re bound to get something else, and for Don that was a good thing.

The way you look at street rods is probably a little different than the way indoor car show judges do. You probably don’t walk around with a clipboard and pen, closely inspecting every corner of a car inside and out before deciding whether or not you like it. You don’t have to. Most of us make our first impressions from a few feet away. If the first impression is good, we’ll take a second look, then a third, and a fourth.

Anniversaries are a lot like birthdays; we all get ’em, but most come and go without a great deal of fanfare. STREET RODDER is celebrating its 40th anniversary (or birthday if you wish) with the May ’12 issue—where were you in 1972?! By awarding the Street Rod of the Year to a most deserving Deuce coupe, SR is honoring our hobby, itself, and the Top 100 Street Rod of the Year (SRY) program.

I bet most of us would love to claim a major hot rod parts manufacturer as part of our family. And who wouldn’t, really? Think of the connections and the resources, not to mention the potential discounts on parts. Yeah, you could build a really nice car, couldn’t you?

So before you warm up your computer’s email system or sharpen your poison pen, STREET RODDER is very aware that Ford did not manufacture a Model T sedan in 1930. But that doesn’t mean an inventive hot rodder couldn’t create such an animal, and Steve DeMarco is just that kind of guy.

George Poteet’s name should be fairly familiar to anyone who has followed the hot rodding scene for the past two decades or so. Though some of the cars he’s had built over the years (and there have been dozens) have won the Don Ridler Memorial Award and been featured on the cover of STREET RODDER as well as The Rodder’s Journal, what most folks don’t know about him is that he might possibly be the most generous man in hot rodding.

I f beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then so too is perception. The way one person feels when they view a piece of art will probably be different from the next person, but the fact that the piece of art exists to be interpreted at all is because an artist chose to create it.

Most folks think about the future at some time or other. As street rodders, we have ideas in our heads as to how to improve the car we are driving, or a million ways we would build a future project. As a child, did you ever draw photos of cars you had seen in the magazines at the drug store and imagine how you would like them to be? If you did, dig them out, and you may be surprised how cool some of them are.

What did we tell you? For a year and a half, we’ve been beating the drum about Street Cruisers. These big-bodied bruisers from the postwar, pre–muscle car years have been steadily increasing in popularity—they’re everywhere—so we’ve been increasing our attention to them. In September we published a gallery of vitamin-fortified full-sized rides.

Bill Daniels can remember the details like it was yesterday. He and his buddy were racing another car at 1 a.m., hitting speeds of 95 mph when the car left the road, sailed through the air for 45 feet, skidded the length of a football field, then flipped end-over-end only to end upside down with the gearshift knob stuck in his chest.

Now in his mid-sixties, Jerry O’Connor cannot remember a time when he wasn’t involved with hot rods. He overhauled his first car when he was 13 and, by the time he’d reached the legal driving age, he was building hot rods for himself and to sell, which is how he got into the car business (he owned a Chevy, Cadillac, and GMC dealership for 40 years). Through the ’60s and into the ’70s Jerry went drag racing, mostly in Oklahoma, and ran a ’64 Biscayne business coupe in the D/G class (with a 115 mph, 11.50-second times).

It seems that it takes some owners just a few months to build their ride while others take multiple years to get one done. Most of the time it’s minor stuff that delays a build, but it might be hard for Jim Wise to explain why his coupe took 27 years to finish.

One of the most exciting challenges in rodding is locating old, used up hot rods languishing in garages across America. They are still out there, but most times it takes a devoted archeologist to follow a trail of information leading to one. Locate one with a memorable history, like having ruled local streets back in the day, and the pile gets even smaller. Sometimes if you’re lucky, you can catch a break when a friend supplies you with a lead bringing you to such a car.

Games of chance have had a foothold in society dating as far back as we can remember. From simple street corner shell games to statewide lotteries, and even the exotic glitz and glamour of gambling parlors in Vegas, there’s just something about the excitement and entertainment they offer. Sometimes for the cost of a ticket, you can dream of what it might be like to hit it big.