Indholdsfortegnelse for January 2002 i Hot Rod

It was called “the Mexican Road Race,” or more officially, “La Carrera Panamericana.” Held for the first time in 1950, this grueling battle across the new but barely refined Panamerican Highway ran more than 2,000 miles from Juarez south to El Ocotal. Switching directions, La Carrerra headed north from 1951 through 1954. Then it was all over. The toll of human lives (spectators, mostly) during the five races was far too great to continue. Certainly, its brevity locked in the legend of La Carrera, but the brutality of the event was known and even admired from the beginning, attracting OE manufacturers in need of good ad copy. We remember La Carrera mostly for the images of hulking American sedans, plastered with decals, in four-wheel drifts around impossible, potholed curves. There…

You’ve heard about the Crossfire before. We ran it as a news item in the April issue, and at that time there was no indication it would see public streets. Last October, the rumors were put to rest: Chrysler has hired the German coachbuilder Karmann to produce the two-seat, rear-wheel-drive Crossfire for the ’03 model year. Karmann, you may remember, built all those snarky (if slow) Volkswagen Ghias in the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s. Karmann will build the car at it Osnabrueck plant in northern Germany. It will be founded on four-wheel independent suspension and powered by a supercharged, 2.7L V-6 backed by a five-speed manual transmission. These goodies will shoot the Crossfire to 60 mph in less than 6 seconds. It will look almost exactly like the concept, a…

Sorry—it’s not an assembly-line unit. However, we did get the inside scoop on this Ford Racing 5.0L-crate-engine-powered kit being R&D’d at the shop of Jerry Kugel (of 300-mph Trans Am fame). Yes, we said kit. it’s not yet had the thumbs-up for inclusion in the Ford Racing catalog, but the work is being done to test the feasibility of mass-produced 5.0L V-8/rear-drive swap components for the little Focus cars. We’ll have the inside scoop if it comes to fruition. Put that in your econobox and smoke it.…

Lanky Shane Weckerly grew up in an Arizona burg with about 3,000 souls, so he’s used to open territory, countryside, spaces blanketed by rough undergrowth with miles and miles between two-legged animals. Imagine, then, his chagrin at living in the LA basin. Imagine his longing for the Arizona hinterlands. Imagine him excelling in his craft despite his captivity. His words to live by? “If it’s got a motor in it, I’m interested.” Weckerly began the road to his destiny when he was in high school, tooling a ’59 Dodge pickup humped by a hot 392 Hemi. By the age of 24, he was well on his way. His Camp Verde, Arizona, rod-building shop turned out some good stuff and two stunners: Bob Evert’s clean and simple, ’40s-style ’32 Henry stuffed…

We discovered Tom and Tammy Lee Hackmann’s Maverick Grabber at the Knott’s Berry Farm Ford show this past April. Two thousand Fords in our face, and this one won us over. We’d staggere around row upon row of all-original and restored Mustary birds, and ’40s gems, and then there it was. Just sitting there, practically alone. It was low, but not uselessly so, and of course the Cobra R rims gave us pause. Even the wannabe-anonymous color grabbed our eye. Terry McGean and I circled it for five minutes before we asked Tammy Lee why this Maverick looked so uncommonly good. Turns out that 2 inches were piecut out of each of the wheelwells, allowing the 3-inch slam to look a lot more congruous. And yes, it’s a real Grabber.…

Contrary to popular belief, you can make your own fiberglass parts right at home using commonly available raw materials and a little bit of ingenuity. Just pay a visit to your local arts and crafts store and tell ’em you’re building a dollhouse. They’ll never know you’re actually a gearhead in search of more performance via reduced vehicle mass. While large parts like bumpers, fenders, and hoods are often more trouble to make than you’ll want (and readily available from the aftermarket), the sky is the limit for smaller items. Follow along as Jamie Seymour—a fourth-year student at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California—shows us the ropes. Recipe List PLASTER OF PARIS: $2.97 FIBERGLASS SHEET (ROUGH): $2.50 FIBERGLASS SHEET (FINISHING): $2.50 GELCOAT (1 PINT): $12.00 FIBERGLASS RESIN (1…

I wasn’t there when it happened; the meeting was between Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top and Larry Erickson, then a topnotch designer at Cadillac (who has since moved on to Ford). But I was there in Harry Hibler’s office when the former publisher of HRM invited me to a meeting. This casual confab in ’89 consisted of me, Hibler, and Gibbons. The reason was this: They needed someone to build a car that Gibbons and Erickson had envisioned, a slippery taildragger based on a ’48 Cadillac Sedanette. I quickly suggested Boyd Coddington for two reasons: Coddington’s crew of superb craftsmen and his ability to deliver under magazine deadline pressures. Unknown to me, Pete Chapouris, who had just gone to work for the Specialty Equipment Marketing Association (SEMA), had made the…

I like to forget that this magazine started as a car-show handout. “Car show.” Its got a wimpy connotation these days: trailers, cry-baby dolls, et al. Instead, I embrace the fact that the roadsters on display at the magazine’s seminal Hot Rod Exhibition at the Los Angeles Armory in the 1947 were, for the most part, pure race cars, or at the very least dual-purpose, fleet-of-foot Streeters. Even the very first issue of HOT ROD was largely about dry lakes racing, and eventually the magazine covered the gamut: NHRA drags, Indy, NASCAR, Baja, and more. HOT ROD was involved, producing such memorable project cars as Ak Miller’s El Caballo de Hierro, Wally Parks Suddenly ’57 Plymouth, and John Diannas Duster 340. But by the late ’80s, competition was virtually taboo…

GLOBAL WEST APPRECIATION DAY As a service to its customers, the suspension experts at Global West recently sponsored a customer appreciation day at the 1.5-mile Streets of Willow road course at Willow Springs Raceway in California. In addition to extensive track time, participants were offered the opportunity to have Global West components installed on their cars by Global West mechanics. After track testing, the parts could be purchased and left in place, or removed and the original parts reinstalled at no charge—a no-lose proposition if ever there was one. As a diehard straight-line drag-race freak, this writer was invited to see how the other half lives. I was chauffeured around the course in the shotgun seat of Steve Eguina’s fully prepped 96 Camaro SS for eight laps before motion sickness…

Ain’t nothin’ like carbs all over an engine. Dual quads. Three twos. Four or six deuces. They’re rarely a need, always a want. You want to look cool, you want to go fast, you want to wow the crowd. Even during this boom of computer-controlled high-techery, multi-carb setups are all the rage. The retro craze has driven demand for ancient Strombergs and 94s, Holley has seen a spike in tunnel-ram sales, and Barry Grant recently introduced his Demon carbs with a special tunnel-ram tune-up. Edelbrock still sells inline quads for four different engines, plus three-deuce Chevy manifolds that Automotion sets up with Rochester 2GCs and hawks at a rate of 150-plus per year, Offenhauser moves more multi-carb intakes for more vintage powerplants than ever. So multiple carburetion is clearly a…

So what’ll it be, hmmm? Street rod, street machine, Pro Touring, Pro Street, or Pro Sleeper. Supercharger, stroker crank, carbs, or EFI? What will get attention this year and what won’t? Industry heroes unload a little bit of pertinent information here to help you decide whether it’s a passing fancy, a trend, or the old becoming new again. Take heed, but don’t take leave of your senses. Remember, what’s right for you is best. Don’t worry about what others think. Don’t follow convention. Use your imagination. Have fun. Fastlane Rod Shop Dave Lane toils in the middle of the heart of the nation—Donahue, Iowa, that would be—and to our way of thinking he might just be better off for it. He has no one to follow, no one to copy…

News flash: We’ve tested plug wires of many types on the dyno, and (at least when they’re new) there seems to be no significant horsepower difference from brand to brand. Spiral-metalcore, radio-noise-suppression spark plug wires are your best performance buy, but there’s a lot more to consider, so we rounded up 10 sets of popular spiral-core plug wires and checked the features that matter the most. For example, how much force is required to pull the plug terminal off of the end of the wire? We hate that. The difficulty of removing a boot from a plug was also checked. Each brand of wires also has unique features that we checked out for you. Next, because there is no engine on earth that is tougher on spark plug wires than…

It started in August 1991 with the Top Gun shootout, a heads-up drag race in Atlanta that was compelling to the HOT ROD staff. We were shell-shocked by street cars running 8.45 quarters at 155-plus mph—steel doorslammers hangin’ hoops past the 60-foot and drifting 1,320 feet to glory. These cars had big-blocks on lots of spray, simple back-halved suspensions, and full interiors. We called ’em “the ragged edge of street drivers.” Little did we know what was to come as we embraced the trend, created the Fastest Street Cars in America Shootout for ’92, welcomed Flowmaster’s support of a Top 10 program, and watched the birth of a cottage industry for legal street racing. Ultimately, our publishing company purchased the National Musclecar Association. Ten years later, witness the aftermath as…

While digging up photos for last month’s story on the winners of the HOT ROD Magazine Trophy at Bonneville, we found this shot of the men who made Speed Week happen. Back in 1949, El Mirage dry lake’s surface was considered to be deteriorating (though we still race on it today), so the Southern California Timing Association’s Board of Directors named a Bonneville selection committee to gain permission from the State of Utah to conduct annual speed trails at the famed Salt Flats. The selection committee included: (Top row from left) Lee Ryan, Fred Woodward, Bozzy Willis, and George Prussell. (Bottom row from left) George Radnich, Marvin Lee, Wally Parks, and Robert E. “Pete” Petersen.…

Here we all are again, back for another round of Top Ten action. We chose, we haggled, we argued. Everyone on staff (David Freiburger, Ro McGonegal, Gray Baskerville, Jeff Koch, Steve Magnante, Kevin Oeste from HOT ROD TV, and Rod & Customs Terry McGean, since he was a HOT ROD staffer for the first half of the year) made their opinions known and voted accordingly. What are the ten best cars to have appeared in HOT ROD over the prior 12 issues? Accusations were levied, family lineage was called into question, comparisons with prostitutes and others involved in both unsavory and illegal activities spewed forth. There was a 12-way tie for the last spot, which was broken by the only two who were left in the office (Freiburger and Koch)…

Parenthood is an awesome responsibility. It’s not enough to give your progeny the fundamentals; you have to be willing to let that entity take on a life of its own—as has happened here, seemingly. Proud papa Leon Drake explained the origins of the somewhat stock-looking F-body on these pages: “The intent was to build a classic musclecar as a platform for all of my future hot rodding, and which could evolve in stages into my ideal street machine. It needed to be driveable at each stage, for as long as it took to make the money for the next stage.” He also figured that, for sheer parts availability, he would have to go with a Camara, Corvette, or a Mustang. “Since I do not favor Fords, the Mustang was out,…

How many guys do you know who’d build an engine with the worst possible parts available? That was our question to Jo Jackson, proprietor of Confused Vintage Hi-Performance. Though Jo’s motto is “the shortest distance between two people is a smile,” he takes his drag racing very, very seriously. By basing his motor on parts most racers would consign to the scrap heap, he lulls them into a false sense of security. Before they know it, his “junk pile” has zapped ’em to the tune of 11.305 at 116.83 mph. (It has pulled a high 10 under ideal conditions.) And get this: Jo says he’s got just under $3,500 in this 443hp motor from carb to pan, and it works its magic with a flat-tappet cam, pump gas, no nitrous,…

Sometimes, something simply makes so much sense that you wonder why it hasn’t been done before. Dropping a cammer Cobra mill into a late Thunderbird seems like a no-brainer, especially considering the overwhelming availability of both. But who really does that? Well, we found three. The concept—dropping a blown Cobra 4.6L V-8 between the fenderwells of a late-model ’Bird—was repeated separately by Rich Brandl with his ’87 Foxbody and Alex Baynard with a ’91 wide-body, and Mark Jones with a ’94. Brandl managed to fit a twin-throttle-body-injected 6-71 blower on his 4.6, and swears the Fox runs 10.60-something at 130-odd miles an hour. (No cage means that track management gave him the boot, but not his timeslip, so he’s not sure to the last decimal point.) Body changes include flaring…

Description: The Gear Vendors unit is a supplemental planetary gearbox that adapts to the output shaft of your existing transmission to provide an extra gear of 0.78:1. The initial benefit is the addition of a 22-percent overdrive in high gear, but because the Gear Vendors can be engaged in any gear, it actually doubles the number of ratios available in any transmission. For example, your TH350 becomes a six-speed (First, First/Over, Second, Second/Over, Third, Third/Over). Likewise, a four-speed manual or automatic becomes an eight-speed, and a five-speed becomes a ten-speed. Here’s why you care: First, because most street cars will go quicker down the dragstrip if you can split the gears, since the engine stays closer to where it makes peak power. On the street, the Gear Vendors allows you…

Last month we announced a whole new way we’re going to handle the Readers’ Rides column using more homegrown photos and information than any magazine on the newsstand. Since this issue is being produced before that info has even been printed, the new Rides format is not up and running just yet. So we decided to show you reader Tom Wilkinson’s ’57 Corvette. We recognize that the car is intimidating in its quality, but don’t let that stop you from sending detailed photos and info of your car, no matter what the condition or state of assembly. These pages are all about real-world projects. Want to see your car in the magazine? Check out the Readers’ Rides entry form in the Dec. ’01 issue, or just supply us lots of…