Indholdsfortegnelse for May 1962 i Hot Rod

Fly anywhere you want in North America! Take along your family and friends—up to 12 people in all! $5,000 cash to spend as you like! We pay all taxes on this prize. Nothing to buy! Easy to enter! Here's your opportunity of a lifetime to live like a king and travel like a maharajah for 14 glorious days! The whole continent — from California to Maine, from Alaska to Mexico—can be your playground! A luxurious airliner and crew are yours. Fly anywhere you want, any time you like! Take along your family and friends (up to 12 people) if you wish. Spend the $5,000 any way you want. Or, put it in the bank. You can forget about taxes. Champion pays them for you—just as it pays for the crew…

For the past couple of years, Dodge and Plymouth standard production automobiles have been hotter than comparable models released by other manufacturers. Now to those of you who attend an occasional drag meet or some other type of stock car racing event, this probably sounds like a silly statement, but, just examine the facts. By standard production, we mean the type of automobile built for the average public, not the high performance model with multiple carburetion, wild cam-shaft, noisy tappets and the like. Consider the '62 Dodge and Plymouth with their standard production V8 of 361 cubic inches displacement, a single four-barrel carburetor, hydraulic lifters, 9:1 compression and 305 horsepower. This quiet, smooth idling engine, with stick or automatic transmission, is more than an even match for the Chevys, Fords…

Grdena, California…

Excuse us if we sound like a braggart but we just have to let you know that we picked the winner of the 1962 Daytona 500-mile stock car race a full year in advance. Reporting on the '61 race in last May's Hot Rod, we said that after watching Glenn “Fireball” Roberts drive for several years, he was our choice to win the next Daytona 500. Now before we mislead you into thinking that we're clairvoyant, we must confess that it doesn't take supernatural powers to make such a prediction. Anytime Fireball Roberts drives onto the Daytona 2%-mile tri-oval or any of the other high banked tracks in the South with a Smokey Yunick-prepared Pontiac, he is the odds-on favorite to win. The nickname of Fireball came from his school…

You feel like a man when you can live a man’s life, get out of the rut, travel clear across the world… when you can decide for yourself what you want from life, what kind of work, what kind of play, what kind of future… when you can do a man’s work, put your mind and muscle into a job you can be proud of. You feel like a man in the Army because you can visit strange and romantic countries while you’re still young enough to see everything, do everything, get all that travel has to give you… you can set your sights on the kind of future you want. You can get a good education, you can get training in your choice of many different fields. The opportunities…

And the rains came. In drops, and handsfull, and bucketsfull and finally — after the regularly scheduled Winternational Championship Drags at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds were cancelled and rescheduled one week later on Feb. 17 and 18 — the rains came in trainloads. For the first time in more than a decade the Southern California area was drenched to the point of drowning by the fickle fortunes of fate. Or something like that. In little more than four days Los Angeles received more than 10 inches of a wet substance almost alien to the countryside. Communities bordering the drag strip and in the lap of neighboring mountains were even blanketed with several inches of snow. In short, the Big Go West had become the Big Go W^E! Water was…

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One thing all hot rodders who are successful in some competitive part of the sport have in common is the willingness to try something new. Jim Nelson and Dode Martin, owners of Dragmaster Company in Carlsbad, Calif., where dragster' parts and complete chassis are manufactured and engines are reworked for rods of all kinds, have been about as successful in drag racing as any two fellows could hope to be. By being operators of a shop in which engines of all makes and models are reworked, Jim and Dode have the opportunity to examine and evaluate the many engines available to rodders. Few other active rodders have such an opportunity. But it wasn't until the latter part of 1961 that they saw an engine that had enough good features to…

Rod and custom fans have a treat in store in the form of General Tire & Rubber Company’s newest Dual 90 model. Novel in its three-ribbed white wall (this one’s guaranteed to stay white) and its dual patterned tread, the new casing also has newsworthy features that hint of future popularity. Made of patented super-Nygen cord, the low profile Dual 90 is reported more steerable and tractive as well as being puncture-proof. Two layers of puncturesealing compound are sandwiched by special layers of vulcanized rubber to protect against punctures for the life of this attractive new tire. General’s theory on twin radius tread patterns is also interesting, claimed to provide increased steerability and traction due to the tire’s two separate points of contact with the ground, thus effecting a uniform…

Here at the business end of an AC Fire-Ring Spark Plug you see the key to AC’s self-cleaning action. It’s the red-hot recessed insulator in the center of this photograph... the famous Hot Tip. It’s an AC exclusive and it’s the only spark plug that provides self-cleaning action for all cars! This insulator is the thinnest and the toughest made. It heats rapidly, cools rapidly; burns off harmful deposits as fast as they form. What’s more, this extra-thin construction allows the white-hot combustion gases to swirl around the insulator—actually searing it clean while you drive. brand of self-cleaning action, found only under the AC name, can give your engine longer peak performance and befter gasoline economy. So, next time you ask for action… ask for AC Fire-Ring Spark Plugs with…

Just thirty minutes before he was due in the staging area, Dave Skeans discovered trouble in the blown V-8, 352 cu. in. Chevrolet gas engine that powers his unbeaten Class A Modified Roadster. Number one cylinder was cracked full length and halfway around. (Later he found number two cylinder also cracked!) Only time enough to drain the water, knock out the front soft plugs for air, refill the engine with Pennzoil Z-7 … and “go for broke!” On the last run for Class Championship, Dave and his crew put 4.86-to-l gears in the Quick-Change rear end. And Dave brought his ailing roadster in a winner. Turning up 8500 r.p.m. Barreling through to a top speed of over 145 m.p.h., with an E.T. of 9.96 seconds! Yet Dave reports, “We did…

The grandfather of modern auto exhibits, the Grand National Oakland Roadster Show at Oakland, California, lifted the curtain on its 14th annual rod and custom spectacular with due cause for pride; they had a corner on the market with such sensational displays as Jerry Woodward's radical new three-wheel roadster of the future. Bob Yoas' remarkable streamlined Corvette, Less Erben's immaculately restored and modified Model A pickup, ad infinitum. Trademark of the huge event is the mammoth 9-foot perpetual sweepstakes trophy given each February to the builder of the roadster judged finest of show. For the past few years the honor has been divided equally between best roadster and best competition classes, each of the two winners getting to keep the cup for a six-month period. Dick Guasco scored high in…

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While the 1962 Winternationals are well covered elsewhere in this issue, we would like to point out some rather interesting facts and figures that add up to an even more impressive view of the recent Big Go and Big Show West. Did you know, for example, that both events this year received more press coverage than any other previous Winternationals? Talk about national coverage … stories were carried to all major cities via the wire services; several leading magazines sent representatives, including Time, which ran a terrific story complete with photos; hundreds of special request stories were sent to home town newspapers; one of the leading radio stations in Los Angeles did an hour-long program on hot rodding and the drags; and, of course, there was excellent coverage from the…