Innehållsförteckning för February 2012 från Hot Rod

A guy walks up to you with something along the lines of, “I’ve got a car you need to put in the magazine.” When I worked at HRM for Jeff Smith in the early ’90s, he always had a great answer to that: “You know the rule, right? If you have to ask, you don’t get in.” He said it with a smile, joked with them for a minute, and guys walked away jilted but happy. I’ve never been able to pull that off. I make Genghis Khan look like a people person, and I manage to send people away hurt or angry. Why? Because it’s really hard to explain to someone—especially someone who puts us on the spot—why we don’t need to photograph his car for the magazine. Of…

As Chris Ashworth was showing us around Romance With Rust—his Orange, California, fabrication shop—we scarcely noticed the blue VW Bug rolling chassis that was sitting right in the middle of the shop. We don’t have anything against VW Bugs, but his other projects commanded more of our attention. Just as we were wrapping up our visit, Chris asked us if we’d be interested in the VW. It was, after all, the Lightning Bug—the first all-motor VW to break into the 10s. That got our attention. Campaigned by the Schley Bros., the Lightning Bug made its first 10-second pass on October 6, 1972, almost 29 years to the day before we visited Ashworth’s shop. Shortly after, the car was sold to Diego Forbes in Puerto Rico, who painted it yellow and…

DENNIS MOSER • NORTH WILKESBORO, NORTH CAROLINA Tired of his light ’73 B210 Datsun race car, Dennis Moser opted for a bigger and more badass muscle car for the Vintage Drivers’ Club of America series in the South (VintageDrive.com). But to avoid blending in with just another Camaro or Mustang, Dennis chose this junkyard-find ’64 Pontiac LeMans, and we love him for it. The A/Sedan-class Pontiac saw its first real track day in 2004. It took the crew four more years to get the car to the front of the pack, and it has stayed there ever since. Most the time, the crew doesn’t change a thing between the two tracks it runs most often, Virginia International Raceway (VIR) in Alton, Virginia, and Roebling in Savannah, South Carolina. And as…

Here’s one more answer to the popular question, “How do I get my car into HOT ROD?” You can’t rule out complete accidents—that’s how this one happened. We’d arrived a few hours early to cover an event in the Pittsburgh area, so to kill some time in a semiproductive way, we wandered over to watch the autocross guys using another part of the facility. It was there we discovered a white ’66 Corvair Monza giving all the shiny new Porsches and BMWs a good spanking. And you know that’s a good time. A closer look at this slick little piece and a chat with the owners, dad John and son Cory Black, closed the deal for us. We had to share. The CorVin8er, as John and Cory call their creation,…

At Drag Week™, dudes spend a jillion bucks duking it out to run 7-second passes every day. Meanwhile, there are another 150-plus average Joes amassing the same kinds of personal victories while running in the 9s, 10s, 11s, and even the 15s. They still face the abuse of HOT ROD Drag Week™, driving 1,000-plus miles in five days to race five times at four different tracks, seeking the lowest average elapsed times in their classes. Or, more important, doing it just for fun. They don’t get as much press, but their stories are just as fun and their experiences even more instructive for us mere mortals looking to build a stout streeter that can go the distance. Here are 20 examples from our ’11 event—most of which did just that.…

THE PREMISE The latest GM LS-style engines come stock with free-flowing, rectangular-port heads—they just need a great cam to wake them up. Enter Comp Cams’ new LSR series. Available for both late-model one-bolt and older, three-bolt LS timing sprockets, the new grinds have more exhaust area “under the curve” for a given intake profile to best complement the greater flow potential of late rectangular-port–style LS heads when used in non-VVT (Variable Valve Timing) applications. How good are these cams? The dyno doesn’t lie—so let’s pull the handle and let the pieces fall where they may. THE STUFF Comp sent us LSXR grind No. 277LrR HR13 (PN 146-458-11) to match up with our late LS3’s one-bolt timing sprocket. Although it has fairly healthy duration and lift (see specs table), Comp claims…

COVER UP: PREMIUM SPRAY BOMB PRIMERS PlastiKote 866/222-8714 PlastiKote.com PlastiKote has introduced a new line of premium primers that includes everything you need to make quick paintjobs look better than a normal spray-bomb job. One product is a rust-to-primer spray that converts and seals rust. Have a scratched bumper? Grab the plastic primer. If you’ve got bare metal you need to seal up quickly before Mother Nature turns it brown, use the premium primer. PlastiKote has been around since 1923, so trust that its stuff works. Price: Varies GET YOUR BIG CHARGER TO HANDLE: NO DIET REQUIRED Hotchkis Performance 888/735-6430 Hotchkis.net Heavy cars are a bear to race, but we all love cars that happen to be big, like the new Dodge Charger. It’s monstrous, but it’s also awesome. Hotchkis…

HOT ROD magazine has supported a number of race cars over the decades. Most of those have been Bonneville and drag racing cars, though one of the earliest was an oval-track jalopy. Ak Miller famously carried the HRM flag at the Mexican Road Race, we were deep into the early years of the Mexican 1000 and Baja 1000, and some boats have been lettered with HOT ROD Magazine Spl., most notably Rudy Ramos’ U-9. As far as we’re aware, the ’57 Fords in these photos were the only stock cars associated with the magazine until 1998, when HOT ROD and Interstate Batteries cosponsored Bobby Labonte’s Joe Gibbs–racing NASCAR Pontiac Grand Prix. These Dresden Blue Fords were raced by Jerry Unser and Bobby Unser Jr. in USAC events in 1957 and…

By his gold blazer shall you know him. The man with the microphone is the King of the Customizers, George Barris. The car he’s weaving a tale around here, at a concours in Ohio in 2006, is one of his early important jobs: Larry Ernst’s ’51 Bel Air. A Catholic priest in Toledo, Ohio, with family money via the Fisher Body fortune, Father Ernst looked all the way to Los Angeles and the Barris Bros. to customize his Chevy. Father Ernst drove the brand-new Bel Air hardtop, originally black and white, across the country to the Barris shop. In its first version, Barris did the car in purple and orchid with Ford taillamps. The top was chopped 6 inches in the rear and 2 in the front, while the A-pillars…

Chevrolet has doubled down on its ZL1 program, announcing automatic-transmission and convertible versions of its supercharged Camaro, which is now rated at 580 hp. Other features of the maximum Camaro, now slated for introduction in the first quarter of 2012, include specially tweaked editions of GM’s Performance Traction Management and Magnetic Ride Control systems. The ZL1’s slushbox is a six-speed GM 6L90, a unit previously seen in GM light trucks.…

When we spied this thing, it was love at first fright, or a scream come true. Break out all the Baskervillian wordplay you want, cuz this here is b-b-bitchin’, heavy on the itchin’. The car belongs to Mark Sax but was built by Chris Watkins of CNA Performance (CNAPerformance.com) in Kansas City, Kansas. What kind of car is it? It’s a mashup of imagination and reality, of rat rod and race car, and of the insane and the, uh, challenged. It’s a metalmorphosis (thanks again, Gray) of a custom-fabricated race car tube chassis—totally NHRA legal—into a chopped ’36 International truck body. The clincher is the bed, fabricated from a pair of ’58 Dodge quarter-panels. We knew Chris was swinging from the same rope we do because he was at the…

“Independent front suspension is just a fad.”–Andrew Murray You’ll recall Andrew Murray. He’s the man up in New England who scratch-built the road-legal, Indy-style roadster we featured in the July ’08 issue. Thoroughly knocked out, the staff voted it the 2008 Hot Rod of the Year. Remember? He’s the fellow who practices Zen welding. Says he learned how to hammer-form aluminum over the phone. He’s the man who said, “For design ideas, I often ask myself, ‘What would Ettore Bugatti or E.J. Potter do?’” That guy. Well, now he’s back with another vehicular confabulation, and this one pretty much defies any form of categorization or description except for the simple name he gave it: “the coupe.” Sure, that makes sense. He already had the roadster. And while the coupe clearly…

Nobody likes a good story better than Carroll Shelby, so let’s start this story with a story. In 1915, years after the racing exploits that launched both of their careers, Henry Ford and Barney Oldfield happened to meet again. As they shook hands, Ford, by then among the world’s richest men, gave his former driver a wink and generously remarked that he reckoned the two of them had made each other. Oldfield winked right back and said, “I guess I did the better job of it.” That’s sort of how we feel about our old buddy Shelby. As the Cobra celebrates its 50th birthday this year, we note that HOT ROD and the formerly skinny Texan go back a ways—to before the beginning, actually. And After all these years, we’re…

THE PREMISE Can easy speed parts make a noticeable difference in the 5.0L Coyote engine’s manners? “A mild set of bolt-ons and JPC Racing exhaust upgrades will bring big gains rather easily,” says Justin Burcham, the main man behind JPC Racing. Game on. We let him have his way with a Coyote, retuning the engine and letting it breathe easier. The results were great. THE STUFF JPC Racing offers Coyote modification packages, and we tested its Stage 2 setup, which includes a custom PCM calibration, a cold-air intake, headers, an X-shape crossover, intermediate pipes, and larger mufflers. The package will set you back $2,895.95, without shipping or local taxes. The custom computer tune adds more ignition timing, changes the air/fuel ratio, and improves drive-by-wire throttle commands. For those with automatic-equipped…

SEE THIS AND MUCH MORE IN THE MARCH ’12 ISSUE OF HOT ROD MAGAZINE On sale January 17, 2012 HOTROD.com Facebook.com/HotRodMag YouTube.com/HotRodMagazine…

The October 2011 meet at Auto Club Famoso Raceway in Bakersfield marked the 20th running of the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum’s California Hot Rod Reunion. With more than 4,000 tickets sold in advance, the latest event was the largest yet, bringing out the best showing of vintage dragsters, Funny Cars, and speed parts we’ve seen in a long time. The biggest names in ’60s drag racing were on hand to talk shop with anyone who was curious, and we even had a visit by world-renowned customizer Gene Winfield. For many attendees, Saturday night was the main event, as more than 60 nitro-burning vintage dragsters staged on the strip for a Cacklefest led by Reunion Grand Marshal Steve Gibbs. Our spinoff mag, HOT ROD Deluxe, hosted the car show in…

If only we’d had the forethought to invest in 1-Shot about 10 years ago. That’s the paint of choice in the renaissance of pinstripe art that continues to boom; there are probably more brush artists today than there were in the ’50s, and their designs are ever more creative. We often photograph pinstriped details on cars, and occasionally it’s only upon review that we realize there’s imagery hidden within the shapes; other times, the shapes are quite blatant but no less clever. Here we present some ideas for pinstriped caricature. We regret that most of the time we’re unable to credit the skilled artists who do this stuff. Perhaps more of them need to practice a signature flourish.…

Have you seen HOT ROD Deluxe magazine? It’s our bimonthly spinoff title that covers everything retro and publishes 100-plus historic photos in every issue. HRD struck a deal for sponsorship of two big nostalgia events: the 20th Annual NHRA California Hot Rod Reunion last October, and the famed Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekender coming next April 5-8. It’s the 15th Annual VLV in 2012, so it will be a biggie. The event will include a car show on Saturday the 7th, a deluge of music with live bands and record hops, a vintage fashion show, a burlesque competition, and lots more. Be there with us. Get more info at VivaLasVegas.net.…

We recently spent a long day in the wind tunnel at the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan, and snapped this photo as a group of Corvette club members were treated to a grand tour. As you can see, the tunnel’s 43-foot propeller dwarfs the humans standing on the floor. Other gee-whiz facts: the enormous fan is precision-laminated Sitka spruce and rotates at a maximum of 270 rpm, powered by a DC electric motor that develops 4,500 hp at 700 volts. The complete setup, a closed cell roughly the size of a city block, can create wind speeds of 138 mph through its 18x34x71-foot test section.…

This car refuses to fall into a category, and that’s exactly how Robert Killian planned it. He wanted an eye-catcher, but he wanted it to be ridiculously fast, and it had to be street legal. How’d he do? His ’28 Ford Model A sedan took two and a half years to build, and it offers enough entertainment value to keep a car guy occupied for days. It’s long and low and patina’d—but far from ratty. Have you noticed the engine yet? It’s the major act of overkill: an all-aluminum, 820ci Ford Hemi built by Jon Kaase Racing Engines, which is a little more than an hour away from Robert’s home in Canton, Georgia. Jon sells these as crate packages and is secretive about the specifics, but rest assured, it’s ludicrous…

Picture this: You’re a racer, which means you’re a control freak, yet you agree to ride shotgun in a high-powered, ungodly expensive ’69 Mustang that’s rocketing at triple-digit speeds toward a sweeping, 180-degree turn designed for airplanes taxiing at 5 mph, and the driver isn’t braking. You’re waiting for it, but it just isn’t happening. Deeper, deeper. The unmuffled exhaust is wailing, and the digital tachometer rips past 7,000 rpm as the car accelerates hard in Fourth gear. You are way past the point of no return, where mortal men would’ve already downshifted, smoked the brakes, or just bailed out the door and eaten asphalt. Just as you’re about to scream like a little girl and punch the jackass behind the wheel to wake him from his daze, he grabs…

HOT ROD DELUXE is the magazine that brings you nothing but traditional hot rodding. In every issue, HOT ROD DELUXE delivers many pages of vintage photography from the Hot Rod magazine archives that you just can’t get anywhere else, ever. 6 ISSUES PER YEAR, $39.95 SIGN UP AT HOTROD.COM/DELUXE Each issue will be delivered on the same quality paper as the newsstand version. Every magazine will be shipped in a plastic bag so it arrives in good condition and so the cover is not ruined with a big, white address box over the photo.…

DON ASKS: Recently, I had a discussion with a European gentleman about his BMW suspension system and my ’05 Mustang GT suspension system. According to him, all BMWs have superior suspension systems compared with American cars. He says they have to be able to handle the high speeds of the Autobahn in Germany. He also claims they can run circles around American cars because our cars are made to run in a straight line and are lousy in cornering and stopping quickly. If this is true, what do you recommend I do to strengthen my Mustang’s suspension? MARLAN ANSWERS: I’ve been hearing this kind of bull about the Deutschland’s vehicular superiority from effete, driving-glove snobs my whole life. The truth is that a typical V8 BMW performs about the same…