Innehållsförteckning för August 2013 från Hot Rod

I claim to have broad automotive interests, yet they are in fact limited to American cars and trucks. I like drags, 4x4s, dirt trackers, drifters, Baja racers, Pikes Peak cars, mud boggers, autocrossers, and plenty more. I want to drive them all, yet once is enough. The only activities that have held my long-term interest are four-wheeling and land-speed racing. I’m philosophically opposed to bracket racing. Except for being at Ontario and Riverside as a child, I’ve never watched a complete NASCAR race other than the Daytona when Earnhardt died, and that’s only because I was too ill to reach for the remote. As a teen, I’d stand at the fence all day watching drag racing. Today, I haven’t been to an NHRA race since 2005, or…

How do you learn a new skill? For fabricator James Crosby of James Crosby Designs in Ontario, California, the best way to learn is to do, and when he wanted to improve his sheetmetal forming abilities, he decided to do it by building a car. James is a sensible man, though, and rather than testing his skills (and possibly a customer’s patience) on a paid job, he started a special project just to practice. It was 2004, and James had a 0.063-inch-thick sheet of 5052 aluminum and a newborn son. Clearly the kid was old enough for a hot rod, so James got busy with a sheetmetal brake and a hammer. For inspiration, he looked to his father-in-law, a hot rodder from way back who still owns a Model A…

While talking with a friend in Wisconsin, he mentioned there was an old Dodge Charger sitting in a small lake town not too far from where we were, and he’d heard there was a Plymouth Barracuda there, too, but had never found it. Naturally, I headed to the town and drove up and down every street. I eventually gave up on the Charger, but on my way to the main road, I happened to see something familiar stashed outside among the trees: a ’70 Barracuda! It was on private property, and nobody was home, but I returned the next week and got even luckier. The garage door was open, and in there was another ’Cuda. My screeching halt brought the owner outside, and he was happy to let me get…

For decades, there’s been a one-sided rivalry between HOT ROD and sister title Motor Trend, with HRM staffers typically dismissing new-car testers as clean-hands, wine-and-cheese-tour guys. That’s wearing off these days, as we’re one happy family producing videos for the wildly successful Motor Trend channel of YouTube. In February, Source Interlink Media became the most viewed producer of new, daily automotive content on YouTube when the channel crested 1 million subscribers, and it’s now at more than 1.1 million. We get about 5,000 new subscribers every day, and you should be one of them. With all the warm and fuzzies going around the office, we figured it was time to publicly admit our deep admiration for the Motor Trend test drivers of the ’50s and ’60s. Every time we rifle…

Jim Busby is a complete contradiction, and so is his twisty, steely Deuce coupe. He’s a legendary road racer with international acclaim, but says he’s always been a hot rodder. He’s slapped the pavement from Mid-Ohio to Sebring, from the 24 Hours of Daytona to the Nürburgring, and from LeMans to Spa, yet he started his career racing slingshots. So what is he doing building a vintage road racer out of an old Deuce coupe sitting on a stock frame with ancient suspension? How could he find it interesting, aspirational, or challenging when he’s built Lolas, Porsche-factory 962s, track-tested for Ferrari, and forged a winning career with victories at such storied races as LeMans and Monza? Once you find out what buzzes Buzz, it starts to make sense.…

Gene Winfield may be more famous now than he was at the height of the custom-car craze. At 85 years old, Winfield is still painting cars and flying all over the world to do it. The distinctive, color-changing paintjob Keith chose for his car is often referred to as the Winfield Fade. This style of painting was seen throughout the ’50s on motorcycle tanks and fenders, but Gene’s Jade Idol ’56 Mercury (built in 1959, below), was one of the first and most famous cars to use the technique over the entire body. Winfield was born in 1927 and grew up in Modesto, California. He started working on cars in the early ’40s and would road-trip around the state in his ’30 Ford roadster, eyes peeled for fellow enthusiasts to…

Rear-Wheel Horsepower: 391 hp at 5,574 rpm Rear-Wheel Torque: 391 lb-ft at 4,821 rpm Time at Streets of Willow: 1:20.41 Quarter-Mile: 13.975 at 103 mph HRM Staff Average Ranking on a Scale of 1–10, 10 Being Best: Competence in its Intended Purpose: While the Chevelle was built to cruise and have fun—not to impress anyone with amazing lap times or to really race—we would have liked to have seen better performance. Ranking: 6 Performance vs. Potential: The car could have done better. Tires played a major role in road-coarse times. It loses points for not showing up ready to play. Ranking: 6 Dares to be Different: There’s nothing risky about a Hugger Orange ’70 Chevelle, but the dirt-track components and wide-fives make the car very noticeable. We also like the…

“One of my more memorable road-trip experiences was driving my first car on a cross-country odyssey from my home in Louisiana to Pasadena, California. It was fall of 1976, when I learned of my acceptance to Art Center College of Design. My ’68 Galaxy was in need of mechanical work, but I made up my mind this was the ride to get me there. A buddy helped me rebuild the 390 motor in our carport, and I added a flame job inspired by a hot rod featured in the movie The California Kid before selling my tools and plotting a course across Route 66. That car burned a quart of oil every 30 miles, which meant I had to frequently add oil and clean the plugs. I made it all…

See the all action at YouTube.com/MotorTrend Our entire Alcan journey was captured in two episodes of our Roadkill show. See them by going to YouTube.com/MotorTrend and searching “Roadkill Episode 13” and “Roadkill Episode 14.” Hot rodding adventure is best practiced by doing stuff normal people won’t—and normal people avoid driving 3,700 miles from Los Angeles to Alaska in a 45-year-old car in the dead of winter just to spend one day ice racing. So we did. Success was vindication. Dedicated readers will recall the Apr. ’12 issue of HOT ROD and the second episode of our Roadkill YouTube show, both of which told the story of our attempt to drive to Alaska in our ’68 Ford Ranchero, wherein we invented new and creative ways to fail. We built the car—poorly—in…

Dave Evans and Andy Bennett operate Never Again Drag Racing out of their garage—known as the “bomb shelter”—in Lancashire, England. Both men were veterans of restorations of ’60s Impalas sent from the U.S., so when they felt the urge to build a drag-racing car, they turned stateside once again for a fullsize project vehicle. Amazingly, the Doomsday Impala runs 8.90s at Santa Pod. See more pics and videos at 68Impala.co.uk. SENDING A CAR TO THE UK Want to ship a car from the U.S. to England? Prices vary quite a bit between the two standard methods: sending the car in a shipping container or going with what’s called RO-RO for roll-on, roll-off. The container is the safest way to go and can run $4,000–$7,000, depending on the port. The RO-RO…

It’s nowhere near as cool as something you’d get off the Snap-on truck, but a good hand cleaner is crucial in a shop or garage. Are they all the same? We scrubbed our hands raw to find out which cleaner best cuts the grease. Our test was simple, get dirty, grab one scoop of cleaner, and see how much grime is left after washing off. Of course there’s not a lot of precision in that, as we could not get our hands identically dirty each time, and hand washing is sort of an inexact science. But we still got some good impressions, noting smell, ease of use, and how much skin we felt was being removed along with the dirt. Since there are tons of brands and styles of shop…

This is what winning looks like. Actually, this is what winning ugly looks like. At the Phoenixstop of the ’13 NHRA Mellow Yellow Drag Racing Series, Todd Lesenko lined up with Courtney Force in a round-one Funny Car slugfest that ended in a smoke show and a pedal fest. Todd only went about 300 feet before blowing the tires off his Dodge, but when he looked over and saw that Courtney wasn’t passing him, he pedaled the nitro-huffing Brad Anderson Hemi and drove the last two seconds of the pass with a pair of rods hanging out the side of the block for the win. It looks like WWIII popped off inside the block. The pan rails are beyond bent, and the Nos. 5 and 7 cylinder liners are properly…

The ability to turn base metals into valuable ones has eluded hopeful experimenters throughout history, but the proprietors of Aadlen Auto Wrecking in Sun Valley, California, seem to have figured out the secret of transmutation. In its self-service and dismantling yards, Aadlen takes wrecked, impounded, abandoned, and rejected automobiles and separates their aluminum, steel, copper, rare metals, fluids, and plastics and sells them by the pound or the ton to be recycled into new building materials. So don’t cry for the Volvos and Astro vans in the following photos. They will be reborn. Think of it as reincarnation. See it all on HOT ROD Unlimited at YouTube.com/MotorTrend by searching “Car Crushing Mayhem.” JUNKYARD SURPRISES We spoke with Aadlen Bros. General Manager Andrew Adlen (one “A”)—his uncle, Aadlen Bros. founder Sam…

READERS RANK IT Is this car firing on all eight? Here’s the score from a poll of HOT ROD readers, 1 piston is the worst score, 8 is the best. Vote on feature cars at HOTROD.com Slouched against the curved wall of the HOT ROD studio photo cove, we trade classic car stories with Keith Charvonia while photographer Wes Allison shoots every angle of his customized ’51 Kaiser. We tell him about how skilled we’ve become at mouthing the answer to “What engine do you have?” while sitting at stoplights. He counters with his most commonly heard question: “What kind of car is that?” You can understand the confusion. Keith’s Drag’n is a slammed, fade-painted ’51 Kaiser—not something you see every day. In fact, we’d go out on a limb…

If there’s one car that embodies the birth of performance handling for American cars in the ’70s and early ’80s, it’s the Cheverra. Whether or not they know the car by name, fans of corner-carving Detroit iron in 1981 were instantly familiar with the bulged-fender, bright-yellow, second-generation Camaro. It’s surprising how much impact this one car had on the sport, even though it had a relatively short life. Cheverra was the brainchild of Herb Adams, a name now synonymous with performance handling. He didn’t set out to build a famous car, though. And the foundation for Cheverra was laid nearly a decade before the car was built. In the ’60s and early ’70s, Herb worked at GM as an engineer. He was part of the team that developed the original…

In the early days of postwar automotive design, long-nose/short-tail coupes and roadsters represented the ultimate expression of forward motion—assuming beauty and fantastic proportions are the measuring sticks. In the late ’50s and throughout the ’60s, the concept turned out many favorites, like Vettes, Cobras, E-Type Jags, Cunninghams, Devins, and Ferraris. Even today, the Viper, the Mercedes SLR McLaren, and the Panoz Esperante keep this design at the forefront of desirability. It’s practical, too, leading to rearward engine placement for 50/50 weight distribution. A great example of this form-follows-function silhouette is the Kellison GT. Jim Kellison was a U.S. fighter pilot during the Korean War era with a passion for fast cars. After the war, in the late ’50s, he started building wonderfully sleek bodies engineered to fit a variety of…

See the all action at YouTube.com/MotorTrend Go to YouTube.com/MotorTrend and search for “Roadkill Episode 15” to witness our suffering. Roadkill is our monthly road-trip video diary appearing on YouTube.com/MotorTrend. If it’s accomplished anything during its 14-month tenure, it’s been inspiring viewers to hit the road and build lasting memories while in search of cheap fun in cars. Many folks have taken to heart the Roadkill mantra of making do with what ya got and having fun no matter what the road throws at you. We’ve read their tales of adventure in the comments section of our videos and on the show’s Facebook page (Facebook.com/RoadkillShow). They’ve searched for the perfect car or bought one that just felt right, ridden ones that were nothing more than transportation to a unique destination, and…

It’s a shame most car guys never get to witness the fury and violence of an engine-dyno pull firsthand. Abusing your eardrums with the cackling, popping, and deafening bass of all those cubic inches and pounds-per-feet never felt so good. Contrary to a certain overused cliché, firing up an engine for the first time is nothing like watching your first child being born, because no one has ever built an engine by accident (though we’re pretty sure some have been the result of a few too many beers). Nevertheless, since it’s more practical and affordable for enthusiasts to roll their cars onto a chassis dyno, most people will never step foot in an engine test cell. If you’re curious about what goes on, here’s a quick overview of how a…

Contacts CK WORLDWIDE; Auburn, Washington; 800.426.0877; CKWorldwide.com WORSHAM RACING INC; Orange, California; 714.974.1394 HOW IT WORKS According to Titanium-MetalSupply.com, Titanium has a higher strength-to-weight ratio than steel because it is a lower-density metal. This is why titanium bolts are lighter than steel bolts.…

Except for pistons, I’ve never engraved my name on anything I own. On a few engines I’ve built, I’ve scribed the pistons for future reference. This way, if a slug got smoked during a nitrous run, I could easily order a replacement without digging up the paperwork. But screwdrivers and ratchet handles? Nah. Who has time to mark everything in the roll-away? Ironically, my memory is so shot that I lose track of whom I loan stuff to five minutes after it’s out of my toolbox, so I probably should. I once saw the custom billet wheels that were stolen off my truck on another truck less than five miles away from the scene of the crime and a week after the thievery took place. I knew they were mine…

We got a lot of questions about the article “Big Bang Theory” (Sept. ’11) that Richard Holdener wrote about turbo-charging what he thought was a GM truck 5.3L V8. The engine made 1,203 hp at 26.8 pounds of boost, and turned out to be a 4.8L. Obviously, boost will help make up for a lack of displacement, but if you’re scouring a junkyard searching for a cheap way to make 400 hp, a low-mileage 5.3L will get you there a lot easier than a 4.8L will. It’s difficult to identify the 5.3L and 4.8L because the blocks are the same; the difference is inside. The 4.8L uses an 83mm stroke and the 5.3L’s is 92mm (the same stroke as a 5.7L, 6.0L, and 6.2L). So how do you easily sort…

01] GENUINE HOT ROD HARDWARE GenuineHotRod.com; 800.575.1932; Price: $29.95–$34.95; PN LTS-SK00010 to LTS-SK00021 Genuine Hot Rod Hardware sells everything you can think of to make your home into a hot rod haven. The division of Summit Racing sells hot-rod themed artwork, wallpaper, furniture, clocks, and other gearhead kitch. 02] AMERICAN SHIFTER CO. AmericanShifter.com; 877.387.4947; $14.95–$79.95; PN ASCSN American Shifter Co. possibly has the biggest selection of knobs and accessories of all the companies featured here, offering knobs, clamps, adapters, boots, filter tops, shifter arms, office accessories, custom engraving, and more. Most of the unique shifter knobs are limited-edition items, and new designs are launched frequently. 03] HURST Hurst-Shifters.com; 707.544.4761; Price: $28.95–$58.95; PN 1630 Hurst, the longest running name in performance shifter components, offers some cool knobs with or without logos…

The 250 spots available to racers wishing to enter HOT ROD Drag Week ’13™ sold out in just eight hours, and the list included seven Canadians, two Australians, and a guy from the UK. It also included 88 Daily Driver class cars, a group limited by a 10.80 e.t. cap with the winner determined by a 32-car bracket race on the last day. When we went to print, there were another 127 racers sweating it out on the waiting list and hoping more than a few entrants would fail to finish their cars before the start of Drag Week™. No one has dropped out yet, but as we get closer to race day, we expect the volume of no-shows to be significant, opening up slots for other entries. Here is…

The Alcast foundry (Alcast.com) is only a few miles from our El Segundo home office, so we stopped by to ask employee Niko Martillo about the casting process for the Step by Step column we did in the July ’13 issue. Alcast makes all sorts of industrial parts for fuel pumps, elevators, and even military applications, but these pieces in particular caught our eye. These are the tooling and the cores for one of Jon Kaase’s Boss Nine cylinder heads (JonKaaseRacingEngines.com) that can turn a standard 429 or a 460 Ford into a semi-hemi brute.…

We’ve seen this Chevelle around SoCal for at least a decade, and it’s memorable for its crazy Wilwood wide-five hub-and-wheel setup. When we saw it again at our HOT ROD/Car Craft cruise-in El Segundo, California, last summer, we decided to find out if it’s as fast as it looks. Owner Ken Houzvicka from Torrance agreed to a HOT ROD Flog Test session. The ’70 convertible was first built in the mid-’90s by Lucky Costa from Hermosa Beach. He was a friend and neighbor of Calin Head from Super Chevy Magazine, who was building a ’70 Chevelle with his dad. Lucky wanted to build a similar car and got the Chevelle in trade for his’ 72 shortbed truck with a blown small-block. The convertible was a factory six-cylinder car, but…

The assistant to a high-ranking auto exec told us, after we’d asked to hear the exec’s favorite road-trip story, “it was fun seeing his face light up relaying this.” And that’s something we discovered while creating this story—ask anyone about a favorite road trip or destination, and that cruise down memory lane will usually end with, “I had a good time thinking about that trip again.” On the following pages, we’ve created what we hope will be the inspiration for you to create an ideal road trip of your own. Small towns, big cities, tallest landmarks, smallest dives. This is your America; this is your adventure. Tell us how it goes. Car Museums 01] RK MOTORS CHARLOTTE 5527 Lakeview Rd.; Charlotte, NC 28269; 704.596.5211; RKMotorsCharlotte.com RK Motors is a must-see,…

It isn’t new. In the ’50s, HRM had quite a few engine-swap stories on Willys wagons, flatfenders, and CJ-5s. The transplants included Y-block Fords, small Chevys, and small-block Fords. There were also a few Jeeps drag-raced in the ’60s, most notably the Funny Cars called Secret Weapon, Destroyer, and Holy Toldeo. The latter was owned by California Jeep dealer Brian Chuchua, who in 1965 also ran a CJ-6 (long-wheelbase CJ-5) with a swapped-in overhead-cam Tornado inline-six. The Jeep in the photo is a CJ-5 stretched in the nose and running in the Modified Sports class at the ’65 HOT ROD Magazine Championship drags.…

We’ve launched this new section of Wrenchin’ @ Random to do a better job of keeping you in the loop on the progress (or lack thereof) of our fleet of project cars. There won’t be an installment next month because it’s a special issue (you’ll see), but we plan to include them in every issue thereafter. In between issues, you can often see project-car updates at HOTROD.com, Facebook.com/HotRodMag, and @HotRodMagazine on Instagram. For our first installment, we’ve got new images of Finnegan’s ’55 Bel Air and Brandan’s ’64 Pontiac LeMans, plus some dream items they’d have if they won the lotto. THE CHEVY WITH A HEMI IN IT The as-yet-unnamed Chevy with a Hemi in it began life as a bare shell of a body that we bought from Hemet,…

I have a confession: I don’t know how to drive new cars. Imagine a caveman is defrosted and finds all of contemporary society mysterious and terrifying. Well, that’s me every time I’m in a modern car. Unlike many vintagecar fans, I don’t think old cars are superior, nor do I think new cars are soulless. Recently, I’ve had a chance to drive several modern cars, and it’s been a lot of fun. I went ice racing in a ’13 Challenger R/T, tooled around Venice (California) in an Aston Martin Vanquish, and tried to blend in while behind the wheel of a Gotta Have It Green ’13 Shelby GT350. All the new cars had one thing in common: They confused the heck out of me. How do you move the seat…

Brake check! —Michael Beeson Powered by ChevroLEGS. —Brandon Eastman Standing start. —Bruce Matteson Sebring light —James Atherton This is how you do a standing burnout in a boat. —Alan Gracy Year? Make? Model? A: This is the driver-side taillight of a ’72AMC Gremlin. We spotted it at the’ 13 Food Lion Auto Fair at Charlotte Motor Speed way in Concord, North Carolina. HOT ROD (ISSN 0018-6031), August 2013; Vol. 66, No. 08. Copyright 2013 by Source Interlink Magazines, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Published monthly by Source Interlink Media, LLC, 261 Madison Ave., 6th Floor, New York, NY 10016. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and at additional mailing offices. Subscription rates for 1 year (12 issues): U.S., APO, FPO and U.S. Possessions $20.00. Canada $32.00. All other countries $44.00…