Innehållsförteckning för November 2022 från Hot Rod

Greetings from Nashville, Tennessee, a place that seems close to becoming my second home. We are shooting more episodes of Car Craft Video and I’m on a marathon three-week session on the road helping make that happen. Things were going great until I smashed my finger while installing a flywheel on the back of the 351 Windsor we’re installing in our 1967 Mustang coupe. I’ll spare you pictures of the damage. Watch the episode, though (they run on Motor Trend’s YouTube Channel). We didn’t catch the act as it happened, thankfully, but if you see me wearing rubber gloves, that’s an attempt to hide my purple and bandaged ring finger. Normally I don’t wear gloves while working on a car unless it’s around really hot things. Thankfully, I’ve never been…

More than three years ago, while straining to absorb the Detroit area’s mammoth Woodward Dream Cruise, we spied something familiar: a blown 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 with a serious ’70s rake and multicolor graphics that were as period-correct as a satin baseball jacket with a fondue stain on the sleeve. There was a time, of course, when a 6-71 GMC blower poking through the hood of a first-gen Camaro was as common as today’s LS swaps, but this one stood out for more than its classic street-machine stance. It’s because we’d seen it before. We saw it in November 1979, to be exact. That was the issue of HOT ROD on which it graced the cover. It looked identical, four decades later, to the vision Tim Marshall and the godfather…

When I mentioned to Stanley Chavik we’d be taking pictures of him while he worked, he replied wryly in his thick Eastern European inflection, “Good, because I’m busy.” Stanley’s Thor-esque stature, his thick wavy hair, gnarled beard, and flames of ink shooting up his arms make him look like an extra from Sons of Anarchy. But his gap-toothed grin and smiling eyes reveal his true character. This is a man content. A 1950 DeSoto Diplomat Deluxe convertible coupe with a front spike, a toothy front fender, and wheel-hub weaponry lethal enough to make Ben Hur blanch hardly seems like the car to inspire a career. But the pale yellow rarity used in the Italian B-movie I predatori di Atlantide was the first hot rod Stanley ever saw. It was love.…

With engines, bigger is typically better. Well, sort of. Bigger generally means more power, but it can also mean more headaches. More boost will give you more power, but it will also require more octane, unless you want more detonation. More fuel will give you more power as long as you provide more air, and more nitrous will give you more torque, but also entails a lot more risk of things going sideways. The higher the performance, the higher the costs, and we’re not just talking about the monetary type. But what about more lift for your camshaft? If you’re a reader of the Internet, you see the idea of adding a “high-lift” cam to your engine mentioned all over the place. It’s talked about like it offers free power…

We all know that automotive paint and primer have changed a lot in the last couple decades with serious reductions in VOC-type solvents mandated by the EPA. This has caused improved paint gun functions and has led to guns being engineered for specific purposes, most notably one for primer and another for color and clearcoat. Professional shops have no problem with this, but too often do-it-yourselfers are resistant to purchasing two paint guns. Instead, many hobbyists just buy one spray gun thinking that changing the tips and needles is all that’s needed. Considering that a pro-quality paint gun can easily be north of $600, this is understandable. What must be understood is that, especially today, primer is not paint. Primer is the foundation, paint is the color, and they are…

Each year, we are amazed at the number of people who long-haul the Power Tour. Those are the people who make the entire journey from start to finish. It’s not cheap, and sometimes it can be a grind—traffic jams at the venues and inclement weather are two of the most common issues we deal with each year. Thankfully, there were no hurricanes or tornadoes this year (unlike in the past), and this year’s long-haul car count crested 5,000. We were impressed and deeply grateful for everyone who took the time to join us on the Power Tour, but a special thanks goes to the Long Haulers. Here, in no particular order, are some who opted to have their cars photographed by the tour bus on the way out of Atlanta…

Greg Cope of Holliday, Texas, has always been a big fan of classic American muscle, and he loves trying to find forgotten gems hidden around the state. Yeah, you would think all the really cool (code for: popular) cars have already been found and scooped up, but the truth is that there are still quite a few classics hidden in barns, buried in garages, or just languishing in fields. These “barn finds” are always cool and we love seeing the cars rescued so they can be put back on the road. Cope already had a 1968 Camaro he had bought from the original owner back in 1992, but when he heard about this hidden-away 1967 Camaro, he didn’t hesitate to go check it out. The 1967 Camaro had been parked…

In terms of classic workhorse transmissions, the Super T-10 was one of the most common four-speeds used in the muscle car era. They could be found in Corvettes, Camaros, and Firebirds over a 17-year run. A major step up from the standard T-10 that debuted back in 1957, Super T-10s featured a host of benefits over its predecessor, including a wider selection of gear ratios, and a widening of the gears, side to side, for better overall strength. The first-design Super T-10’s arrived in 1966, but it was the second design’s debut in 1974 that was a big step forward. While the first-design units had cast-iron cases, the second design (offered from 1974-1982) featured an aluminum case. The only exception to the rule was the Power Brute Super T-10 that…

Most engine builds you see these days show you how to build a killer engine using very nice parts, but they often neglect to say how much all that great stuff will cost. While those builds certainly have their place, they overlook the guy who just needs a plain and simple small-block for a humble hot rod. Up until last year, the classic Goodwrench 350 two-piece rear main seal crate engine was the go-to choice for many hot rodders looking for a brand new small-block Chevy for a truck or mild hot rod. Those days are now over, as GM has dropped this engine from its inventory. A quick search of other low-cost 350 engines lead us to the conclusion that you might be better off to build one yourself.…

Email us at hotrod@motortrend.com Any historian worth his salt has a copy of Petersen’s The Best of HOT ROD. Published in 1981, it’s a brilliant snapshot of hot rod history. On page 161, there is an intriguing shot of a flamed Deuce roadster. The caption reads, “May 1956: This classic highboy started out for Daytona as a coupe, but when its tow truck broke a wheel, the car flipped, crushing the top. A cutting torch made it a roadster.” The flames were funky, but the car was cool. I filed that info away until talking to historian Greg Sharp who said, “Jim Davis drove that car.” “Really? Jim Davis who later published Super Stock & Drag Illustrated magazine?” I knew Jim when he was president of B&M, and thanks to…

Richard Petty began the 1975 NASCAR racing season defending his 1974 Winston Cup championship. Richard Petty also started the 1975 season by hitting the wall at Riverside during the Winston Western 500. That’s an incident he’d likely rather forget, but through an accident of timing, that brief brush with an immovable object was recorded and published in HOT ROD, where it lives forever in our photo archives and countless magazine collections. The cover of the April 1975 issue of HOT ROD featured Petty, his brother Maurice, and cousin Dale Inman with Petty’s STP-liveried Dodge Charger, all posing in front of a Carolina tobacco barn with a dog and some chickens. Inside was a seven-page tribute to The King, his family, and his cars. As luck would have it, the issue…

When you’re the chief design officer of a world-wide car manufacturer, and that manufacturer happens to be Stellantis—the international umbrella containing the beloved Dodge brand—being a car guy brings with it a gravitas that is a magnitude greater than anything mere mortals can imagine. As much as we’d like to think we have influence over the world of hot rods, we’ll never actually make high-performance production cars leap off the page and onto dealership lots like Ralph Gilles does. It’s his world and we’re just lucky to live in it. Ralph Gilles, like so many of us, grew up admiring Mopar’s muscle car performers and watching Dodge Chargers in movies like Bullitt and TV shows like Dukes of Hazzard. The Dodge Charger, specifically the 1968 model, had captured Gilles’ imagination…

The 2021 Dodge SRT Super Stock Challenger is a bucket-list car. Its 807 hp supercharged, intercooled 6.2-liter Hemi—like the 2018 Dodge Demon’s 840hp unit—was deemed so powerful none of these benchmark cars were ever put into the press fleet. In most hands, it would’ve been the equivalent of giving a box of shotgun shells and a hammer to a 13-year-old and not expecting anything bad to happen. Then the pandemic hit, and any thoughts of promoting these uber-muscle cars through press programs or test loaners was put on ice. We’re finally testing a 2021 Super Stock in 2022. That’s not a typo, and we’re not complaining. In the full gallop toward Dodge’s 2024 EV engineering freeze, some gracious soul in Auburn Hills thought it would be nice to stamp out…

Adrenaline courses through your veins as the nitro cars pull past the water box, preparing for the first burnout on the Mountain at the 2022 Dodge Power Brokers NHRA Mile-High Nationals at Bandimere Speedway. Crew members focused on their jobs at hand, taking in every aspect of the car and the track. You catch a whiff of nitro, hinting at what’s to come. The sudden crack of the throttle and the deafening roar from the exhaust is followed by the immediate burn in your nose as the undeniable smell of nitro overwhelms your senses. The next thing you know, the first staging bulb is lit, leaving barely any time to brace for the rattling vibration of the race that is about to shock your body. Bulbs drop, and three feet…

Cars have evolved greatly over the last 50-plus years, as any automotive historian will be quick to tell you. That doesn’t mean you can’t improve the power and drivability of your classic muscle car and retain its cool looks and collectability. This is especially true with aftermarket suspension upgrades that can dramatically improve the comfort and handling potential of your vehicle. To prove our point, we stopped off at Aldan American and set about installing their new coilover suspension kit. The results from that upgrade are nothing short of fantastic. Our 1969 big-block El Camino is classified as an A-Body in General Motors nomenclature and uses the same chassis design as similar year Chevelles, GTOs, Lemans, and other “sister-generation” vehicles. The kit used here fits 1968 to 1972 A-body cars…

Did you know Car Craft is back and in a video format? It is, and the really good news is that you can watch the episodes for free on HOTROD.com and on MotorTrend’s YouTube channel. We have several builds in the works, starting with a ’72 Challenger with a Hellcat engine swap and an LS-swapped BMW 3-series. Our next project is a more straightforward build of a ’67 Mustang. Early Mustangs have always been popular, and a Mustang coupe has always been much more budget-friendly than the ultra-desirable fastback. So here we are with a ’67 coupe that was literally thrown away—cohost Kevin Tetz discovered this car at a local junkyard. Because it was so clean and rust free, he couldn’t plunk down the $1,000 asking price fast enough. We…