Better Beaters - Building Cars and Daily Drivers

Hot Rod magazine, Is the Renaissance over?

A bold claim, not easy to keep.
Have they kept their promise?

I've been reading Hot Rod Magazine for almost fifty years. In the beginning I was hungry and eager to read anything about cars. A few years ago, my brother in law gave me his twenty year collection of Hot Rod magazine. It was fun to look through the collection and find those issues that I had read when they were new. Hot Rod is the original high performance car magazine, started by Robert E. Petersen. Since then the field has become swollen with niche choices, many were started by the Petersen publishing company itself. Hot Rod remained as "everyone's automotive magazine."

Over the years I found that the magazine had less and less relevance to my interests. Some of this was due to my changing interests and some was due to their emphasis on drag racing, and drag race style modifications. While I like fast cars, the automotive experiences that I enjoy have to last much longer than a quarter mile. Truthfully this makes me "tune out" from much of the magazine's editorial content.

Okay Dom, Let's agree to disagree.

A common technical article was "Swapping out your SBC cam."  I have never swapped out a cam in any vehicle. Why take out a perfectly good cam? Engine modifications to produce more horsepower is the basic premise of the magazine. This is their basic bread and butter. Lately the articles have had very good dyno comparisons between competing set ups.

I will admit it's been awhile.

Street freaks, (how I hated street freaks!) Well, they don't really feature these extremely made over vehicles very often anymore.  These cars usually featured big wheels and injection stacks or blowers protruding through the hood. In my eyes nothing should ever poke through the hood except a Mustang's shaker hood set up. A parachute bolted to the rear bumper always made a nice touch.

While they haven't been featured in awhile, they did feature that bubble top custom Gasser a couple of years back. Gassers are those cars that feature that distinctive raised solid axle front suspension. They are usually jacked up in the back too. These modifications were commonly used on drag strip only machines but I guess the styling strikes a visceral chord with many readers.

Yeah, that would be a gasser.
Maybe I was wrong about that Street Freak thing, this wasn't that long ago!

I also quickly got the idea that whenever the term "wild" was used, it was a  signal that the subject would be something that I would have little interest in. Maybe I'm just an old man.

One of their best recent issues.

This "Speedmetal" issue was brilliant and one of the best in recent times. That '57 Chevy's exquisite fabrication is detailed in fascinating photography. There is a great article on new methods of fabrication, famous contemporary fabricators and a story recommending the best tools to help you build "anything you want," This was my most favorite issue since the rebirth. The downside has been that they shrunk the physical size of the magazine down a bit. To me it just makes the whole enterprise feel a bit cheaper.

She isn't necessary but doesn't hurt.

Don't be distracted by the nice girl on the cover. Inside there is great coverage of some amazing garages. Jack Olsen's 12 gauge garage is featured. This was my first exposure to it. Very inspiring. It was almost as inspiring as the guy that was building cars in a big tent next to his house. Then he built a small garage and kept on going. That made me decide to go for it. If he could do it, why couldn't I? Buy what I could, hold onto it and fix it as I could afford. I'm still trying to make that work!

What a great photo.

Driving two hot rod Chevys' through the rigors of downtown Manhattan, now that's different! It seems that most cars like this are only driven to a local cruise night. Not stuck idling in traffic. A pretty good story.

There are those interviews with famous people in the automotive world. These are often quite good. The conversation with Ray Brock was quite memorable.

Hot Rod to the rescue!

This has been a very worthwhile addition to the magazine.

This guy pieced together an EFI system.
It would have been easier to take everything from a single donor.

This guy has thrown together an odd cam, old heads, poor carb,
bad ignition, sloppy tune and of course it runs like crap

This is a feature where a modified car with intractable problems is examined by an expert tuner and finally sorted out. So many cars are modified and the results are not exactly satisfying to the builder/owner. Over heating, rough running. flat spots, vibrations, lack of power, problems with clutch engagement and chatter, drivetrain vibrations and more, often plague the home builder. Lack of driveability after assembly is a common problem. Automotive engines may seem simple, but they are designed as a complete system.  Random modifications can throw the whole thing out of whack.

It's amazing how many home builders will put up with annoying problems and shortcomings. Many times these cars are just sidelined and somewhat ignored, sometimes even for years.

I find this to be the most interesting department of the magazine. Actually having to carefully diagnose a problem, and then logically address the issues to fix it, is challenging and interesting. You can learn a lot about thoughtful and careful mechanical work here.


Freiberger Run Amok!

Not really my cup of tea.

I loved ol' Freiberger when he was the editor of Car Craft, he lead that magazine in a direction that made the reader feel like he was a part of a car building community. But his Roadkill stuff just strikes me as kind of silly. Throwing some junk together, half assed, and then hammering on it until it breaks, is just dumb. I don't care how cheap and sorry my stuff is, I never abuse it, to try to break it.

More of the same, Do something crazy, sure sounds like good advice to me.

I might be a little rough on this concept, but I do realize that you have to shake up the establishment sometimes.

Daily Driver Diaries. 

Elena Sherr is a "typical car guy." Even if she's not.

One "kind of glamour" shot.

On the other hand, Elena Sherr was the inspiration and encouragement for me starting this blog.  I figured if she could write a monthly column, then I should be able to come up with enough material for a weekly column. Her column is just about daily life with her little fleet of cars. Her big Dodge Polara, Challenger, and little Opel GT. What it's like to drive a big old car without a/c in L.A. traffic. About letting little things go, and postponing  repairs until it becomes a pressing need. Pretty much what life is like for most of us in the hobby. She writes in a very familiar and comfortable tone.

Others not so glamorous.

I guess that it seems that I have forgotten to mention any of the feature cars. That's not a mistake. For the most part, most have been pretty forgettable. That first car featured, the silver mid-engined Mustang. Now that was something to ponder. It was a very impressive collage of imagination, engineering and construction.

Wouldn't this get your attention if it showed up in your rear view mirror?

That photo above is from an article  from quite a few years ago. It was all about building a high speed, over the highway competition machine. What could be better than a Dodge Charger? These over the road events occurred in Nevada, at the Silver State Classic and the Maxton Mile in Ohio, and the cars are set up to run at very high speeds. This Dodge displayed  the coolest NASCAR vibe. but is fully street legal. ( I wouldn't be surprised if this was the inspiration for building a custom grill for my '70 Mustang) There was another article about cars set up to be canyon running, road warriors. Now that's more like it!

My personal preference has always been for over the road traveling vehicles. Something that you could take on a long, high speed trip and travel in comfort and safety. My modified motorcycles have always conformed to this style.  I wouldn't modify a car in a manner that would decrease it's roadability and ultimate practicality. Of course, I'm the guy that drove a ground scraping old Riviera on a family vacation, so there's a lot of room for interpretation in my Credo!

Okay, They do get it sometimes!

I may seem that I'm just  taking random potshots at the magazine content, but you have to read it consistently to have an opinion. I have read it consistently, and there is a lot that is good. I even found that I had "accidentally" agreed to sign up for an additional three year subscription. I called the company to find out exactly how that happened. They agreed that I could cancel the subscription if I wished, but I declined. What the hell, it's not that bad! And subscriptions are amazingly cheap!

I'll admit that I do like the presentation of a higher line magazine like Octane, although most of what is presented is way out of my league. Still, Octane allows me to view an alternate automotive enthusiast universe. Some of my appreciation may be due to my now more "mature status".

I mentioned Car Craft magazine earlier. For several years I found that it's content was more attuned to my interests. I think it was because the age range of the vehicles was more compatible with my interest. Primarily cars from the 1960s and 1970s. I left Car Craft to go back to Hot Rod, but at least I kept it in the family.

In writing this overview I've come to realize that Hot Rod magazine is still pretty much what it always has been. Sometimes inspired, sometimes insipid. Mostly consistent. It just depends upon my viewpoint, which has changed markedly over a span of many years, a half a Century, in fact. My preferences and changing tastes should not dictate their editorial direction and coverage. Especially since I've never even written them a letter to the editor voicing my concerns!

I guess I'm lucky that I don't have to read a review of my blog site. I'm sure that I've fallen short of some of my objectives. But I do post consistently every week!