Hot Rod June 2019

Network Content Director @douglas.glad What’s your favorite car?” When I am confronted by the local-news paparazzi on Power Tour® or any other major event, that is the most asked question. My answer? “Camaro.” The real answer is any Group B rally car from the mid-1980s. Here’s why. Before Formula D, Ken Block, Roadkill, or four-wheel-drive yellow/blue WRXs, there was the World Rally Championship (WRC). Started in 1973, the WRC brought together rallies from all over the world under one sanctioning body. As is the case with all popular forms of racing, WRC quickly evolved from grassroots fun in the snow and mud to an international battleground for manufacturers to prove their equipment’s mettle. By the 1980s, battleships like the Audi Quattro showed the WRC that four-wheel drive and unlimited boost was both…

Executive Editor @john.mcgann Like many things in life, what starts as a relatively simple job blossoms into a bigger project than anticipated. This is especially true when working on cars. For example, HOT ROD Garage co-host Lucky Costa and I installed a Ridetech 4-/6-inch suspension lowering kit on my 1993 GMC C1500 about a week ago. On the surface, it’s a simple weekend job—drop spindles, lowering springs, C-notch, rear axle flip kit, and new shock absorbers—but it’s critical to keep in mind that cars are a network of complex systems that need to work in harmony with each other. Knowing this, you can be ready for unexpected things that may arise as a consequence of your “simple” weekend install. Lowering the GMC that much puts the tires closer to the fender openings.…

So said Kathryn Minner (1892–1969) at the end of hilarious TV commercials depicting her launching some hot, new Dodge car or truck. Chrysler Corporation’s national advertising budget in the 1960s was a fraction of what GM and FoMoCo spent, leaving dealers to generate exposure and showroom traffic with regional promotions and sponsorships. None did it better than the scrappy Southern California Dodge Dealers Association, which hired the unknown character actress around the same time as L.A. disc jockey Roger Christian and singer-songwriter Jan Berry were cowriting “The Little Old Lady From Pasadena.” (Which came first is debatable—as is the existence of the inspirational local woman with “a pretty little flower bed of white gardenias” and “a brand-new, shiny-red Super Stock Dodge.”) Jan & Dean’s single hit the airwaves in June…

20 YEARS AGO June 1999 (184 pages, $3.95): This thick package was so packed with car features and tech that neither the 50th Oakland Roadster Show nor a 1957 Ford survivor of NASCAR’s 1957–1958 Grand National series (complete with a rope-activated, spring-loaded trap door enabling drivers Johnny Mackison and Frankie Thompson to monitor tire wear) rated blurbs. Buried in the way way back was Gray Baskerville’s bittersweet saga of hauling 370 miles in the rain from his Pasadena home to the Bay Area—at the personal invitation of show promoter Don Tognotti—only to have his legendary Deuce roadster “deemed unfit for display” on the main floor. (“So I left.”) 40 YEARS AGO June 1979 (132 pages, $1.25): The future was front and center this month. Lee Kelley’s editorial warned that “federal agencies are already…

The unfortunate truth is that most folks aren’t working their dream job. They may experience snippets of pleasure from time to time, but as a whole, work is a daily grind that comes and goes with the sunset. Mark Trostle is different. As the head of Dodge, Chrysler, and SRT design, the man is not only entrenched in some of the coolest automotive projects on the planet but also gets to lead a team of young designers in a field that he’s beyond passionate about. He’s also humble, authentic, and quite honestly, one of the nicest guys we know. HRM] At what point did you realize you were talented enough to be a designer? MT] I was fortunate enough that my father was not only a car designer but a gearhead as…

Years ago, I came across a gentleman who could be considered a mad scientist. He took big-block Mopars and made them into two-cylinder trike engines, put Mopar long-ram intakes into a 1969 Chrysler Newport, a first-gen Hemi into a Dart, and so on—a variety of weird, cool projects. I was finally able to arrange a visit to his home, where a majority of his projects sat. On the way to his storage barn, there were a few Mopar A-bodies, including an original 1972 Plymouth 340 Duster. Inside, I was greeted by a 1970 Plymouth Satellite (with Road Runner taillights), and things got crazier from there: grilles and taillights in the ceiling, walls of engines, and cars from just about wall to wall. And when he ran out of floor space, he…