Hot Rod February 2022

mega-sized big-block just a phone call away

@john.mcgann Never in a million years would I have guessed that Chevrolet Performance would be bringing a mega-sized big-block Chevy crate engine to market, yet just this week, it announced the 1,004-hp ZZ632. Insane! And insanely cool. In a time when all you seem to hear about are EV conversions and hybrid drivetrains, many of those agendas coming from GM, Chevrolet socks you in the jaw with this. Our own Steven Rupp was quick of keyboard and got a piece up on HOTROD.com with just enough tantalizing insider info about this engine, and it blew up our website and social media pages. Why is that? Well, I think there are several reasons. First, it’s just plain cool. Big-block Chevys have always been held in high regard from the second the public got…

the hot rod archives

20 Years Ago February 2002: 116 pages, $3.99 The Collector’s Anniversary Issue verbiage at the top of the cover let to snarky commentary by Editor David Freiburger in his column and in the Roddin’ at Random department. DF questions whether labeling something as collectible really makes it collectable. The newsstand and subscriber versions had different covers and David swore this wasn’t a ploy to get subscribers to also buy the newsstand version. Nonetheless, this was a solid issue. The whole staff contributed to the piece on the 350 Chevy’s 35th anniversary, calling it “the world’s most popular engine.” That statement may hold true today, even in the current LS-swap-the-world mentality. The 350, and small-block Chevys in general, are compact, make excellent power for their size, and have extraordinary parts interchangeability and tremendous…

rare nascar photos from the 1960s

Stock car racing got its start in the rural South, but by the time NASCAR arrived at Riverside International Raceway in the early 1960s, the sport had achieved national success. Southern California was a long way from the sands of Daytona Beach, Florida, and the dirt tracks of the Deep South, but the bright lights of Hollywood and the deep pockets of big sponsors and bigger purses lured fans and racers westward—specifically to what would become the town of Moreno Valley, California, in Riverside County. These images—some of them never seen before—come from the Petersen Publishing archives and show some of racing’s legends in their prime, including Fred Lorenzen, Richard Petty, Buck Baker, A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, Ned Jarrett, Parnelli Jones, Dan Gurney, Joe Weatherly, Fireball Roberts, David Pearson, LeeRoy Yarbrough,…

just what the doctor ordered

Some pills are more bitter to swallow than others, but imagine receiving a prescription from your primary care physician recommending a course of treatment comprised of a five-day road trip in your favorite car. Sign me up! Anyone reading this would find that pill to be very easy to swallow. That’s the remedy we had planned for the 2021 HOT ROD Power Tour Presented by HP Tuners and Driven by Continental Tire. After a hiatus last year due to the global pandemic, the Power Tour returned to offer an octane-fueled remedy for gearheads looking to cure the COVID blues. Normally held in June, we bumped the Power Tour back to the end of August to have extra time to plan the event and to also gauge the climate of the country…

product showcase

SEMA vehicles often negotiate a very curvy, and often curious, path from obscurity to having a spot in a manufacturer’s booth on the floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Many display cars at the show are privately owned and loaned to the various companies for use. Others are built specifically for the show and are owned by individual companies to show off their wares with the intention of drawing attendees into their booth. This 1969 big-block Chevelle falls into this second category. When TMI was searching for display cars to fill their booth, there were two paths they could have taken. Either find a project and build it from scratch or find a car that was as complete as possible and work it over to display their custom interior kits.…

barn find 1937 ford truck

Have you ever hidden away some cash and forgotten all about it, only to find it years later? Well, that’s Bill Wyckoff’s story, but instead of cash it was the 1937 Ford truck that he cruised in during high school. “Fifty-five years ago, I parked my high school ride (a 1937 Ford) in an old barn behind my parents’ home,” Bill told us. “I had pulled the motor for rebuild, but otherwise it was still complete. Time flies, and the truck sat in the old barn becoming a home for various critters. My oldest son had been after me for some time to start work on rebuilding the truck since we had done several such projects for my grandsons. More time went by until one Saturday my son said, ‘If…