Hot Rod April 2023

Editor-in-Chief @john.mcgann Sometimes I need some prompting when trying to write this column, and this time was no exception. Rusty, our intrepid managing editor, posed some topics ranging from a cynical take on today’s political situation to the more germane topic of our latest build for the Car Craft video series. Among the suggestions on the list was the question, “What keeps you up at night?” A simple question that’s difficult to answer. Sometimes the easier question to answer would be what doesn’t keep me up at night. Short answer: lots of things keep me up at night, which has been a problem over the last several months. Some of them are personal and don’t need to be aired out here, but there are plenty of work-related issues that seek to destroy my…

20 Years Ago April 2003: 116 pages, $3.99 Fifteen years before, then Editor Pat Ganahl came up with the idea for a HOT ROD swimsuit issue as an April Fools spoof of the Sports Illustrated specials. He had no idea the concept would be such a strong newsstand seller that it continued for the better part of a decade. Editor Ro McGonegal brought the models back to HOT ROD in 2001 in retro pin-up style, and the concept was, once again, a big seller. By 2003, the combination of a Miss HOT ROD fold-out poster and a paint-and-body editorial section was an April issue tradition. Randy Lorentzen photographed Mishel Thrope in front of Ryan Murphy’s ’55 Chevy 210 for the cover; inside, the paint section included tips for first-time painters, a tutorial…

You know what they say about beauty and the eye of the beholder. To my eye, the angular, asymmetrical XR-6 isn’t a beautiful hot rod. The judges at the Grand National Roadster Show thought differently and awarded the HOT ROD project car the America’s Most Beautiful Roadster trophy in 1963. The XR-6 (experimental roadster, six-cylinder engine) was the brainchild of Associate Editor LeRoi Smith. As he recalled in the buildup’s first installment (March ’62), he was bench racing with other staffers during a coffee break and pointed out that “the cost of the average rod had risen considerably during the past decade, but hot rod design had failed to keep pace. We were immediately frowned upon by the ‘old heads.’ We stuck to our guns, and the result was our resolve…

From an early age, Gary Veeder knew he loved cars. His father, Ozzie, loved Chevys. He invested time and money buying used Corvettes and working on them. That passion for hot rodding took hold in the youngster and shaped the rest of his life. “I always tinkered with my dad. He could never afford to buy new ones, but he always bought Corvettes to work on and fix up,” Gary explained. “He inspired me to get into the body shop business, which I was in for 45 years, retiring last year.” Not only did Gary carry on his father’s gearhead tradition, but he took it a huge step forward. Upgrading those Corvettes with his father also inspired Gary to take that attention to detail into his business. He opened his body shop,…

The first time you see Austin Shepherd’s 1985 Mazda RX-7 fly down the track, you’ll ask yourself, “Did I just witness that?” The second thing you’ll think is, “I gotta take a closer look.” Lil Heavy, as it’s known in the rural hamlets and backwoods tracks of northern Indiana, is not possessed of huge amounts of power. On the contrary, it’s relatively modest and somewhere between 1,000 and 1,200 hp by Shepherd’s own admission. The thing it’s good at is getting down a rotten road fast and doing it straight as a string. What you see is definitely not what you get as the bruised and battered beer-can of a car pulls to the line and its 5.3-liter LS begins to build boost. But it’s 100 percent subterfuge. Lil Heavy leaves…

Like most good stories, this one starts out with the dreams and longings of a kid. When we’re young, before the realities of life beat the innocence out of us, we see nothing but a world of possibilities. We see a poster of a car, or maybe even Farrah Fawcett, and say “one day.” Todd Evans was that kid, and the experiences of his youth did a lot to shape the desires of his adulthood. “I remember the old World of Wheels cars displayed with all the chrome, mirrors, and even fur! I remember the Imperial Stormtrooper Vega on the cover of the program, and I remember Rick Dobbertin’s Nova. I like cars that grab your attention even if you don’t know the first thing about cars. I like life-size…