Hot Rod January 2023

Editor-in-Chief @john.mcgann On my desk at work, I keep a copy of the January 1948 issue of HOT ROD magazine. It’s a reminder of how we started, a reminder of HOT ROD’s original purpose, and frankly, it’s an ego check. This magazine, this brand (as things are called in our age of digital and social media) is much bigger than me and the current editorial staff. HOT ROD is 75 years old, and this issue is a celebration. Ponder for a minute the changes that have happened in our world since 1948. The United States was on the verge of a technological boom in the wake of World War II. Young servicemen had returned home, the recipients of cutting-edge training in the military that they were able to transform into the fields of…

HOT ROD has enjoyed working relationships with dozens of talented photographers, on staff and freelance, during its 75 years chronicling American speed and performance. But when Robert E. Petersen and Robert Lindsay started laying the magazine’s foundation back in late 1947, they relied heavily on one particular photographer, Lee Blaisdell. Blaisdell built his first hot rod, a roadster with a two-port Riley conversion in 1941, shortly before entering the Navy to serve during World War II. After the war he was active on the California racing scene, now with a camera in his hands. His work impressed the local sanctioning bodies so much that he became the official photographer of the Southern California Timing Association and the California Roadster Association. While sitting in on a 1947 SCTA meeting, he heard a 20-year-old…

To kick off HOT ROD’s 55th anniversary, Editor-in-Chief David Freiburger and Editor Ro McGonegal visited the HOT ROD archives with Wally Parks, who took over editorship of HOT ROD from founders Robert E. Petersen and Robert Lindsay in 1949, founded the NHRA in 1951, and managed his duties to both organizations until leaving Petersen Publishing in 1963 to devote his complete attention to the NHRA. The three of them pored over photographs from Wally’s tenure for insider stories about those years, resulting in a seven-plus page photo essay that included many previously unpublished images. Other retro-themed stories in the issue included Tech Editor Steve Magnante’s feature on the newly-restored Invader, the wild twin-engine show car that was featured on HOT ROD’s July 1967 cover and won the America’s Most Beautiful…

Editor Ro McGonegal and staff pulled out all the stops for this, the 50th anniversary issue of HOT ROD. The gatefold cover featured a recreation of the car featured on issue No. 1 along with several noteworthy photos from the archives on the inside fold of the cover. Roy Brizio was commissioned to “reinvent” the original cover car, and it was photographed at El Mirage Dry Lake, just like the original. Inside the issue, HOT ROD’s history was chronicled in a series of articles, the first of which was titled, “In the Beginning,” written by Gray Baskerville. The narrative he penned traced the roots to dry lakebed racing, then following the arc to street performance and organized motorsports. New staffer Steve Magnante picked the story up from there, tracing the…

The “Chevy Cruisers” on the cover were part of an 11-car roundup of bodacious Bow Ties that ranged from the expected Chevelles and Camaros to a very unexpected turbocharged Chevette, an LT-1-powered Monza, and a Vega with a blown 454 stuffed inside. Technical Editor Marlan Davis had two meticulously researched stories in the issue, one about Chevrolet’s Bowtie cylinder head (including detailed porting instructions), the other a primer on how to narrow a rearend to fit wide tires. Other tech in the issue included the fourth installment of a long-running series on detailing, the second installment of a series about wiring, and a look at the variable area turbine nozzle in Aerodyne’s latest turbocharger (putting “an end to the drag of turbo lag”). Tommy Ivo was back in the magazine,…

That page count is no typo. Editor Terry Cook called this silver anniversary edition the “largest HOT ROD ever produced,” with “extra color pages, extra editorial pages, and a bunch of ads. It is something special.” Cook used the occasion to have his art department redesign the magazine’s graphic look; and he and his art staff also went out on something of a limb with a type-only anniversary cover that utilized a special silver ink to grab attention on the newsstand. Speaking of “a bunch of ads,” there were so many in the front of the magazine that the main editorial well didn’t start until page 78. Several of those advertisers chose to celebrate the anniversary with birthday- or retro-themed ads, including Ford’s gatefold cover featuring historic Ford hot rods…