Hot Rod July 2022

Editor-in-Chief @john.mcgann I typed “pickup” in the search bar of our digital photo archives and was rewarded with more than 5,000 pictures to sift through as a result. The range of images seen through the decades left me with the notion that pickups may be more versatile than cars, at least from the perspective of the customizer or modifier. In other words, people seem to do a much wider variety of things with trucks than with cars. Case in point: I’ve personally heard the backlash over times we’ve run features on a vehicle that’s essentially a car body on a lifted 4x4 chassis. I think people find it more acceptable to do all kinds of crazy things to a pickup of any year, make, and model, than to a ’70 Chevelle, for…

20 Years Ago July 2002: 124 pages, $4.99 Wow! What’s the one bolt-on part that will get you to 750 hp? A Weiand 8-71 supercharger on a 426 Hemi crate engine, that’s what. On Westech’s engine dyno, the supercharger was responsible for a massive 259hp gain and an additional 169 lb-ft of torque over running the engine in naturally aspirated form. It looks pretty damn cool on the cover, too. How do I add 50 hp to the wheels? David Freiburger and Steve Dulcich did just that by adding headers, an electronic distributor, aluminum intake manifold, 1.6:1 roller rocker arms, a clutch fan, and a 750 cfm carburetor to the 360 engine in a ’70 Duster. In the end, they were rewarded with a 51hp gain at the rear wheels and a…

It began life as a very plain-looking 1950 Chevrolet ½-ton pickup, but this truck underwent major transformation after Spencer Murray bought it. The customization began in earnest in 1953 when Spencer began working for Rod & Custom magazine. Over the next several years, legendary names such as Gene Winfield, George Barris, and Dean Jeffries all performed custom work on the pickup—work that was thoroughly documented in the pages of Rod & Custom from 1953 to 1957. During that time, it went through several iterations, each with different paint schemes and body restyling. It even had fins reminiscent of a 1958 Cadillac Eldorado toward the end of its run in the magazine. On the show circuit, the truck collected numerous awards and was nominated one of the Top Customs of the…

Imagine spending more than $100,000 to build a truck, especially a truck from the ’90s. And that’s starting with a nice, low-mileage one. That just seems wrong, doesn’t it? That’s the world we live in now, however. In an era where a show-quality paintjob can cost $100,000, having a running, driving car for that same amount is a much better choice, especially if it’s one of these two Chevys built by Justin Keith, owner of Killer Performance in Kansas City, Missouri. While they may look relatively innocuous, you’d be sadly mistaken if you dismissed either one as just a lowered pickup with big wheels. You’d most likely be inhaling a cloud of tire smoke after getting absolutely destroyed by one of these pickups at the track or on the street. Lurking…

If we had done this five years ago, it would have been a flop,” stated Mark Oja in a serious tone. He’s not lying, either. The ’90s style and aesthetic has made a resurgence in the last couple of years, bolstered in part by car shows like Radwood that promote the aesthetic. It could also just be that things were simpler then, and people are longing for some of that carefree simplicity. No matter what the reason, Mark’s recreation of the Belltech truck was a resounding success when he debuted it at the SEMA show in 2019. The original Belltech truck was built specifically for the 1990 SEMA show. Jim Fairweather, owner of Belltech, purchased it new from Richard Hibbard Chevrolet in Claremont, California. It was finished in Tropical Turquoise, a…

Vintage F-Series Ford trucks have never been the first choice for a restomod. The Chevy C10 has a larger catalog for engine, body, and suspension parts, and the small-block Chevy is cheaper and more common than Ford’s early V8 engines. Times are changing as builders and manufacturers discover ’67-’72 fifth-generation Ford F-100 and F-250 trucks. Like the Chevy, these trucks were equipped with nice things like A/C, trim and interior packages, and the speed-friendly 390 FE and 302 V8 engines added later in the production run. Trucks were becoming more car-like, and because they were rear-wheel-drive and V8 powered, they were also becoming muscle-car-like. Jim Nygard knew this in 1976 when he was driving by a field in northern Minnesota and spotted a Rangoon Red 1968 F-250 4x4 parked outside. It was…