Hot Rod

I want to take time and space on this page again to thank everyone who has written in to voice their opinion on HOT ROD magazine, and the automotive aftermarket in general. We have received a lot of email, and a surprising number of handwritten letters sent via the US Postal Service. I am working my way through all of them and really do appreciate the constructive criticism. One question that’s been posed on several occasions is why don’t we wait to post articles to our website until after the print magazine comes out. Believe me, this is something I really wish we did a better job with! It really is counterintuitive to put articles and information out there free of charge before the paying customers get to see it. Ironically…

20 Years Ago July 2003: 114 pages, $3.99 Don Walsh, Jr. set both ends of the Pro 5.0 record (6.896/202.56) at the ’03 NMRA season opener and earned a cover shot by former HRM staffer turned NMRA employee Rob Kinnan to represent our look at the “World’s Fastest Cars” in various forms of motorsport. The round-up included the outright land speed record holder (Thrust SSC, 763.035 mph), the fastest NHRA Top Fuel and Funny Cars, F1 cars, CART, NASCAR, and World of Outlaws cars and, yes, the fastest drag racing imports. These were the days when HRM was experimenting with tuner-car editorial, and Editor-in-Chief David Freiburger’s Starting Line column and the Reaction Time letters department hotly debated the topic. Other speed-related stories in the issue included a report on the first doorslammers…

Funnies were money in HOT ROD in 1971. Not just Funnies. Drag racing was it, as far as cover cars were concerned. Eleven of the year’s issues had some sort of drag race car on the front cover, and six of those were Funny Cars. Don Prudhomme’s new Hot Wheels ’Cuda was not among them. In fact, The Snake was winless in NHRA Funny Car action throughout the year and into 1972 as well. It wasn’t until the middle of the decade, in his U.S. Army-sponsored Monza, that he dominated the FC ranks, winning 13 finals in 1975-76. But Prudhomme’s ’Cuda, along with rival Tom McEwen’s Mongoose machine, are near and dear to those of us who owned Mattel’s die-cast versions and put them through endless passes down those orange plastic tracks.…

Pro Touring is a label often slapped on any classic ride with plus-size wheels and a lowered stance, but that’s akin to calling any drag car with big ’n’ littles Pro Street. A real Pro Touring car is so much more—an amalgam of road-race handling tech mixed with enough street manners to make it nice to just cruise. It’s classic lines and cutting-edge technology in a car that can drag race, road race, autocross, or just haul ass down your favorite country road. Chris Smith, owner of Smitty’s Custom Auto (who we will just call Smitty), has built quite a few real-deal Pro Touring rides, and this 1970 Camaro has to be our favorite so far. The project started out as a donor shell from Gordon McGilton. It was from California…

Is it the journey or the destination? That’s a question worth asking when someone builds or restores a vehicle. In most cases, the simple answer would be the destination. A satisfying result at the end of that journey usually makes a person want to do it again, though maybe with a little less effort. For Shane McEllhenney, that meant searching for a completely different vehicle after the comprehensive restoration of his 1991 Camaro. The only criterion Shane had with the search was that it had to be Bow Tie flavored in some way, which was a brand preference ingrained in him at an early age. “I grew up in a GM family, working on cars and going to car shows and the local dragstrip. My grandfather worked as a mechanic and…

Is Erica Enders the best driver in the history of NHRA Pro Stock racing? You can decide for yourself, but there is mounting evidence to support her case. Before his untimely death in 2017, drag racing legend Bob Glidden publicly stated that Erica Enders was the best driver in the history of the Pro Stock class. Glidden was a 10-time world champion and an 85-time national event winner who wasn’t the least bit hesitant to freely offer an opinion. Glidden certainly knew a thing or two about Pro Stock, but was he correct? Is Erica indeed the best driver the Pro Stock class has ever seen? Better than Lee Shepherd? Better than Jeg Coughlin? Better than Bill “Grumpy” Jenkins, Ronnie Sox, Warren Johnson, Greg Anderson, or even Glidden himself? Now, as Enders celebrates…