Carspotting: Tommy Smothers Goes Drag Racing
The 2023 death of Dick Smothers reminded longtime motorsports fans of the short-lived Smothers Brothers Drag Racing Team. The 12-second Super Stock/Stick Oldsmobile that brother Tom personally drove to near-record times at the 1968 NHRA Nationals was ...
Carspotting: Could Unrestored Vintage Doorslammers Be The Next Big Thing?
In the 1970s, when dial-your-own E.T. brackets were bursting with owner-modified pony cars not subject to traditional classification guidelines, every town in America had one of these. Redding, California, still does: this time capsule of a street-'n'...
Carspotting: The GTR Was The First Knockoff Cheetah
Even before Bill Thomas's Cheetah factory burned down on September 9, 1965, this young couple was making and drag racing the virtually identical GTR prototype. Bill Thomas Race Cars had contracted with Marv and Darlene Eldridge's Fiberglass Trends to ...
Carspotting: Where Studebakers Never Go Out Of Style
There's no better background than Utah's salt flats for photographing a colorful hot rod or vintage race car. Still today, there's no racing playground as level for an ancient Studebaker as Bonneville's full-bodied classes. The photographer seen combi...
Carspotting: His Outlaw Made Ed Roth The King Of Kustomizers
Ed Roth broke the mold for hot-rod roadsters by making molds for a radical and polarizing Model-T body. Cashing in favors and scouring junkyards kept Big Daddy's cash outlay under a grand in 1959 money, including the built Cad V8. While rival kustomiz...
Carspotting: “Nothing To See Here, Officers!”
Had these cops opted to pull him over, it wouldn't have been the first time that Ron Patrick calmly explained that his otherwise-stock New Beetle transported "old helicopter engines" to and from a home repair shop. He'd even offered to lead skeptical ...
Carspotting: The Last Ride, Interrupted
What a sad, rude destiny for unwanted vehicles that once rode trailers as shiny new cars and trucks. This batch appeared to be abandoned on a frontage road, no tractor in sight. Whatever registration sticker was last affixed to the flatbed's Californi...
Carspotting: An Unfair Advantage In The Marathon
The world's loudest downtown parade occurs each fall in hot rod-friendly Escondido in San Diego County. Nitro Night is the eye-watering, eardrum-pounding conclusion to a summer series of Friday cruising. Period-correct nitro-burners faithfully reenact...
Carspotting: Germany, By Way Of California
One positive result of the 1973-74 energy crisis that reduced Middle Eastern imports and doubled U.S. fuel prices was the miserly Volksrod created by dragster-builder Kent Fuller. Rod & Custom magazine covered his merger of an American T-bucket with t...
Carspotting: Count The Imports In The Pomona Parking Lot
Here you go, Carspotting regulars: an amateur photographer perched atop Pomona Raceway's grandstands got the shot on 35mm transparency film. Aside from the occasional Volkswagen or the random Volvo, you can see why "underpowered imports" were consider...