Curb Service in Sacramento...
I’m closing out my ‘Ford at Fifty’ article series today, but I thought I would share this great little bit about how the City of Sacramento was growing up, getting bigger and [...]
Valley Custom Introduces The Street Rod
In the July, 1958 issue of Car Craft Magazine, Neil Emory and Clay Jensen introduced their idea of a “street rod.” The two custom brainiacs saw the traditional hot rod roadster as a [...]
Race Cars On The Street
As you all well know, lately I’ve been dreaming about taking a vintage road car and converting it into a street car. My dreams have mostly been relegated to C1 and C2 Corvettes, early 60’s [...]
Holdin' Cups
A few years ago, I was at the Hot Rod Cinematic and found myself studying a very well done ‘32 3w. It was a casual hot rod, but a lot of time and energy was spent on the details. You know the [...]
Sports Car Racing - 1963
Lately, I’ve been obsessing on late 50’s and early 60’s road race cars. I’ve always thought it would be pretty incredible to own and drive one of these cars on the street. My [...]
Birth of a Flathead...
Can you imagine seeing an endless stream of brand new flathead motors rolling down the assembly line all day long? Up to eighty fresh engine blocks every hour? When I think of the sweat equity that [...]
The 60 Year Wait...
Mark Murray’s grandfather was a hot rodder and, lucky for us, an amateur photographer. In 1950, he made the trek to the Bonneville Salt Flats and brought along with him his trusty camera stuffed [...]
Harley Earl + Bonneville...
Hot Rods have been influencing Detroit car designs since the early 50’s- Hidden door handles, hide away headlights, frenched head & tail lights, even chopped and sectioned bodies on [...]
Another Forgotten Roadster
Last week, we talked about Bud’s little ‘T’ Roadster and how it essentially fell through the cracks of history. The idea of that car’s inconsequential past and present sort of [...]
1941... Swag
I had a crazy weekend and didn’t have much time to put together a post for this morning. So instead of filling you with hot rod and custom goodness, I figured I’d pitch the latest swag to [...]
The Doug Caruthers Modified
Yes, this is the famous Chrisman Brother’s dragster you all know and love. In the late 30s, this car was created by Harry Lewis as one of the first purpose-built “Modified” racers. [...]
Plastic Toy Hot Rods
I just got back from the Toy Fair in NYC, for work. One thing I really enjoyed checking out was all the die cast cars from 1/64 all the way up to 1/16. Since the late 60s, die cast has been about the [...]
The Daily Driver
The drive from my house to The Jalopy Journal World Headquarters is a peaceful 10 mile jaunt through the small town of Dripping Springs, over a few hills, and down a couple of country roads. [...]
The Unknown Roadster
In the May, 1956 issue of Rod & Custom Magazine the fellas at Quinn Publications featured a ‘T’ roadster built by Bud Parham of Portland, Oregon. Even though the car made the cover of [...]
The History Of Los Angeles
Jimmy is a relatively new member that recently spent a ton of time scouring the photo archives of the Los Angeles Public Library. In doing so, he found hundreds of photos from the 1930’s and [...]
The Eliminators, 1968
I’m betting that many of you have already seen this video before. I saw it for the first time on VHS about 15 years ago – right around the time that the DVD revolution started. Of course, [...]
The Perfect Valentine's Day Gift?
I’m always trying to get another old car ‘for the wife’- All the cool little cars that could be deemed too cute for a greasy guy: Porsche 356 Speedster, MGA, Triumph TR3 and the [...]
Take That Mrs. Lauren
The December, 1953 issue of Rod & Custom Magazine features one of my favorite 39/40 coupes of all time. Doug Rice’s car (kind of a refined version of another favorite) was built to be low [...]