Hot Rods on a Cold Day - Guests' Rides at POSIES Open House So what would make this car guy get up at 5am on a Saturday morning and drive 2 hours in temperatures struggling to make it into the 20s? FREE DOUGHNUTS! Well, that and a chance to hang out with other car enthusiasts at the POSIES annual open house. Posies Rods and Customs, best known for their Super Slide Springs, swung open their shop doors to the general public on the morning of Jan 9 from 8am until noon. Ken “POSIES” Fenical was there to greet everyone and treated us like old friends. This small shop, just a few miles outside of Hershey in Hummelstown, PA, likes to say they build “statements” rather than cars. “Anybody can restore an antique. . . it takes a real man to cut one up,” as one of their t-shirt says. A couple of their statements were out in the snow covered parking lot on display: the ’32 Ford based “Euroliner” and the ’72 Jaguar XKE “FlatCat”. All of POSIES’ statements are built to be driven. In fact, the Euroliner was...

Who was Joel Rosen? Ever heard of Baldwin-Motion? Or maybe just, "Motion Performance"? Back in the late 50's and early 60's, a young Joel Rosen finished high school at only 17 to begin college, but then joined the Air Force to get some more hands on experience. It was at Shepards Air Force Base where Rosen fine tuned his engine tuning and mechanical skills that he later used to hot rod his first car, a 1955 Olds 88 that ended up with a 4 barrel  and a McCullough supercharger. From there, Rosen bought his high school dream car, a fuelie 58 'vette, and used tune-up work and brake jobs to fund his real passion:  Build Motion Performance Super Cars. This new book by Motorbooks publishing, Motion Performance: Tales of a Muscle Car Builder by Martyn L. Schorr, a man who obviously was THERE, says: Mr. Motion was responsible for building, racing and selling the most outrageous low-volume-production, high-performance, new-car-dealer-delivered Chevrolets you could buy during those freewheeling decades. Baldwin-Motion Chevys have since become highly prized mega-priced collectibles that best define the Decade of Extreme Performance. This book is recommended by...

I'm sure many of you are under snow like me.  You lucky hosers in Socal and Arizona, I'm jealous.  Seeing the white stuff outside made me think of the white stuff 2 hours west of me, the Bonneville Salt Flats, also known as the "Great White Dyno".  I wanted to post up some pictures from Speedweek 2009.  They're not glamorous shots or anything, but they remind me of the mecca of hot rodding that is Bonneville and Speedweek that I experienced this past August.  I can't wait for 2010. The wait's over: Bonneville Speed Week 2010 – First Look This red Olds is cool.  Dig the aluminum sheet airdam, blower poking through the raked hood, Mooneyes decal and Moondiscs and the front windshield littered with Bonneville Speedweek stickers.  This was the first car I shot when I got on the Salt. This was the second car I saw.  Love the yellow with white walls against the white stuff.  This truck had a "Bean Bandits - San Diego" plate.  Super clean hot rod here.  Everyone's gotta have a Shop Truck! Love this roadster (I think maybe a model A by the...

Salt Flats Speed Shop in Orem, Utah is run by Chris Davenport, a metal fabrication and finishing craftsman and hot rod builder who is dedicated to building 1930's traditional hot rods.  Chris has been in business officially for about 2 years now and is attracting more and more customers as the word gets out about his affordable, high quality craftsmanship. "Need a Chop, a roof insert, fender, or a quarter panel? Well you've come to the right place. We'll fix all your cars issues, and have it looking as good in "bare metal" as it did when it was made." Chris (in the white shirt) showing us around his shop in Orem.  This is a customers 3 window coupe with suicide doors.  We dropped in on Chris Thanksgiving week.  He willingly took an hour or more to give us the full shop tour.  He explained all his tools, showed us all his projects and talked shop.  I could tell Chris is passionate about hot rods! I had emailed Chris letting him know that a friend and I wanted to drop in and check out his shop.  My friend, Gary, has a 1928 Model A Pickup of his own...

Diesel Powered Hot Rod at Viva Las Vegas   Photos by Swanee Diesel Rat Rod blowing pure Cummins smoke!   SEMA 2009 proved to be an extreme mix of automotive genius and variety.  Rat rods are becoming part of that creative pool. Rat rods, in general, are built solely from old parts and pieces that are deliberately left raw and natural.  Additional trinkets are added, leaving their patina to show.  The surge of this style of building is gaining support by a recent article by Car and Driver Magazine.  Check it out: Car and Driver Top 10 Favorites from SEMA 1928 Dodge 4 Door Rat Rod   Case in point, is this “Diesel Rat Rod”, a 1928 Dodge 4 door body, rusted and abused beyond restoration, was chopped and channeled onto a hand built frame.  Stepping way out of the box and into the next field, a retired 1998 Dodge pickup donates its motor, a Cummins 12 valve mechanical diesel engine.  The diesel motor produces plenty of horsepower and torque plus gets 20+ MPG. The diesel rod is the imagination of Steve Darnell, owner of a fabrication shop aptly...

This 1962 Ford Galaxie 500 was easily one of my top 3 favorite cars from Speedweek 2009.  I first noticed it in the pits then saw it again while Pikesan and I were cruising down the Long Course after the drivers meeting.  We sort of cruised the rest of the Long Course along side Nick and his Gal' then turned onto the Return Road back to the pits. Almost 7 miles from the start, we spied some pristine, undisturbed virgin salt and decided to make a detour for some salt-throwin' pictures Craig's '27 T, Nick's Galaxie and Nick's buddy's 5 window Coupe you see in this picture above. Here's some more shots of this Mild Custom! I love this car!  That red satin paint against the bright white salt is rockin'. I dig the long lines.  That stance is perfect with its Air Ride Technologies 4-way system with electronic controller. I dig this shot with Pikesan's roadster in the background. From Nick: "This car has been a great driver for the past 4-1/2 years. It originally had a 390/auto and I decided to swap in a 302/T-5 and 3.70...

Salt Flats Tribute Car: Boy do we have a treat for you guys?  I've wanted to do a "work in progress" story on Larry Volk's street roadster since I found out about it earlier this year.  It's finally progressed to a point where there's good progress  showing.  The Volk garage is part hot rod time warp, part skill and craftsmanship, and part inspiration. We'll get to the 1929 Ford Model A Roadster project car in a second.  First, let's talk time warp.  Larry and his family have been into racing and hot rods since the early 1950's.  He started out drag racing  and dirt sprint car racing.  His race buddy Terry Nish invited him out to the Salt Flats in the late 1950's/early 60's and that was it for Larry.  He's gone every year since (unless it was rained out) and his life has become engulfed in the Salt.  Currently Larry is in his second stint as President of the 200 MPH Club, Chairman of the Save the Salt Committee and current holder of the SCTA Bob Higbee Award given out at the Opening Ceremonies of Speed Week 2009. With all this and more, Larry's garage...

At SEMA, it's easy to find a great car, they're in almost every booth!  But like the 70 Chevelle with a Duramax diesel motor, it's a the different and sometimes unique builds that really get my attention.  That's what I found in this "Painless" Roadster Pickup. This style of roadster pickup, also called a "Truckster" was penned by well known hot rod artist Thom Taylor back in August of 2007 for Rod and Custom Magazine. The concept  is simple, but you're gonna get to know a sawzall and grinder real, REAL well to get it done. You take 50-70's pickup, then chop up the cab and the bed until proportions of a hot rod. Easy for Thom to say! I saw a Thom Taylor sketch in the pickup bed of this truck, so I'm sure he had a hand in the proportions, color and stance that make this truck one of my favorites from SEMA. So what is it? It started as a 1978 Ford Pickup. Recognize it?  From there, the cab was narrowed 16 inches, then the top and A-pillars were chopped off and the remaining cab shortened...

Run to the Pines - 2009 The 26th annual "Run to the Pines" car show was this past September 25th, 26th, & 27th, up in Pinetop, Arizona. It's a great getaway for a fun car show up in the cool pines. We had a good time, as usual, and the weather was perfect! The car show was fully booked again. The limit is 550 cars, so it fills up pretty fast. Even though most of the cars are from Arizona, there is a pretty good showing of cars from New Mexico, as well.  Money from this show goes to local charities in the White Mountain area. The Run to the Pines car show has donated over $220,000 over the years, to special needs in the community. The event kicks off Friday afternoon with a “Cavalcade of Cars”, where car show participants meet up at a place in Show Low, then cruise from there and parade through Pinetop to the Hon-Dah Casino, just outside Pinetop. Once there, they have a “Welcome Party” with free Bar-B-Q, door prizes, music, and live entertainment. Saturday is the main “Show & Shine” with lots of cool...

Andy from Andy's Pinstriping gives us 5 Steps for painting Vintage Door Art on Shop Trucks 1. The first thing I like to do is use some wax and grease remover and clean the panel to be painted. This simple step is honestly one of the most critical and most often overlooked steps in any paint project. . . . . 2. I like to make a stencil to help draw out the design. There are several methods I use to achieve the stenciled on pattern. One of the easiest ways is to use a pounce wheel & chalk, but on this particular truck I had no colored chalk, and obviously white wouldn't do, so I went old school on it and cut the pattern out of poster board with an exact-o knife....five blades and several blisters later ta-da, a handmade stencil. . . 3. Finally to the fun part, let's thrown on some paint! I start by tracing the pattern (after centering it on the door) with a stabilo pencil. After that it's pretty self explanatory...just fill in the spaces with the one shot color of choice. ....

Words and Pics  by Keith Harman Over here in the UK, the NSRA Supernationals has quickly risen to be the biggest and best rod run of the year on the British calendar. Its popularity is probably down to a combination of things, one certainly being the great venue, the run is in the grounds of Shuttleworth House, a stately home in Bedfordshire some 60 miles North of London, the site boasts plenty of shade, a great camping area and the added attraction of a vintage aircraft museum and preservation trust on the adjoining airfield. The run also attracts a great variety of rods and customs since the NSRA in the UK is not part of the American organization and is a volunteer- only non profit making proper club run by the members and for the members. To this end, faced with a smaller scene in a much smaller country, the club does not apply a pre-'49 rule but encourages members to run pre-72 cars, more like the Goodguy runs in the states. Despite thunder storms and heavy showers on the Friday of the weekend, there were plenty of rodders...

On August 8th, the Saturday evening during the NSRA Street Rod Nats in Louisville, Tim & Carrie Strange organized and put on the First Annual Hot Rod Industry BMX Challenge race at Derby City BMX. The idea was hatched this past winter while Tim was traveling the show circuit with a 1952 Buick, he had his BMX bikes in the front of the trailer at Detroit, when during tear down of the show, Dave Tucci from Tucci Hot Rods grabbed the bikes and started riding them. Carrie thought "we should put on a BMX race for Hot Rod Builders". Knowing that a lot of the younger generation of builders used to race, or ride BMX growing up, some have moved on to road bikes or mountain bikes for a hobby outside of the hot rod world. Well, Tim and Carrie are still familiar with and into the BMX world, as they both not only race but also run and support a team on the circuit through the Hot Rod shop. They discussed with different people that wanted to ride in it, "where do we put it on and during what event?",...