Gave Their Lives for Racing This video's a compilation arranged by Ryan over at Jalopy Journal. This is vintage racing video, and Ryan warns that in some cases, the drivers lost their lives. [vimeo]http://vimeo.com/20247765[/vimeo] Here's the original story called, "Killed Myself When I was Young" Check out more videos from days gone by here: Jalopy Journal Motion Pictures Thanks to my old buddy Swanee for the...

1961 Chrysler Hemi Nitro Dragster from the UK Story by Brian Taylor Sydney Allard’s 1961 Allard Chrysler dragster (source Crazy Horses, National Motor Museum, Beaulieu) Drag racing has come a long way since its beginnings in the USA during the late 1940's. And although it had a culture of straight-line sprinting (runs against the clock rather than a knock out competition) dating back to the early 1900's, Europe had to wait until early in 1961 before it saw its first dragster. It was born when British sports car manufacturer Sydney Allard stormed into the office, slammed a copy of a Hot Rod publication featuring Chris Karamesines’ Chizler dragster onto the table and announced, “We’re going to build one of these”. Sydney Allard, the father of British drag racing. (source Crazy Horses, Gavin Allard collection) The Allard Chrysler being built. Sydney Allard watches from the cockpit as designer David Hooper (left) checks the plans and John Hume (right) adjusts the steering. (source Crazy Horses, National Motor Museum, Beaulieu) There were no official drag racing regulations in existence in Europe at the time. Royal Automobile Club building regulations for cars used for...

Traditional Hot Rod and Custom Car History If you've never heard of the "Hirohata Merc" it's about time you did. The car started as a low-mileage 1951 Mercury Club coupe owned by Bob Hirohata. In 1952, Bob caught a glimpse of the chop Sam Barris put on his Mercury and that's all it took for Bob to drive the Mercury to Barris Kustoms for a full custom treatment. In the end, Sam Barris, brother George Barris and Frank Sonzogni transformed the Hirohata Merc into a Kustom Legend. Read all about it at Kustomrama.com. Link to the full story: Bob Hirohata's 1951 Mercury Kustomrama is a Wikipedia dedicated to traditional hot rods and kustom cars. It is an online encyclopedia covering all aspects of our kulture. Everyone is welcome to contribute and start new and interesting topics on the Kustomrama Wikipedia. Check it...

1933 Ford Street Rod Featured Ride I first shared a quick photo of Jim Baugh's light blue 1933 Ford Sedan Street Rod in the Salt Flats Speed Shop Open House story. When Jim pulled up to the shop, I immediately started taking pictures.  Let's have a closer look... First of all, this '33 was built with a mix of two styles, Street Rod and Traditional Hot Rod.  When Jim was telling all about his '33, he sounded almost disappointed that it was a Street Rod.  I think he's been bit by the Traditional hot rod style bug that is so prevalent at the Bonneville Salt Flats. The Street Rod comes from the  big 'n' little tires, a reliable 350 small block Chevy and TH350 auto trans and front disc brakes.  The Traditional Hot Rod style's evident from several features: the chopped top, fenderless hot rod rake, authentic Ed Roth laid pinstriping, heavily louvered decklid and solid front axle. So which is it? Who cares! Jim nailed the complete execution and made a long-haul driver at the same time. Jim drove his '33 from Washington state to Alabama (or was it Arkansas?) for a family...

Bonneville Salt Flat Racing Vintage Studebaker The moment my Studebaker and I drove out on to the salt this year during 2010 Speed Week, what was the first thing I did? Look for other Studebakers of course! And what was the first one I found but Gord Driedger's Blue Beauty. This 1953 Studebaker Coupe looks like she was born on the salt! In fact, this was her first time there - as well as Gord's! People end up on the salt from every corner of the earth it seems, and with all sorts of fascinating stories about how they got there. For Gord, his timely meeting with Blue Beauty happened while on vacation... in Napa of all places. Sitting on the patio, basking in the California sun, enjoying Napa wine, when suddenly Gord and his Wife's peace was disturbed by the loud sound of a racing engine. With salt flat racing on his bucket list, Gord went a-searchin'. The search led him to a neighboring garage. Not to the Studebaker, but to the guy who would put him in touch with #653. As it turns out, Blue Beauty was...

2010 Speed Week Hot Rod Shop Tour As Speed Week 2010 arrived, one of the events to attend for the local Utah natives and those making the hot rod pilgrimage to the Bonneville Salt Flats is the Open House at the Salt Flats Speed Shop.  Owner Chris Davenport, invited the guys from The Rolling Bones Hot Rod Shop. I arrived around lunch time and chatted with a few of the people who were enjoying the scene that the Salt Flats Speed Shop provides.  Chris has not only been working on his "shop car" 1932 Ford Tudor but has evolved his shop into a piece of hot rod art! The entire shop is a time machine.  Old metal crafting tools and equipment, vintage gas station signage, WWII type hangar aluminum sheeting and of course, the hot rod projects. Here's just one example of vintage signage.  So cool!  Chris was telling us he found a jackpot of a source that will go un-named. The front view of Chris' 1932 Ford Sedan rod built in the 40's and 50's Traditional Hot Rod style, Chris' specialty and passion.  Hundreds of individually stamped louvers! ...

Land Speed Racing History at the Bonneville Salt Flats [Malcolm Campbell's Bluebird, Land Speed Record setting car, circa 1927. Photo courtesy of the Florida Photographic Collection at http://ibistro.dos.state.fl] I think ever since engines were invented, men across the globe were seeing how fast they could get them to go. Eventually this became known as land speed racing. It was in 1898 that the first documented attempt for land speed racing was recorded. The man was the Conte de Chasseloup, the street was a long road outside of Paris, and the whooping speed that set the record was 39.24 mph! Since then we’ve been seeing how fast any sort of engine-powered, wheeled contraption would go…from empty roads, to Florida beaches, to Australian dry lakes, and of course… to salt flats in Utah. Why would so much effort be put into seeing how fast you can go? Quite apart from such factors as national prestige and technical advancement that are bound up inseparably with this Land Speed Record, there is satisfaction in knowing that you have driven faster than any other human being without any possible question of dispute. [p.13, The...

Datsun 510 Driver from Australia Datsun 510... I called it the Ultimate Japanese Classic Car in my "Hot Rod Ramblings Part 2".  Why?  I explained that it had all the right ingredients for a pure driving experience.  The Dime is lightweight, rear wheel drive, independent rear suspension (rare for those days), manual trans and high revving, efficient, over head cam 4 cylinder that was willing to rev.  Now, I know there's a lot of hot rod guys and gals out there that might be reading this, going "What is that car?"  or "What's that little 4 door doing here?" Let's take a look at a 1969 Datsun 510 four door owned by our web friend from Australia, Anth of Build-Threads.com fame.  His website has gone crazy in the last year or so.  He's also been busy updating and fine tuning his '69 510 as well. I love rolling shots like this.  The car doing what it does best, putting miles of asphalt and concrete behind it, quickly. Comparing this compact import classic with the domestic behemoths that we at MyRideisMe love so much... I can agree, land missiles like 60's Camaros, Mustangs,...

Bonneville Salt Flat Racing Studebakers I've already covered the two record-taking Studebakers for this 2010 Speed Week in previous articles of this Speed Seeking Studebakers series (#1 1953 Studebaker Coupe & #2 1949 Studebaker Pickup). So before looking at more racing Studes, I wanted to show you some of the fine Studebakers that spectators were driving around on the salt! To begin with, is Bob Weaver's 1953 Studebaker Coupe. I'm not sure color has as much to do with speed as the aerodynamics body of the Studebaker coupe - but in this case yellow=fast! My 5-year-old nephew exclaimed "Yellow cars are the fastest" while wandering around Gene Winfield's shop a couple of months ago, and in this case I'd say he's right! It isn't just the yellow color and aerodynamic body that's making this Studebaker go fast. This special Stude has a Chrysler Hemi powerplant! I was amazed at how snugly it fit in the engine compartment. This hot rod sure looks just as pretty under the hood as above it! Any Studebaker-fan knows that us Studebaker owners are a quirky bunch of folk! So I wasn't overly surprised...

Bonneville Salt Flat Racing Vintage Studebakers #898 obviously isn't a coupe, but it's still Speedy. And most importantly, it's a Studebaker! This 1949 Studebaker farm truck out of Kansas took the second of the two records for this years Speed Week. And break a record did it ever! With Chevy power under the hood in it's AA/MP class, the old record was blown away by nearly 18 miles per hour! Norris Anderson definitely knows how to build one, as he powered this truck down the line at 219.331mph! And you know what that means, its a record-breaking run over 200mph... so Norris Anderson gets his well-deserved Bonneville 200mph Club admission. He'll be a happy man wearing that red hat. In fact... he was already wearing it, even as he did broom duty around the pits! It looks like Norris Anderson and his Broom Crew have a lot of fun out on the salt! It was in 2004 that Norris first found the old farm truck and began building it into a salt flats racer in 2004. Their motto? "Safe Trucks Travel Fast." Start here for All Speed Seeking...

Bonneville Salt Flat Racing Vintage Studebakers Heading up the line of this year’s Speed Seeking Studes, is #4594. It may not be the prettiest out there, but what it’s got going for it is a Studebaker engine and multiple record-holdings!  Greg Meyer's from Minnesota brought his Salt2Salt Racing's 1953 Studebaker Coupe powered by a 182cid V8 Studebaker engine, putting it in the F/CGALT class. I think it was the only non-Avanti to have Stude power rolling it down the line! The engine class being F, means it’s got to be somewhere between 123-183 c.i.d (cubic inch displacement.) In order to get this engine’s c.i.d. down to 182 the Studebaker V8 was destroked, pushing it into the “F” class by just a hair! Although Greg reports they encountered a few problems and there's still more to do to get this particular engine running at its top speed, they were still able to set 2 records in their class by the end of the week. First with Greg driving in the F/CGALT catagory at 131.593. Then with partner-in-crime, Bob Waitz driving in the F/CFALT catagory (wounded engine and all) at 113.998mph! Good job Salt2Salt...

Car Show Pictures from Germany: I've got the latest scoop from our German Hot Rod informant, Pascal.  The German Street Rod Association (GSRA) is the only German club for street rod owners, which is now up to 300 members and was founded in 1993.  They have a website gsra.de you can check out, but its all in German.  Now, on to the sharp photos by Pascal and the rad hot rods from Germany. It's cool how 20's and 30's traditional hot rods can transcend time in any part of the world, as we've seen from Tano's '26 T Roadster with Olds V8 power to these rods in Germany. One of the traditional type rods that can be found worldwide is the Speed Shop truck.  I wonder if hot rodders from the 40's and 50's knew that their work trucks would be turned into street rods?  It makes sense though, I mean, you can hop up the big V8's they came with, you can slam them, put some chrome reverse wheels on 'em with baby moon caps and white walls, add the name of your speed shop and logo on the door...