Innholdsfortegnelse for Summer 2024 i Hot Rod

@john.mcgann Our Spring 2024 issue prominently featured Pro Street cars. Pro Touring is the antithesis, or some may say antidote, to that style of car. Where a Pro Street car embraces the look of a drag racer, a Pro Touring car adopts the look of a road racer. “Muscle cars that handle,” is a quick and easy aphorism that sums it up well. Of the two styles of car, I prefer the latter. I’ve always been a fan of road racing. Growing up, I caught the end of the Pro Street movement, where many of the cars had become caricatures of what the style had been. I was never a fan of the monochromatic paint scheme—the “dipped” look, so to speak—and I never understood the appeal of tweed interiors and…

As they’re two of the leading builders of their generation, the award-winning work of Mike and Jim Ring is something hot rod enthusiasts should always take note of. At SEMA 2023, their custom car business, Ringbrothers, debuted three stunning builds, including a unique 1961 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud. In some ways, that car’s rarity overshadowed what was undoubtedly the star of the show: this Hellephant-powered 1969 Charger called Tusk. Teaming up again with designer Gary Ragle, the Ringbrothers managed to take yet another fresh approach to a vehicle platform they’ve modified numerous times before. To a greater extent, their approach was dictated by the Hemi underhood, which had been installed at a different shop at the owner’s request before the car underwent a restoration. Not happy with the previous shop’s…

The hot rod truck scene has evolved at an accelerated rate over the last decade as more builders repurpose the humble work truck into a performance machine. The trend may have reached its pinnacle with the ZR/10 from Zach Ingram and Rod Parsons at ZRodz & Customs and Fiber Forged Composites. Built entirely from carbon fiber, the ZR/10 (Zach+Rod+C10) tips the scales at 3,000 pounds wet and boasts 850 hp from a Moran Racing Engines 434ci Dart LSX, putting it in supercar territory. Created to race, Kyle Tucker from Detroit Speed will get behind the wheel for some time-attack and wheel-to-wheel racing events such as the Optima Street Car Challenge, Goodguys autocross, Gridlife Time Attack, and SCCA autocross whenever the opportunity arises. The path to the ZR/10 was a long…

Even though leaf springs are a carryover from the horse-and-buggy days, they can pack more performance than you would expect. But even the best leaf spring arrangement is an exercise in compromise. The biggest issue is unpredictable geometry during hard cornering, where the rearend of the car gets forced from one side to the other. Add big power and leaf springs can have a hard time maintaining proper pinion angle. The faster you go, the more problems need to be dealt with. Enter the aftermarket, where a new, modern suspension is just a few clicks away. Bolt-on kits can solve many leaf spring issues, but if you want to step it up and delve into a bit more cutting and welding, then you can really add a ton of performance,…

HOT ROD’s slogan is “Where it All Began,” but putting a tag on the origins of Pro Touring is like trying to hit a Justin Verlander fastball with a wiffle-ball bat—a difficult task, but we’ll take a swing at it. The original idea revolved around performance cars built to do everything well and still deliver as practical highway stars or even daily commuters. Clearly, the movement has gained substantial notoriety; there’s even a Wikipedia entry on it. The classification is far less precise than any dictionary definition, and it is that open-endedness that makes Pro Touring so appealing. Though first aimed at muscle cars from the ’60s and ’70s, any car—or truck—is fair game for conversion. The initial approach included fat tires and large-diameter wheels at all four corners, big…

To build a great car, you need to come up with a great plan. Having a build blueprint will ensure that the result winds up looking the way you envisioned it. With a pro-touring build, all the various bits need to work together not only to hit the mark in terms of handling and performance but also in terms of style. There’s a fine line between a cutting-edge design and one that will look dated in a few years. Actor and comedian Kevin Hart loves his hot rods and had several of them debut at the 2023 SEMA Show in Las Vegas, including this stunningly classy 1969 GTO built by Detroit Speed (DSE) in Mooresville, North Carolina. The project took the name Droppa from Hart’s rap name, “Chocolate Droppa”. Hart…

There’s nothing more exhilarating than the throaty sounds of a vintage Trans-Am racer carving its way through a road course as it downshifts into the legendary corkscrew at Laguna Seca Raceway. The scent of race fuel and rubber adds to the adrenaline rush that leaves an indelible mark on anyone who has experienced it. That passion inspired Steve Ramsey of Fallston, Maryland, to create that combination of vintage looks and potent performance in this wicked ’63 Ford Falcon GT. The Falcon’s diminutive size made it a perfect model to transform into a modern-day Trans-Am-style asphalt-burner by packing every inch of it with a speed shop’s-worth of go-fast goods and making it ferocious on the street, road course, or even the dragstrip, while delivering plenty of dependability. A retired Ford dealer,…

There was a time when the best you could do with your chassis would be to swap out to better bushings or maybe perform some race car trick like the Gulstrand mod to mess with the suspension geometry a bit. Then tubular control arms hit the market with the promise of even greater changes to the suspension geometry of our classics. Why? Well, even classic cars like SS Camaros, AAR ’Cudas, and Shelby G.T. 350 Mustangs weren’t designed to handle at the levels we expect from performance cars today; they were built as fun, fast (for their day) transportation. Aftermarket bolt-on parts certainly helped, but they were still constrained by the designs of their chassis and subframes. Stock chassis like the one shown here weren’t designed to hold up to…

Over the years, we’ve seen hundreds of father-and-son projects. Readers might rightfully be skeptical about the degree to which some of these younger team members do the heavy lifting. A father’s love for his offspring knows no bounds, so it comes as no surprise that in many cases, the son or daughter is along for a ride on easy street. Nepotism does exist in hot rodding, but a few pointed questions usually weed those cases out after a minute or two. Make no mistake, in the case of Russell and Cavan Cameron of Noblesville, Indiana, hot-rodding is a true team effort with the added dimension of scholastic achievement, and as you’ll discover here, that’s not hyperbole. Luck had young Cavan Cameron growing up at ground zero. His father, Russell, is…

There’s a point in every project where it takes on a life of its own. This is one of them, and since it was my child, I get to go all first-person as the proud parent. The 1971 Malibu wagon you see here had several lives in its journey from bone-stock to crazy idea, to crazier idea, and as we built it over at Super Chevy magazine, many people had a hand at turning it into this pro-touring beast of a wagon. It all started nearly two decades ago with a wagon owned by Yancy Johns. He had it painted Mustang Mineral Grey, added the Chevelle SS hood, and sent it to us for a basic bolt-on LS-Swap and pro-touring work-over. Global West suspension, JRi shocks, and an LS3 backed…

Of you wanted to trace a young hot-rodder’s trip through the performance industry, thinking, “Hey, I’d like to follow in this guy’s footsteps,” Mark Stielow would be a good guy to track. For this author, the fun part of doing this interview was that it was just calling up an old friend and talking cars—except in this case, I’m talking with the director of motorsport competition for General Motors, worldwide. Mark’s career started while still in college, with a last-minute application for an internship with GM that, because of his early automotive experience, almost immediately had him working on the 1LE program developing suspension and brake parts for the third-gen Camaro and Firebird. After graduation, he worked at GM for a few years then left for a short time to…

Earlier in this issue, former HRM editor Jeff Smith walked us through the history of Pro Touring, from its earliest appearance in magazines to becoming a motorsport phenomenon that includes the prestigious Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational. He poses this question, the same that has been asked about Pro Street and its drag racing version: When does it stop being Pro Touring and morph into something else? HOT ROD’s Steven Rupp says Pro Touring is merely achieving better performance and/or a road racing-style look with a vintage muscle car from the ’60s or ’70s. Obviously Mark Stielow helped generate interest and excitement for this type of build. Then there was the famed “Big Red” Camaro owned and driven by RJ Gottlieb, which simply crushed the supercars during the Silver State…