Are domestics the only hot rods?

Actually, the '64-5 emergence of the Manx type buggy--hopped VW was part of a whole group of trends, including Karts--mini bikes--super stocks--musclecars--funny cars that rapidly gained momentum 1960-66 and pushed traditional rods, customs, and gassers right out of the magazines and off of the streets and strips...
I think it all started at R&C as I watched in horror...the editors all discovered about 1961 that they could hit the asphalt or dirt with a Kart or mini-bike with about the amount of money and effort that would finish one lousy headlight bracket on their roadsters, and that was it...

 

Yes...

 

Thank you Metalshapes.....great pics!
I've never seen the one in the BW photo....Altered class??? Any details on it?? Definitely looks FAST!
Got any pics of kitcar-type bodied drag cars.....Devin, Scarab, etc???

 

Cant remember where I found that pic....

 

I started a new Thread for those...

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2048122#post2048122

 

When someone says "traditional hot rod" these are the cars that come to my mind (in no particular order):

Anglia/Thames
32-34 Ford
Model A Ford
Model T Ford
40 Ford Coupe

Yes...of course, there were plenty of other brands/years of "traditional hot rods", but to me these represent the top of the heap and define the category. It is significant, at least to me, that one of these is a non-U.S. built make.

 

wasnt bantom an american company?

 

Yes.

But the Bodystyle that was used in Dragracing was a Licence Built Austin.

 

I don't really think were an car or its parts orignated from really make it a Hot Rod.

Its about character, haha.

Actually some of my favorite vehicles were 60's and 70's Euro/Asian micro-cars.

 

What's not hotrod about this VW? Chopped, dropped, cheater slicks,
V8-60 out back? I know domestic ratrods that don't have as much tradition as this thing does!

 

That looks like a Super Bug to me ( round Windshield, mcPherson Struts out front )

So all that Tradition doesn't go back any farther than 1971...



That car doesn't do it for me...

 

I think everyone has their own definition of what a hot rod is. MY kid has his "race truck" (low 10.0s and 135 mph)......and his HOT ROD, a 1951 shoebox. He KNOWS which is which.

 

Yep Superbeetle, rounded windsheild came in around '73/4, '71 still had a flat windsheild, even on SB's........

The one above has a ???? chop as well..........

 

71 was the only year (in the US) that the Super Beetle had a flat windshield.
BTW, the original "Inch Pincher", the one that the above poster correctly identified as the most famous VW racecar of all time, was originally built for road racing. In fact, in conversations with EMPI founder Joe Vittone ( still alive at age 82, and sharp as ever) it was DRIVEN from Riverside, CA, to Florida, where it was shipped to the Bahamas, and Dan Gurney drove it to a win in the 1963 Nassau Gran Prix (so we are still pre-'64).. The factory sponsored teams (Jaguar, MG, etc) were so pissed that a VW Bug won the Gran Prix, they protested the win and the car was "outruled" for having "non stock valve springs" (like all the factory cars were bone stock, yeahRIGHT)....
So the car was returned to Riverside, and Dean Lowry got to thinking he oughta do something with that ol' VW sitting in the shop... so he decided to go drag racing with it..
The rest is pretty well-known history.
Right before Carlsbad Raceway was closed, I had the opportunity to dig around the old, broken-down, mobile home that was on the property. In there, I found a check stub for Street Eliminator payout,dated July 13th, 1968, in the amount of $150.00... Z28? SS396? Medium Riser 427 Ford? Nope, the check was made out to Dean Lowry. That payout stub is in my collection of VW shit I just can't bring myself to get rid of...

 

Dean used to hang around at the old Tucson Dragway around 1980, his daughter raced a bug...it was fun watching her break it every weekend....

 

I rebuilt my Ghia engine on the kitchen table.

 

When I was a kid back in 1963 one of my buddy's drove a Hillman sedan that was pretty cool.

 

You can't tell me that the chopped, blown SBC mid engined VW bus that was driven to Bonneville, raced there, and driven home is'nt a hot rod!

 

delahaye.................my favorite.............ummmm

 

I heart my '59 Datsun!

 

Keep knocking the cars on the "fringe" of our hobby that clearly had their place in what we call traditional. Just don't complain when you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a Deuce or tri-5 Chevy at every strip and car show, even the fiberglass ones. Conformity....kinda sad.

 

No, Delahaye is actually my favorite foreign car.

 

No, Delahaye is actually my favorite foreign car.

 

i'm not saying this to insult anyone in anyway but i think it boils down to IGNORANCE and PREJUDICE.

FACT: there have been Beetles in the U.S. since January 1949 when Dutchman Ben Pon started importing them to the states.

FACT: they were light weight and inexpensive cars much like the Willys, Anglias, Henry Js, Bantams and the like and thus were prone to being modified into "Gassers" in the 60s just like the others. (of both foreign and domestic decent).

FACT: there are alot of things less traditional than a "hot rodded" VW Beetle that are on this board every day and that are accepted with nobody even paying notice.

my personal belief is that the reason we did'nt see more of them modified into gassers (there were plenty though) is because they did not have a traditional frame and were rear engined thus making the switch to a front engine V8 a bit more of a challenge than many of the other cheap light weight cars of the day. still some adventurous souls DID in fact stuff V8 engines in the fronts of these cars (and a dif out back) and go drag racing in the early 60s. some even more clever rodders pumped all the power they could out of the little horizontaly opposed air cooled 4 cylinder engine original to the little V-Dub and raced them against other much more powerful cars of the time, and often won. i've got some early 60s hot rod mags to prove it!

now i've never seen an old magazine with a dropped axle fenderless Beetle in it (but i do like the look) but i've also never seen alot of the other hot rods that are trying to be passed off as "traditional". i'm talking about the 30s-40s truck cabs and sedan bodies that have been severaly chopped and heavily channeled over a tube frame that has been radicaly Z'd with skulls and spider webs EVERYWHERE. i'm not knockin em and some of them i enjoy. i'm just sayin.
this whole "traditional" thing has been seriously perverted to the point were i don't think that most people REALY have a clue what is and is not traditional. and then we get into the whole "traditional to what period" thing.

my personal belief is also that people reject the VW based "hot rods" because the VW has such a strong following all it's own. thats sad realy cause most of these VW hot rodders are being rejected by the hardcore VW folks aswell.

this whole contraversy thing is silly and juvenile. i don't think it would be a big deal at all on this board if the folks that did'nt like em did'nt bitch so fuckin much and every post mentioning them did'nt get shut down. i see ZERO difference between a 50s or 60s Beetle turned hot rod and an Anglia or Fiat or Vespa or whatever other non-U.S. manufactured car of the era being turned into a hot rod... thats just my opinion though.

 

That car is the first of two VW-bodied cars built by the Mori brothers, Butch and Gene. It was built around '59-'61 and raced until they built the second car in '65. That first car was on a '39 Willys truck chassis running a 301 small block/4 speed combo. The second car was on a home built chassis and first ran a 301/4 speed, then a 350, then a 427. They switched to a clutchflight transmission and got the car into the high 9's. They later switched to a Mopar 440 and ran their best time in '72 with a 9.47 @ 147mph.

If interested, there's more info about the cars and the Mori brothers here:
http://www.volksrods.com/forum/showthread.php?p=136146&highlight=mori#post136146


This is the first car against Richard Petty in, I believe '65:



The second car:

 

Scott...thanks for the info! I really like that one.......
KB---agree whole-heartedly.....isn't there a Hamber building a "gasser-type" VW on a 2x4 frame????
VW's come off the pans so easy, it's a wonder that MORE weren't built as dragsters/altereds/etc....seeing how most other bodies, steel/glass, were drapped over tube frames anyway.....

 

I'm sure it's just because you're not into late model fat chicks .... but ..... '72 Supers had flat windshields too.

 

Should pull that off with a Ford Festiva.

 

Does the attached look like it might make a trad hot rod. It is a Ford Model Y, designed and made in England for release in 1932. Edsel Ford saw it there and had it scaled up to the full sized 1933-4 Ford for release in the USA.