Are domestics the only hot rods?

With the latest closing of the VW in hot rod mag thread, I began to wonder,are domestics the only "classified" hot rods? I'm not real knowledgable about the terminology and classifications. I'm not biased either way just thinking there are some slick cars out there,and it seems a bit segregated some manufacturers get left out.After all we droll over the Delagio's and bugatti's but frown on the VW's. Please set me straight.

 

...just not what this board is about... theres plenty of vdub, sportscar, monstertruck, and musclecar sites around, hell anything you can think of has a site. Ya gotta draw the line somewhere.

 

There have been some kick ass Austin Healey's, Triumphs, MG's, Jags and others with some serious engine transplants. AC Cobra? One of my favorites was a 37 MG TA with a V8-60 in it. And a lot of the influence for 50's and 60's American sports racers came from English sports car themes. Anglia drag cars? Bantam roadsters?

There were a couple of threads awhile back that had some reference to the Pre-war Mercedes race cars. Absolutely beautiful cars that had a lot of design influence on hot rod builders.

Can you do a foreign hot rod? Sure! I'm just waitng for someone to take a late 60's - early 70's Mercedes 250C coupe and drop in an LS1/T56...

 

I'm sure larry's correct but let me try to explain. Prefaced by my like of VW's.

I think the problem lies in the year in which they were customized or hot-rodded. vw's were more of a 70's craze which would put them out of this sites basic genre. other imported cars are in this sites genre. take anglia's and fiat topolinos for example. they were made into drage cars in the late 50's early 60's right up til today

 

The first VWs were imported into the US in 1949. I would bet that the first custom one was probably around 1950...lol (quote: the first bicycle race occured as soon as the second bicycle was built)
The problem is that the American hot rodders of the '50s wanted nothing to do with the "German" built car. (remember WWII?)

 

Furrin cars, even the occasional VW, were always around on the fringes of rodding even after the early 1950's separation of rodders and sporty car folks...I remember a cartoon of Road&Track's office in the early days...with a deuce frame leaning against the building!

Some of the early mags covered rods and sportscars side by side, and not just the specials powered by American engines...I think the separation may have been declared by the sporstcar folks after a sports club hillclimb was won by two '34 Fods, though...
At the dead center of American rodding, HRM, questions about Porsches and even Ferraris turned up in tech...US engine swaps into Healys were covered, and I remember a fascinating tech article on swapping a VW engine and trans into an even smaller and more God-forsaken rear engine eurocar for roadracing. Isky was the guru for Jag and Healey cams...the separation was never complete, and I was always a bit aware of furrin car tech from reading rod magazines when I was a kid. I did, though, thoroughly enjoy sports car defeats...those '34 Ford roadracers, the '62 NASCAR Galaxie defeating (or just crushing??) the Ferraris in A sports...

 

Ryan likes to post about design, the early Mercedes, Ferraris, chairs, toasters, etc......
The VW, like it or not, was just as great of a design......

 

The VW shares something with the 1908-48 Fords...it was a cranky outsiders design, running contrary to the trends and pretty much refusing compromise. Porsche was every bit as crazy and brilliant (and dangerous) as Ford, and like old Fords, old VW's can be run hard and modified with the original design kept fundamentally intact, while their period competitors are strictly old crocks.

 

To me, a hot rod is when someone puts heart and soul into a car that already had spirit.
Shit, that sounds good, I'll have to remember that one!

 

VW based trikes are hot rods.

 

Speaking of which...

 

They're not hot rods, but VW's definitely share a part of our car world. Lowered Creme and baby blue 61 ragtop with fuchs wheels and a wooden roofrack is one of my future dream projects. It wont cost much and will be a blast to drive. But I grew up in San Diego so it may just be bred into me.

 

Anglia and Thames!

Fiat Bantams!

Just a few Cool Rides

 

A VW can be just as much a hot rod as a '32 Ford. Because the car was built in Germany makes no difference. I've seen quite a few Bugs with period correct hot rod parts from the late '50's & early '60's that looked great. The early models are great, especially the '55 to '62 models.

I don't know how someone can heap praise on the Corvair in another thread and then say a VW isn't in the same class of car. Heck, the Corvair was built because of the VW Bug.

 

The term "hot rod" is a mid-twentieth century slang term used to discribe a vehicle rebuilt or modified for increased speed and acceleration.

So I guess a "foreign car" that has been rebuilt or modified for increased speed and acceleration would be a hot rod.

Lots of Anglias, Thames, Prefects, Holdens, etc have been hotrodded over the years. It's not where it was built or what brand name it has, but what ya do with it that makes it a hot rod.

 

There's always been alot of comments regarding VW's being accepted here and there's always been alot good points made on both sides. Personally, I love a good VW. We have one in the shop that's about to get painted and there's no way that car isn't a hot rod. Any car that can pull the front wheels off the ground like this one can qualifies to me.

The issue with this forum is that the site is dedicated to traditional hot rodding in the era before 1965ish. Not to say that VW's and other imports weren't hot rodded in that time but it wasn't common (i,e: not the norm for what was happening in California at the time). That's why they get treated like a leper around here.

 

imports are fine for guys that can't afford a REAL hot rod

 

I remember going to a Tridents car show and standing in one spot, the closest cars to me were the original Chrisman Coupe,(pre-Barris' Dobie Gillis Special) Ron Aguire's Bubble top '57 Corvette and a Fiat with an Allison V12 engine and the drivers seat sorta in the back window.
Also at that show was a front engine "hotrod" SBC powered VW. And there was a guy who usta drive a mid engine Hemi powered VW on the street. I remember that one because he put away a friend's brand new 396 Chevelle two lights in a row.
But that dates that car as being too "new" for what we focus on here.
We stop at the dawn of the Muscle cars, for that reason.
They "cheated"!?

Jeffries drove a customized Porsche, and lots of "hotrod" Allards and other "specials" like Chevy V8 powered Austin Healey were raced

The fact is, guys built hotrods out of whatever was most readily available and easiest and cheapest to modify for a race win and "foreign" cars just weren't that common here, at all!

Guys used the tiny Topolino and Metropolitan bodies on competition coupes, but more common was a Bantam or American Ausin body, and they were basically just a body fastened to a "rail job" to qualify for the race class, similar to how funny cars are today.

One thing I think is borderline hillarious is back in the50-60's the Restorer's had about the same amount of animosity for any hotrodders as todays "Traditional Hotrodders" have for the Boyd/Billet type cars.
It'll all fluctuate up and down, back and forth till the fuckingovernment bans them all from existance.

 

Keep this in mind as I start my latest project, the Fiat Fiasco.

 

There's a fine line...what's more "traditional": a glass '32 Ford with an LS1/6-speed or a period-correct 60s Fiat (or whatever)? To me, a cool "hot rod" is something that the average Joe would have had back in the 50s/60s, and that is always going to be an early American car.

 

Anglia

Austin

Topolino

Morris

Bantam ( dont have a pic of one... )

 

The pic of the Fiat blowing it's guts is one of my Favs!!!! It's like the driver is looking down like "WTF?"...hahahaha!!!!!

 

Richard Bays' Fiat 600 with Porsche engine called the Giant Killer was a hot rod. Build in the '60s and ran at Lion's. Absolutely a hot rod. But it's only appropriate here because of its racing pedigree.

 

Those cars are a real part of Hot Rodding.

And even the body styles that were used less, are real Hot Rods...

 

I'm digging those Volvos!!!!
A few pics of possibly the most well known VW drag car....

 

I didn't post any V-dub pics on purpose...

But I could...

( the cars in these pics are also Hot Rods, IMO..)

 

herbie surely was a hotrod

 

No.


But if you want to see some Non Trad, High performance VW's...

Here are some pics.

All of these are V8 Powered ( SBC, and DFV the Cosworth built Formula1 Engine...), except for the Fittipaldi Bi-Motore.
It had 2 Flat 4's end to end, and it was fast enough to hang with Lola T70's and Cars like that....

 

Seems to me, the May '65 issue of Rod & Custom, has kind of a turquise color cover, and the cover story is all about custom and hopped up VW bugs. The May issue probably came out in April (I wasn't around then to know if the lead time was just as long as it is today) and the articles were probably photographed, etc. in February or March, if not earlier.

That's pretty darn close to the 1964 cutoff.


Same issue has a nice chart of American V8 engine weights, too, if I remember correctly.

 

Is that a Messerschmitt I see there?