Hey peoples, I am doing a speech for my speech cl*** about the history of hot rodding. Its just a 5 minute thing so i decided i'd ask the hamb for some suggestions. I'm looking for iconic people or cars or events that led to the first modified cars. i will be doing a search here and on google as well. thanks in advance for any tid bits of info you can share.
Try Chet Herbert, Ed Winfield, Ed Iskendarian, & Bob Rufi ... that'll get you started. Hot rodding started as soon as 2 guys with cars (or horses or canoes or ?) raced each other.
Why hotrodding n were it started?=I think for most,right after the idea of this maybe fun to ride in,comes the idea of how fast can I go an then how can I make it go faster.
If you take a look at the growth of hot rodding, two people a certainly behind all of the offshoots and core issue of our sport/hobby/business. First would be Wall Parks with the establishment of the SCTA and then the NHRA. Two venues that are still functioning today. The second would be Robert E. "Pete" Peterson who provided a voice for us in the original Hot Rod magazine. Before this all we had for racing automobiles was the AAA contest board. Hot rodding was a gr*** roots, word of mouth thing supported by random unrelated groups. Nobody would have heard of the names, products, and cars we all look on as the basis of things today if one had not organized and the other not published for wide distribution of the pioneer adventures. Hot rodders at Indy, hot rodders at the lakes and Bonneville, hot rodders like Fran Hernandez and Larry Shinoda in Detroit. Edelbrock and Isky from the lakes to major manufacturers and shakers in the industry. All of it is related back to those two visionaries. I don't think they saw themselves so, but time has shown they were. Richard Parks, Wally ' s sole surviving son and Jim Miller of the AHRF are both excellent sources for information. Bribe the other speakers for extra time because there is so much rich history to be shared. Just my two cents worth. The other people suggested are no slouched by any means either.
Your topic is way too broad (like many of mine were in speech cl***). Just an intro to the dry lakes era will take more than 5 min. If you are speaking to people with little hot rodding background, it may be easier to start with something they are familiar with, like funny cars or muscle cars. Most kids (say, under 30, at least for sake of argument) will think a 5 liter Mustang or an Accord-powered Civic is a hot rod, so don't ***ume they are familiar with rodding terms as we use them. If you want to stay in the HAMB era, try something like 'How the 1932 Ford became the iconic hot rod' or 'Hopping up Lizzie: hot rods of the 1920s'. BTW: some instructors mark down your speech if it is too long or too short. If that's the case, save the bribing...
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