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Posted
Dec 05 2011, 05:00 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 13 comment(s)
With Dino's Mooneyes Japan coverage in full swing, I thought now would be a great time to publish a contrasting story, showcasing some European Hot Rodding. It's always interesting to see how different cultures around the world remix, rework and replicate their ideas about foreign car scenes. I'm sure any of you who live in the west but are fans of Japanese car scenes know exactly what I'm talking about. We see some type of car action in a far away land, and either draw inspiration...
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Posted
Nov 20 2011, 11:00 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 3 comment(s)
A few days ago, we received an email from Daryl Scott, a photographer from Seymour, Indiana correcting a recently published story on the "Steam Punked" hot rod I recently shot at SEMA. It turns out that I had incorrectly credited my favourite SEMA 2011 build, it was actually constructed by Slaughterhouse Customs and is called The Jackal. I hereby stand corrected!...
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Posted
Nov 11 2011, 10:30 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 19 comment(s)
It's likely that Henry Ford would roll over in his grave, if he could see what people were doing to his beloved Model As. It makes you wonder what people will be doing to Honda Civic shells eighty years from now. Transformed into flying cars? Recycling bins? Teleportation pods? This 1930 Model A sedan has been so severely recreated as a zombified Hot Rod, it's hard to see much of the original machine. But I think this is the appeal! It's a great example of the Steam Punk styled creativity...
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Posted
Aug 27 2011, 01:00 AM
by
Linhbergh
with 9 comment(s)
Walking through the H.A.M.B Drag event at Mo-Kan Dragway in Ashbury, Missouri, feels like being lost at the NHRA Drag Racing Museum . These traditional hot rods are immaculate in all forms from the white tire side walls to the elaborate interiors. Sometimes I feel like even the rust is authentic, I don't know how they get the rust to pop out of the hot rods like that. They must have a wax on and wax off rust edition :> The history of these cars is what gives them their special aura. We all...
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Posted
Aug 23 2011, 09:00 PM
by
Linhbergh
with 39 comment(s)
If you build it they will come. Famous lines from the movie, "Field of Dreams," except, on this occasion, replace the baseball field with a drag strip. In 1962, a part of the corn field was removed in Asbury, Missouri and in it's place is a drag strip that has been active since that day. Mo-Kan Dragway is the home of the annual H.A.M.B Drags where traditional hot rods, dragsters, gassers, rails, and bikes put down their quarter mile time and compete against each other. When some of...
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Posted
May 26 2011, 12:00 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 22 comment(s)
I remember back in August 2008 I spent three weeks travelling across Japan, sampling different aspects of its vibrant car culture. It was an eye opening trip, as I got to see for real, the culture that, up until that point, I had only read about. I have a quick story from that trip I want to tell you about to illustrate a point. For the first week of the Japan Speedhunters trip we were hosted by the fine folks at Team Orange. Every night they would take us around the local areas, sampling different...
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Posted
Nov 26 2010, 10:03 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 12 comment(s)
My next Car Spotlight comes from the Long Beach Motorama back in September. At first glance this car looks like your typical "rat rod" or "suicide rod", but this wasn't built out of a common Ford or Chevy. No, this thing started life as a 1956 Austin Taxi....
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Posted
Sep 30 2010, 04:00 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 20 comment(s)
How many of you consider Speedhunters to be an American website? Quite a lot I would imagine? Perhaps you'd be surprised to know that Speedhunters HQ is in fact based in Vancouver, Canada. This misconception of nationality might be based on the fact that we don't really feature a lot of our local West Coast, Canadian scene on Speedhunters. I suppose we should really try and be more supportive of local happenings, but unfortunately the time between Speedhunting trips is normally taken up with...
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Posted
Sep 24 2010, 12:03 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 10 comment(s)
I've got a busy weekend of Speedhunting ahead of me. In just a little bit I'll be heading down to Long Beach to check out the Motorama, and then tomorrow I'm driving down to San Diego to shoot the Coronado Speed Festival.
I'm excited for both of those events, but first I need to wrap up last weekend's Speedhunting adventures with one last look at Billetproof. ...
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Posted
Sep 23 2010, 11:32 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 11 comment(s)
It's time for another batch of photos from that celebration of rust, primer, and all things not billet that happens every year in Northern California.
I think I've said this before, but Billetproof really is something everyone should experience, even if you don't think of yourself as a "hot rod person"....
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Posted
Sep 21 2010, 12:41 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 13 comment(s)
As far as my event coverage has been going lately, Old School Month never really ended. Earlier this month I was soaking in Japanese classics in Long Beach, and last weekend I found myself up at the Contra Costa County Fairgrounds in Antioch for the "World's Least Important Car Show", Billetproof California....
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Posted
Aug 17 2010, 07:01 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 11 comment(s)
You think this looks wild... wait until you see the insane fabrication on the inside of this autoart sculpture.... watch for the full story in the coming week or two! :Rod
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Posted
Aug 17 2010, 05:40 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 40 comment(s)
When I think back to 2009 there were a few new cars that really stood out from the pack like Yuta's 240Z , Matt Powers' S14 or the Little Boy Rod . These were iconic machines which imprinted themselves in the minds of the Speedhunters audience last year... So with this in mind, I'm quite excited to show you a crazy Volksrod I discovered at Bonneville Speed Week yesterday, called the "KDF Mangler" . I could be off my rocker, but I really do believe this could be one of the IT...
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Posted
Apr 22 2010, 11:15 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 49 comment(s)
The term "rat rod" never really had a specific definition - with many people thinking they can just add some patina or flat black to an old car and have a rat rod.
We'll never know exactly what a rat rod is, but the car youre about to see is the machine that all so-called rat rods should strive to be. Whether it's a "rat rod", "suicide rod", or something else, it's one of the wildest four-wheeled contraptions I've ever seen....
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Posted
Apr 20 2010, 03:15 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 22 comment(s)
Boy do I love being a Speedhunter. Where else can I be writing about American LeMans series one moment, and writing about a '57 Chevy from hell the next moment.
I spotted this beast at Viva Las Vegas earlier this month, and just knew it deserved a spotlight here....
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Posted
Dec 30 2009, 04:10 PM
by
Linhbergh
with 19 comment(s)
I have to admit. I am a complete newbie when it comes to most things Hot Rod, custom, low rider, or anything that relates to the overall umbrella of American automotive culture. When I arrived at the Mooneyes X-Mas show at the beginning of the month, I had no idea what I was in for. I arrived expecting to see plethora of grey haired, mustached men walking about and talking about about the by-gone days of proper Hot Rodding. What I was actually introduced so was as scene that has been revived, in...
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Posted
Dec 14 2009, 12:52 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 29 comment(s)
"Everything you know about motorsport is wrong"... this is a thought that kept flashing through my head the first time I saw drifting at Irwindale Speedway. It was a wet and cold evening in December 2006 and I was witnessing full blown D1GP drifting for the first time. This was an experience which was to change the course of my life in many respects as it was the first time I came in touch with the relatively new motorsport and it challenged everything I held to be dear and true about car...
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Posted
Nov 18 2009, 06:00 AM
by
Linhbergh
with 40 comment(s)
What has always fascinated me is that a hunk of metal can make a person do the most irrational or illogical things. Why is it that many of us would get up at the most ungodly of hours only to climb in to a car and spend a day's festivities surrounding none other than cars? Or what is it that makes us wake up so eagerly for a car, yet we have to literally pry ourselves out of bed on most other mornings? Or to even drive a car with literally zero creature comforts across the country, just to spend...
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Posted
Nov 11 2009, 04:12 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 18 comment(s)
The spirit of the scene that some people are calling "Rat Rodding" is a counter culture against the smoothster style million dollar "cheque book" Rods which are still dominating the big Hot Rod awards. A true Rat Rod normally looks like it's been built with period specific components, which give the impression of being found in the open desert, river beds, swap meets and junkyards. This style of car started out with machines that were inspired by the original jalopy street...
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Posted
Aug 30 2009, 03:00 AM
by
Linhbergh
with 63 comment(s)
When you're at Bonneville you see all sorts of crazy contraptions while walking (and driving) around the five mile long pit and spectator area. You witness things that can rocket to speeds just shy of 400 miles per hour to things that are created to look the best while flossing at 20 miles per hour. Basically, you see the whole spectrum from pure performance to pure hardparking. It's phenomenal to be able to to be able to take all of this at a single event. With such an eclectic mix of cars...
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