History Who When was the first SBChev powered HotRod?

Yeah, thread should be titled "1st Pre '49 SBC powered Hot Rod".

The term "Hot Rod" has been stretched and diluted down over the years. Mislabeled by Laymen or "expanded and welcomed" by associations such as NSRA and Goodguys. Guys getting attention at Cruise Night with their flamed and pinstriped PT Cruisers. "Hey, this one has a billet grille and teardrop taillights". Ugh!

In the early days of SCTA it was Roadsters only.
Goodguys was a '48 cutoff, then moved to '64 then '72. Then dabbled with any year car on Sundays.
NSRA had a '48 cutoff, and now have gone to a smog check type rolling 30 year cutoff. He can say his 1986 car has been Hot Rodded, or even been in Hot Rod, but I won't call it a Hot Rod.

 

Remember I asked the question on here?
Where most should be like minded guys.

A 54 or a customised 55 with a V8 in the time period im talking about would not have been a hotrod then even if some think it is today. Cool but no cigar

 

"Replacing a Chevy six cylinder with a TurboFire V-8"

 

The first sbc in an older car would probably been the first one that was stolen; back then there was a lot of hoodlums...Hasn't been said yet, has it?

 

I figure since this thread is already well over 1000 words, it might be time to sum most of them up with a picture...

 

Ok, so I had a 56 Corvette, 265 SBC in my 32 3w coupe in 1958 (replaced a hemi).

 

@C. John Stutzer good find! can you scan the rest of the article?

 

My 32 was (is) a hot rod, can't say the same for the truck

 

i'm not that patrick to hand johnny law some moody golly.

 

Wow! Guys were chunking those Flatheads for the mouse motor, right off the bat and to date, they are still dropping Chevy engines into Fords. Cool

 

Yup, pretty much...

 

Again... As I said. It wouldn't be a hot rod from the golden age of hot rodding (read my post carefully) but nonetheless any car can be a hot rod if you modify it to go faster than stock...

Straight from Merrian Webster's dictionary
Hot rod: a car that has been changed so that it can be driven and raced at very fast speeds

Or here is Google's definition: a motor vehicle that has been specially modified to give it extra power and speed

You CAN make a hot rod out of any car and if you think that all hot rods have to be pre '48 or pre '65 or even 1932 and older, you're wrong

If you want to limit hot rods to those eras, then call them period correct hot rods or traditional hot rods even and ignore the hot rods that people are still building today with late model cars.


What'cha got in there, kid?

 

I don't really give a fuck about dictionaries.

 

And look I'm not trying to side with the 1965 and newer crowd because those cars aren't my thing, I'm just simply stating that a hot rod is literally just a car built to go faster. Doesn't matter what year it is.


What'cha got in there, kid?

 

As i see it, from the 1st car to be modified to the modern day shit box go faster brigade of today, its just a steady progression of the same thing. I don't like the term Hot Rod being misused (my opinion of the term) in areas of motor sport that already have there terms as to what category they fall into. JW

 

"Battleground" - a flick about WWII & 101st Airborne soldiers behind enemy lines, starring among others, Van Johnson.

They come upon other GIs, but need to verify these are not enemy dressed in US uniforms, so ask the usual "only an American would know this" questions, like "Who won the World Series?"

Finally, the last question: "What's a Hot Rod?"
The answer: "It's a souped jalopy!"

Now then, ladies, gentlemen and old farts, I lay this before you all as Empirical Truth. a GI, knowing his life was on the line and the fate of world rested on his shoulders, would not get this wrong!

 

I think the standard of finish of most of our Jalopies has shifted a little since WW II. JW

 

Now that the definition of hot rod has been laid to rest, the very answer in turn raises another vexing question: what's a "jalopy"?

Fittingly, ZomBrian, a member of the HAMB offered this:

"Actually God gave it (jalopy) to us in a box labeled "Things you can't live without". Also in the box were steak and boobs!"

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/jalopy-the-term.250902/

My own, more formal research indicates that the etymology of the word seems to occur no earlier than 1924, that it has no direct lineage from any known language or dialect, yet seems to have sprung wholly formed in southern California.

Now I confess, this vexes me no end, because those Californians always get the kool stuff - but I digress.

Curiously, with the decision to place California where they did ( I mean really - who puts a state on a major fault line) a case has been made that many, many beaten up, worn down, busted out flivvers and such made their way south of the border to Mexico (which had many very fine mechanics, especially considering what little they had to work with) and then massaged over to get a few more miles, and a few Jalapeno peppers to market - thus being called "jalopy" - the thing that hauled the Jalapenos.

Naturally, some of our southern neighbors. migrating to California might refer to their automobile as a Jalopy, and so it stuck - perhaps at first as a derisive term.

And of course, "jalapeno" is a common term for any number of varieties of hot peppers - so it has a double meaning that may have been inferred on the derivitive "Jalopy".

Now if this seems plausible to "The Old Ones" (I'm only 65) I would like to be given full credit for my work.

If however it turns out to be pure BS (as is much that comes outta my mouth) then I would like to remind you I'm just passing along what I read some place.

 

I'm not a gambler, not a label maker either, but I'd still bet something that the 1st install for big thrills happened here in the Motor State. One need only learn a little of the auto maker's history in any venue you wish to dig. The Caddy and Olds overheads were the 1st step away from the flatty. Later the Hemi and even the beloved Buick Nailhead were hot...oops, speed freak fodder. Anyone who thinks that higher ups in the industry were not directly involved in such endeavors has their head up their...shit...in the sand (!). The Duntov letter posted earlier did it's share to promote the use and direction. Maybe it didn't make one of the west coast mags, maybe it was even a secret used only in middle of the night "contests" and witnessed by a lucky or connected few. Ask Don Garlits who was racing what in those heady days. He and I shared some obscure stories of Northwestern Highway and Psetto Pastoian at the Detroit Autorama many years ago. I'm sure it's easy to dig through old mags and find the 1st publicized install (R&C?), and these days the changing of the guard (a polite way to say how we're losing a generation) has made some of the info that much more difficult to piece together. Whether it even matters is another approach, maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, maybe it would slap the taste out of the SBC hater's mouth. Since it's intro to the public in 1955 it essentially remains one of the most successful HOT ROD engines of all time. Maybe that makes the question "...who was the 1st..." that much more difficult to find.
Personally I find the banter of trying to define what a HOT ROD really is a bit, well, silly. And I'd love to be proven wrong about the Motor State/Motown idea but I don't see it happening. Do names like White, Addison, DeLorean, Estes, or "The Ramchargers" mean anything? Does Henry Ford II conjure up an OEM's drive to be 1st? In the whole world? These folks were all in, and from day 1 of their storied careers. And even the aesthetic-minded Edsel Ford had "hot rods" of his own, and not just for style.

Next...

 

I am surprised any Hot Rods get built with all of the time spent trying to define Hot Rod....

 

I would have to agree with some of what Highlander has said for sure. When I read this stuff on the derivation of the Hot Rod or the terminology it makes me shake my head and chuckle. I have done thousands of hours of research on the early history of the automobile prior to 1920 and have run across numerous examples of cars that were modified for speed for the street. During the teens both popular magazines Motor Age and The Automobile published tidbits on readers that sent in pictures of their stripped down cars to resemble early day hot rods for lack of a better term.

If you study what Packard was doing in the teens with all of the race cars and modified cars in the experimental department there is no question that the Detroit auto industry were heavily involved in modified speed cars going way back and continuing up to recent times. They had a department full of racecars that they bought and built and loved the playing with speed cars. The 1915 Packard Typhoon speed car comes to mind. It was a modified Twin Six (12 ) production car with a crude boattail body and a modified engine. It was never meant to be raced competitively yet was built for speed (and fun), with different pistons and camshaft. Jesse Vincent had fun driving the car in tests and I am sure for fun(he was a gold cup boat racer in his spare time so he enjoyed speed).

In Jesse Vincent's diary he notes when they sold the two seater 905 racer for $10,000 in 1921, I believe. This was the early version of the car that would set American speed records at Daytona in 1919 (I believe they had two 905 cars a two seater built in 1916 and a single seater built after the armistice in 1918 for an assault on the land speed record). I believe that when this 905 two seater was sold in 1921 that they made it into a speed car for the street and it ended up in California. Call it what you want but it was a hot rod by my definition.

It is hard to beat a deuce that is hot rodded but limiting the language as much as what you guys do is a bit of a stretch. The Highlander is also aware that the Classic Car of America tried to "own" the word Classic and limit it to cars built between 1926 and 1948 I believe, but how many people buy into that hook line an sinker? What is the definitive definition for a hot rod (or even classic for that matter) is something that cannot be done with absolute certainty in my opinion, but it gives people a reason to argue I suppose. All in fun.

 

When I was in the ad biz, I kept close track of the circulation numbers of the car books. I'm talking early sixties up through the nineties. Standard Rate and Data was the bible for circulation numbers. The US was divided up into six geographical areas. Forever and a day, there were more HOT ROD, R&C, CAR CRAFT, POP HOT ROD, etc. magazines sold on the news stands and subscriptions in the midwest than any other areas, including the west coast. Travel budgets had as much to do with coverage...

 

In case you didn't catch it.... the R&C engine swap article above, was the beginning of the R& C Dream Truck. That is Spence Murray's drive to work 50 pickup truck. The engine came out of his brand new 55 Chev. He blew the motor drag racing when the car was only a few weeks old. The dealer installed a new engine under warranty, and he took the old one for his truck. Note the 'Spence' photo credit.

 

'Jus Sayin.......

 

Well glad you could join the party.LOL

I have given this some serious thought and being the self-proclaimed authority on the subject I must confess that each has his own idea of who is on first base. That being said, one must take into account that if someone was not featured in a magazine or otherwise famous at least to the tiniest of mice one could have never ever have built or owned such a ride. While this is obviously a truth one must consider the fact that to be a hot rod a vehicle must first be not a hot rod at all. That being most certainly the case anything ever built after the time that the valve in head became king and originally had a hot rod motor from the factory could never ever be considered a hot rod unless a more modern form of the hot rod motor was placed between the frame horns. Considering this to be fact, it is after all now proclaimed on the internet by the authority on the subject, for the lowly '57 Chrysler 300 with its 392 could never become a hotrod until it had a high deck 383 or 413 installed. On the other hand any Ford of any year could become a hot rod by simply installing any Chevy motor,thus the saying, "Built Ford Tough With Chevy Stuff." Which we know is the absolute truth because Hotrod magazine has articles about it.

All that said I being the self-proclaimed authority on the subject and you having spent at least 30 seconds of your life reading this ration of bull shirt I have come to this simple yet profound conclusion, one must decide for himself what one is willing to build and drive and if one has the intestinal fortitude to confront the authorities who have become gawds in this new millennium, one may even call it a hotrod. Granted no one is going to believe you and even if they did, it won't change a thing, Starbucks will still sell coffee with a mermaid on the cup.

 

Whew!

 

Seb
I can't believe that you of all people actually read that.

 

Sent from my XT1254 using H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Russ Aves in Napa, ca. said he had the first Chevy in a hot rod. He said he had to buy it in pieces as Chevrolet was not selling complete engines yet. He said he worked for GM . I have met him & he still has the car. It is one of the Coolest 3-windows I have ever seen !

 

Today it has a flathead back in it !!!