History "Hot Rod". What is the origin of the Term??

Nice explanation for why a gun is called a rod, but do not see the correlation to hot rod cars. As told to me by a very old newspaper editor, the term hot rod was coined like Gray said, from hot roadsters. The reason for the shortening of the word was to help with fitting the verbiage in the headline, roadsters was just too long, such as HOT ROD YOUTHS CRASH! Just a journalistic trick to get the type to fit. Gow Job and Hop Up are what all the old timers out here said they used.

 

The cheapest trick to go fast was to advance the timing. When you do this to a stock flathead the engine overheats. HOT. Roadster=ROD. and........

it gets HOT driving around SoCal in a roadster.

 

Back in the beginning of Hot Rod time the guys building these cars were using junk yard parts. They did not have a lot of money. They wanted to go fast. In the time of babit bearings, if you drove a car real fast and abusted the motor the rods would get hot and start knocking. I know because I did it. You could easily hear a car with a HOT ROD. Given that the early rodders abused junk yard parts with babit bearings their rods knocked.
People would identify wild driving with the sound of Hot Rods in the vehicle. Thus calling those cars the kids abused Hot Rods.
Mike

 

Just like the term whippersnapper meaning a young guy, lasted long after buggy whips were used by racing youngsters in horse and buggy days, Hotrod started with guns and went on to mean a hotrod young guy who weapon was a car.
Again, we all have our opinons of how it started, this was always the most logical to me.

 

Have you seen the new TV show " Man vs Cartoon" ? They do all the roadrunner / coyote stunts

 

I always thought it was Latin; I got my screenname from the great Roman General Rodicus, who ruled with an iron block...er, I mean, fist.

Sounds like the origin of the term will be debated here for some time. I think it's possible that all of these explanations have some truth to them. Human history is weird; it's full of instances of similar ideas popping up in different places simultaneously, with no apparent connection.

 

stroker motors! thats my story and i'm stick'n to it.

 

Awright then, where did the term "street rodder" come from?

 

The term came from when the they first started putting high performance cams in the motors.Guys would say that The motor was running a " hot rod"(CAM).

 

MikeRouse.. I was working the NSRA Merced show in the early 70's and we had a 75 year old there with a bichin 26 full fender roadster who won an award on the mike they asked him about the term Hot Rod and he said, just like you, that it refered to the rods knocking in the poured babits, and this was from a guy who was out there from the 30's to the 70's...

 

Earliest I have seen the term is in the 1949 movie "The Big Wheel" with Andy Rooney, he says it a number of times. Not the worst car movie either.

 

Andy rooney was in a movie!?

 

Plywude,
That seems to confirm it from another part of the country.
The crank end of the rod sometimes turned blue from the heat.
So it was obvious which rod was the hot rod.
Thanks,
Mike

 

According to Alex Xydias the term was a derogatory name for our cars. I kinda believe him, think he explains it in Hotrod Story USA.

 

We all know what a traditional hot rod is... but can the term also apply to any
hopped up car, lowered car, kustom, shoebox, muscle car, dragster, funny car etc, etc, etc. In all the time Hot Rod magazine has been published it has had to cover a lot of ground. seems the term hot rod is as confusing as it's origin.

 

Cool thread. I've been seriously trying to track this down, but MOREso isnce joining the HAMB!!!

 

this is what i was told. i dont know if its B.S. or not.after the war guys came home and started building cars out of what was around using a welding rod to peace them together and thats how the name came HOT ROD I dont think its right but cool story

 

T Bagger, that sure sounds like a plausible explanation!!!

 

Thats just genius

 

Crackett, now aren't YOU proud of yourself!!! LOL

 

That's Mickey Rooney, not Andy Rooney !!!

BB

 

I've been wondering about this too, and to give this thread a bump, here's the earliest I can find the term in print, LA Times, March 25 1946. By August it was all over the place.

Hop-Up was used way back, as in, they were arrested for hopping up the race horse with heroin and cocaine (an actual news item from 1933).



(larger image http://www.flickr.com/photos/proscriptus/5327303976/)

 

Whoops--it's in Life in 1945.

 

Theories don't constitute fact.
The origin of "hot rod" and "who had the first flamed car" will never be answered, so...move on.

 

I remember reading an old paperback novel titled "HOT ROD" back in the early '70's... Wish I could find another copy of it.. It was a pretty kool story!

 

Sounds more like a sex act if you ask me..

 

Probably not the first time it was used, but the National Street Rod Assn. made it popular. They used it as a term for a car that could be driven cross country to events, to distinguish them from hotrods that were just local cruisers (for whatever reason).

Kinda ironic that Street Rod has morphed into Trailer Queen for some folks.
Larry T

 

As a kid, I was always told, the term Hot Rod came from guys souping up there cars to go fast and they tended to run hot. so the term Hot Rod fit.
That may just be a local definition
MrC

 

the old lake racers used to run till they melted the babit out of the bearings...hence the term hot rod car...

 

Proscriptus - Do you know which 1945 issue this article is in???