One of the oldest publications in my library of Automotive books & periodicals is a MOTOR AGE magazine from MARCH 1948. MOTOR AGE was/is a monthly trade journal supporting independent automotive service providers. I've always enjoyed browsing through this old issue ... I've literally spent hours just checking out all of its full-page (auto-related) advertisements ... I always seem to find a new surprise every time I open it ... today was no exception as I stumbled upon a 2-page article that I hadn't seen before. Anyway ... I thought this "HOT ROD HEAVEN" pictorial might be of interest to the HAMB community ... Enjoy!
Great post, thanks for sharing! I've got some early issues of Automotive Industries magazines with Hot rod features, always interesting to find Hot Rod stuff in unknown sources.
Cool pics! Funny, Hartlett's roadster pictured here is not underslung (maybe they're talking about the belly-pan?), nor is the exhaust routed over from the passenger side! Those are individual pipes from each port, you can only see two in this pic though. Looks like someone was making some grand assumptions based on the picture.
I think I have about every issue of that magazine from about 1935 (maybe earlier) to around the late 50's. Found a stack of them about 3-3.5ft high in an old mechanics shop. I haven't read many of them yet, but they are fun.
I can't recall ever seeing an old Cad V-16 in a hot-rod. I hope that car managed to survive somewhere. It would be tough to duplicate today. FC
Thanks. I was going to ask if anyone had some additional photos of this car. I only have the one from the Dry Lakes book.
@The37Kid - Agreed ... to me, it's always interesting to get a perspective on Hot Rodding from someone outside the hobby ... not surprisingly, the writer of this Motor Age article focused a bit on the money aspect of building a hot rod (i.e., how much $$$ was spent on parts to build one). __________________________________________________ @thunderbirdesq - I noticed that too ... the captions in this two-page pictorial are rife with factual inaccuracies and misspelled names ... I wish I could attribute these errors to the fact that Motor Age is a non-rodding publication ... but I see these same kind of typos in Hot Rodding periodicals all the time ... I guess journalistic integrity & fact checking weren't really important back then ... I'm just glad that everything you read today on the Internet can be taken as 100% fact! __________________________________________________ @Beemer -Cool ... I've only got a few issues from the late '40s ... like I said in the OP, the advertisements alone can provide hours of "free entertainment" ... lotsa gearhead eye candy. __________________________________________________ @kurtis - I assume you're talking about the color pic of the Randy Shinn '27 roadster on page 52 of "The Birth of Hot Rodding - The Story of the Dry Lakes Era" by the Genat & Cox? Here's the only other pics I have of it: Also note that the American Hot Rod Foundation website has yet another photo of the Shinn '27 roadster (with Jack Calori standing next to it) ... just click HERE.
That is cool. I wonder if back in the day jalopy was an insult, like that other 6 letter word is today?
The Jalopy Journal
