I attend the university of texas at san antonio,im majoring in history.So im taking my final classes to graduate,im taking my history siminar which is basicaly a 25-30 page paper. My professor let us run free with our topic,and told us to pick something that is your passion. So I declared my topic as "The History of Hotrodding and the Kustom Car Kulture." I need to see if any of you guys have any good sites or books that would help me with my paper. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
When did Hot Rodding start? Was it Dirt Track Racing or Dry Lakes? Has anyone set the year it started?
Specifically, get hold of Albert Drake's book "Fifties Flashback". Immediately rip off and discard the cover--this is a ghastly 1980's Streetrod pseudo nostalgia poodle skirt--drive-in--'57 Chevies with food tray pic that clashes with any decent sensibility. Book is EXCELLENT circa 1952 time trip, and specifically within you want the chapters "What we read" and "Magazines". His coverage of magazine history, specific good issues, and the great Trend-Fawcett--dimestore publisher books on early rodding is wonderful. I found it to be very useful in filling in my collection, as I started buying this stuff 10 years later and had nearly no money anyhow back then. I hunted down most of his list, and everything he said was great was indeed so.
what year was the 2nd car built? as for the history... look into www.ahrf.com for lots of information albert drakes books are probably the most comprehensive with words but don montgomery's books are also a great resourse including more customs with the hot rods try doing a search on here for books there have been a few lists of all the good ones this could get expensive for you! good luck Zach
so....which is it? the history of hot rodding? or the Kustom Kar Kulture? they are not at all the same thing.
I did one in school and here is my bib sheet. My paper was only 7 pages. Hope this helps ya cause there are not much out there that is easy to find without paying mucho bucks for the books. Hot Rod Magazine, ed. 50 Years of Hot Rod. Wisconsin: MBI, 1998 Warde, John. “A Short History of Hot Rods”. MSN Autos (2005). 1 November 2005 www.auto.msn.com/advice/article.aspx?hotrodnostalgia.com DeWitt, John. CoolCars: The Rise of Kustom Kulture. Canada: Direction. 2003.
well its mainly on the history of hotrodding,but I didnt know if I had enough info when I got started to put together a 25-30 page report on just hotrodding so if I dont have enough info im going to split my paper in two and add some Kustom Kar Kulture to my paper.Thanks Zach for that web site info,and Bruce Lancaster I just ordered fifties flashback by albert drake. thanks. Wow, all these great sources on books and web sites you guys gave me is awsome.You all dont know how much I appreciate your help.Thank You All!
Might not hurt to visit your local public or college library and see what's available in section 629.....you never know!
Grab a tape recorder and go visit some of the old time rodders in your area ... they'll enjoy telling you a few stories you can't find in any history books, and you'll have the time of your life. All Don Montgomery's books are essential reading, as well as Dean Batchelor's "The American Hot Rod". The Andy Southard and Tom Medley books get just as much use.
Yeah I think im going to the public library tomorrow.My college library does not have any hot-rod lit (I aready checked).I just ordered some recomended books through amazon,they wont be getting here till next week. So in the mean time Im going to take your advise.Thanks Squirrel.
Hot Rod & Custom Chronical by Thom Taylor i just bought the book on sale at barnes and noble for $20, probably the best book that i own. and i would highly recommend it to anyone. it covers from pre-war to present http://www.amazon.com/Hot-Rod-Custom-Car-Chronicle/dp/1412712262/sr=1-3/qid=1161759729/ref=sr_1_3/002-3924987-3429610?ie=UTF8&s=books
Thanks too all for everyones help.I think this essay is going to be better than I thought. Ill post it up when im done
You can always get stuff from other university libraries through interlibrary loan, but I don't know if there is any kind of charge. I'm a UTSA grad... Slonaker
I'm an academic librarian with computer hookups to search all the big libraries at once. Interlibrary Loan is great for everything except rodding, unfortunately! Librarians never considered Rod books or magazines as anything but epemeral trash, useful only to keep the dumber kids in the study hall quiet. Libraries in general either never bought the stuff we're interested in, or they tossed it after a couple of years, or those dumb kids in study hall stole it all so they could make a killing on Ebay 50 years later... Even original car stuff is rarely held for long in libraries. I collect old Ford books and early rodding stuff, and my library connections are't worth squat because of this! I'd say that probably 80% of what I have cannot be found in traceable library collections, even though most of it is moderately easy to find via rare book shops and fleamarkets. There is a generalized disdain for technology and mechanical stuff in libraries.
Squirrel--just SLIGHTLY off topic here--any of you typewriter nuts collect IBM Executives? If I got that designation right, that's the one that spaces letters individually by width, and is pure hell when you need to replace an "I" with an "O"...
I have an executive, as well as the "normal" version of it. My executive got quite a workout a couple years ago when the fake Bush memos came out.....it's hard work convincing people that you just can't make something look like it came from MS Word with an old typewriter! even if it does have crude proportional spacing.
I found this book at my college library called Cool cars, High Art, it was pretty detailed, interesting take on custom cars, and suprisingly traditional. http://www.upress.state.ms.us/catalo..._high_art.html
You have to consider the synergism between the early hotrodders and the mainstream auto giant visionaries like Earl and Duntov. Read this by Arkus Duntov http://www.idavette.net/HistFact/zpaper53.htm and you will see that the concept of the SBC and factory speed goodies was influenced by hot rodders, and of course, the SBC in turn influenced the course hot rodding took after it was introduced.
Roger, Check out Dean Batchelors book, I think the title is History of the American Hot Rod. Between Tommy and Kit, you've got great sources for local history too. Youtube has some great documentaries also. I received my ME degree from UTSA, basically cause it's hard to build hot rods in a dorm and I didn't want to be away from Slick Willie. : ) It was a great little school back then, now it's a huge ass great school.
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