This month in CAR CRAFT - Dec 1953

December 1953 marked the first issue of Car Craft, formerly Honk.
It was a Trend Publication - Publisher was R E Peterson, Editor, John Christy.
Still a pocket-size, it ran 66 pages, color cover and B/W inside.

Car Craft continued the Honk format which featured any car, motorcycle, or boat of interest. As the issues went on it would move to a strictly hot rod and custom car format.

This month's articles included the cover car, San Antonio Rose of Harvey Bott,
a Bonneville picture layout, Burt Mouron's '32 roadster, Buster Litton's '49 Ford by Cerny and Chuck DeWitt's gorgeous '50 Ford.

The DeWitt was part of a road article, "Bonneville Via Custom."

How-To articles were the completion of a series on building a dragster chassis, and how to lower wheel openings on a custom.

Also some Christmas cartoons by Associate Editor, Dick Day.

Selected pics below.

If you all like this idea, I would be happy to dip into my magazine archive every so often and do something similar from R&C, Honk, Hop Up, and many others.

 

I'd like to see that series of articles.

 

Here are the Christmas cartoons. Dick Day was a pretty fair cartoonist as well as editor and feature writer.

 

Great idea! Sure would be nice to find out were the same feature cars are today.

 

Well, here is the page with the finished "dragster."

Remember, a dragster in 1953 was a whole different animal compared to a dragster just a few years later. Calling it "crude" is putting it kindly.

Early dragsters were either stripped, more-or-less stock chasses or simple purpose-built rails with a motor and seat. Some even had lap-belts!

If you still would like to see the complete series - I'll check my stock of Honk magazines too see if I have all the issues.

 

Hey, If you Google Bert (Bert) Mouron at Kustomrama, you can find the feature 32 Ford.

 

I loved the "pocket sized" ones.....Haven't seen one in many years....