T Rex Posted September 2, 2003 Report Share Posted September 2, 2003 Lots of cool stuff in this issue. Im not to familar with the "Hot Rodding" mags but this issue was pretty well written and had some GREAT information. I picked it up because of the title article "World's Best V-8s." They have v8s ranging from the ever popular small block chevy, 5.0 to the BAD ASS Mercedes AMG 5.5l SC engine and the Bently 6.75l v8. Another interesting tid-bit in this mag. is the ZL1 Camaro. GMMG (not sure what it stands for ) tuned Camaro putting out around 600hp and 575lb ft. Reading some of the "Letters to the editor" etc it seems a lot of people don't like the way HOT ROD is marketing their mag. I guess they are incorporating a lot of sport compact stuff into the magazine. The old muscle car guys REALLY don't like that at all. In my personal opinon "Hot Rodding" really isnt adding an air intake and some cheesy wing. I do however think that ANY car can be "Hot Rodded." I guess its more of an image thing to the old guys that don't want to be associated with the "Ricers." I apologize for my lack of grammitical skill that most on the board posses and definatly apologize for my lack of spelling (I went to WV public schools most of my life). I do however have one more question for you... Back in the day what was "Hot Rodding?" In today's lingo it might as well be called "ricing" your car. Id like to hear your opinons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scotty2Hotty Posted September 2, 2003 Report Share Posted September 2, 2003 Hot rodding was not only racing your car, cruising in it, but also building it. I'd love to do a 32 High boy or a 34' 3 window coupe with a nice flat head ford, mooneye smoothie wheels, and a flat black paint job. Most deffinately appriciate the old school lookin hot rods. graemlins/thumb.gif Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest stevil Posted September 2, 2003 Report Share Posted September 2, 2003 Good point. Imports are the popular cars to "hot rod" these days. But, my opinion is that there are plenty of import mags that cater to that group. Don't piss off the old school guys too much by converting Hot Rod to another import mag. A few stories and such shouldn't be too bad. But if they have so much content, just make a new magazine called Import Hot Rod or something. I honestly could care less though, I don't buy magazines. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fush Posted September 2, 2003 Report Share Posted September 2, 2003 I honestly could care less though, I don't buy magazines. +1 Every magazine I pick up has articles which are like a big ad for the magazines advertisers. Its hard pressed to actually find something worth reading for the 5 bucks you spend on the thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
recklessOP Posted September 2, 2003 Report Share Posted September 2, 2003 Originally posted by The Pizza Man: The old muscle car guys REALLY don't like that at all. even my mustang scares them. where are the pushrods..? redface.gif Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenny Posted September 2, 2003 Report Share Posted September 2, 2003 GM High Tech Performance > * Mags That is all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave1647545494 Posted September 2, 2003 Report Share Posted September 2, 2003 What is a hot rod, anyway? by Grant MacLaren 314.569.2846 The earliest hot rods were the result of an ingeniously simple idea: Take a vehicle that's cheap and readily available, cut it up to remove some weight, lower it and fit some fat tires. Soup up or swap out the engine. Open up the exhaust; maybe customize it and paint it a wild color. Using some ingenuity, an inexpensive vehicle coud be modified, made to perform better and look "cool." (Although the word "cool" was not yet in use.) There wasn't a prescribed set of rules. In fact, rules were meant to be broken. How come that simple formula has become so rigid and difficult today -- not to mention expensive? Hot rodding started out as kinda fun and easy going. Why can't it still be? Well, it can -- The following letter appeared in the December, 2001 Street Rodder magazine: Gow Jobs and Other Stuff Here are the answers to your questions about the origin of terms like hop-up, gow job, soup-up, etc. The origin of these terms seems to puzzle everyone but I believe I know where they came from and what they mean. In California in the '40s and early '50s hot rodders despised the term "hot rod" and never used it. They considered it I black eve. To the general public a hot rod was beat-up jalopy with no muffler, careening through a school zone with a juvenile delinquent at the wheel. To the newspapers they were a menace on par with Communism and ought to be stamped out by the police. To the serious .student of speed who had a lot of brains, sweat, and money tied up in a sophisticated performance car, this was nothing but an insult. They used the terms hop-up or gow job. So where did these come from? Well, "hop" and "gow" were names for opium which were in use as far back as the late 1800s and probably came from the Chinese. In the old days they improved the performance of race horses with drugs including opium and cocaine. This was not even illegal until the early '20s and continued surreptitiously after that. Even today the performance enhancement of human athletes and horses is nor unknown. A horse that went faster than it had any right to, was said to be 'hopped-up" or "gowed-up". From there it was a short step to apply the same names to a souped-up car. By the way, human drug users got the same names. If you read a few hard-boiled detective stories from the '30s and '40s you will soon find reference to "hopped-up punks" and "gowed-up hoodlums." As far as "soup" goes, in the '20s, nitroglycerine was called "soup" in the under-world. It was not easy to get -- safe crackers had to extract it from dynamite. It was all illegal substance and possession was evidence of criminal intent, like burglar tools. Hence the code name. "souped-up" probably referred to a race car running on exotic fuel. I know that in the '20s it was possible to buy special racing fuel from the big oil companies. An old-time motorcycle mechanic told me of taking a can of such fuel to the races where his employer had bikes competing, then pouring the leftover fuel into the tank of his hopped-up Ford, and how fast it went on the way home. In the '50s they began to use nitromethane, which is a close relative of nitroglycerine. Small world. By that time "souped-up" had acquired the general meaning it has today and hot fuel users coined new terms like "pop" and "nitro." Now on "hot rod." It is important to remember that until 1955, people used "hot" the way they use "cool" today. A hot date, a hot swing band with a hot trumpet player, a hot time. The reverse -- something inferior -- was not so hot. This was appropriate for hot rods because they actually did run hotter than normal cars, literally as well as figuratively. I have heard the story of the race promoter who abbreviated "hot roadster" to "hot rod" on his posters, but this does not ring quite true. I'm withholding judgment on this one until I see more evidence. [ 02. September 2003, 02:25 AM: Message edited by: GAS,GRASS,0R ASS ] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tandm Posted September 2, 2003 Report Share Posted September 2, 2003 Originally posted by The Pizza Man: Another interesting tid-bit in this mag. is the ZL1 Camaro. GMMG (not sure what it stands for ) tuned Camaro putting out around 600hp and 575lb ft. GMMG is a company that makes exhausts and other modded cars like the Blackbird Trans Am And that ZL1 is nothing compared to GM's concept car STRAIGHT PIMPIN Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave1647545494 Posted June 16, 2004 Report Share Posted June 16, 2004 thought I'd top this could have been an interesting topic maybe it'll go further this time Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wease Posted June 16, 2004 Report Share Posted June 16, 2004 Originally posted by The Pizza Man: Another interesting tid-bit in this mag. is the ZL1 Camaro. GMMG (not sure what it stands for ) tuned Camaro putting out around 600hp and 575lb ft. Actually, that's not that big a deal. That's about what you get out of a good heads/cam LS1/LS6. Don't forget, those numbers are flywheel, not at the rear wheels. Regardless, it's not too terribly difficult to get those kind of numbers out of a heads/cam 4th Gen F-Body or Y-Body... graemlins/thumb.gif Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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