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Even though the term "Rat Rod" is no longer a popular one with hot rodders, it is hard to think of a better way to describe the 1930 Ford Model A Hot Rod seen here. It's rough and it's rusty, but as the above video shows, it looks like a lot of fun in the snow. More »
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What if, instead of seeking world domination, the Nazis had sought to build rat rods and hold Bug-ins? Today's Nice Price or Crack Pipe master beater Thing might have been the history-changing result, but is its price as low as its roof? More »
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The April fire that burned the garage and home of rat-rod favorite Rusty Slammington was hot enough to warp its frame and melt an engine block head. According to owner Mike Burroughs, it only killed him a little. "It'll take more than Satan's hand to end his days." More »
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Its doors are made of discarded stop signs, its air cleaner's an old pressure cooker. It has the heart of a Corvette and the front end's from a '39 Dodge Truck. It's the VetteRod-Amino. This is its story. More »
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Call 411 on your phone and you'll get Information. That might be helpful as the first question that springs to mind about today's Olds 455-powered Nice Price or Crack Pipe 411 is WTF?! More »
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I spent the last week on vacation in Wisconsin, but now it's work time: busting cheatin' racers at the Mutually Assured Destruction Of Omaha LeMons race! Here's one of the first things we saw upon entering the state of Nebraska. More »
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You've seen the Telluride Marine Sniper VW Bus, but that wasn't the only vintage German machine I photographed while I was 9,000 feet up in the Rockies. More »
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Do you like the limbo, snakes in the grass, and Datsun Pickups? Well, Nice Price or Crack Pipe has something that's sure to blow your mind, and it'll be a low-blow too! More »
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We learned last year that most of you prefer hot rod pinups to European Booth Professionals, so here's a selection of Alameda photographer Phillip Hall's "Girls With Cars" work for you. More »
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We heard that a lot of readers were using the Patinas Of Billetproof Nor-Cal 2008 images for their desktop wallpaper, so I decided to shoot a few more this year. Enjoy! More »
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The rules for Billetproof, run by the same miscreants who brought you the Concours d'Lemons, are very simple: 1964 and older, no billet anything, no modern wheels, no fenderless cars with independent front suspension. More »
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Welcome to Down On The Street, where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. How about we follow up one vintage Chevy wagon with another? More »
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Welcome to Project Car Hell, where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! We haven't done a serious Engine Mix-&-Match PCH for a while, so let's burn! More »
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This Ford Model A at Billetproof is the lowest vehicle we've ever seen. It's so low you can't get a foot under the frame. We're pretty sure it's being naturally clearanced. And that's just the start. More »
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It's like threading the needle at a quarter of a mile… but it's really livin'! Hot Rod Magazine put together this great drag racing documentary for the 1958 Nationals, and it's well worth watching. More »
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When you've got a basket-case Model T on one side of the garage and a beat-to-crap Volvo Amazon on the other… and you want something cool to drive in, oh, 48 hours, what to do? More »
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What do you get when a Brit combines French quirk with American attitude? In this case, it's a Citroen 2CV that's been converted into a rat rod-styled pickup truck. We say rat rod-styled because it doesn't have the prerequisite big American mill that you'd find in a traditional rod. Of course, we've seen a Chevy V8 dropped into a 2CV before, but even though this car truck vehicle makes do with a puny 602 CC two-cylinder engine, we still love it. We might even be tempted to bid on it if the Atlantic ocean wasn't in the way...and the US dollar wasn't at the bottom of it. More »
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We thought we were all done with Billetproof Nor-Cal posts after the Mega Gallery yesterday, but then we got all these shots from Ecurie Ecrappe member and 24 Hours of LeMons Assistant Perpetrator Nick Pon. While I was shooting engines, he was shooting door art (and some hood, trunk, and toolbox art as well). Like everything else at Billetproof, the styles range from crude to obsessively detailed, primer paint to gold leaf, and there's some beautiful stuff at either end of the spectrum for those who make the jump. More »
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Of all the cars we saw at the Billetproof Nor-Cal show in Antioch, this split-window VW Type 2 pickup was the hands-down winner of our Rustiest Vehicle Award. Originally a plumber's work truck in Tennessee (you can just barely make out the lettering on the sides), this Transporter became so rust-ravaged that it was junked. After 25 years of quiet oxidation beneath a canopy of kudzu in the junkyard, this Splitty was purchased by a total madman devoted VW aficionado, who got it running and brought it to California. How rusty is it? Well, a friend of the Shitty Splitty's owner put it this way: "When we drove out here, I refused to drive behind it." OK, now you Midwesterners can let loose with a fusillade of "You California boys don't know the meaning of rust, you betcha!" comments. More »
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Out of all the old Fords at the Billetproof Nor-Cal show, this one may have been our very favorite (yes, even beating out the undeniably awesome Maserati-powered Ford). Why? It's really a Malaise Era Ford Granada! Jump away to get the rest of the story. More »
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Much as we all love the ol' iconic Model T or A Ford with small-block V8 and primer paint, the landscape at Billetproof is so dominated by such machines- seemingly acres of 'em- that it takes something really wild to make passersby stagger back in slack-jawed awe. This is such a car. In addition to the 300-horsepower, quad-carb DOHC V8 (and Torqueflite-based automatic) out of an '81 Maserati Quattroporte, this Ford has a handcrafted independent front suspension (the coolest parts of which, unfortunately, we were unable to photograph). More »
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We saw a lot of great stuff at the Billetproof Michigan show, and this weekend we get the Billetproof Nor-Cal show in Antioch. I met up with the Audi Fox-owning, Belvedere-racing Casadelshawn and we broke out the Nikons to capture the rusty, crusty, and- in some cases- sparkly surfaces to be found. Stay tuned for more Billetproof fun as the week progresses (and I get around to sorting out 99 million photographs). More »
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This is Down On The Street Bonus Edition, where we check out interesting street-parked cars located in places other than the Island That Rust Forgot. San Francisco is just a few miles from Alameda, right across the Bay, and I wouldn't be shocked to find that it has as many cool old cars per square mile as the island. PhilRoastBeef spotted this super-rare Iso Rivolta Fidia parked on Polk Street, and then WhatWouldJesseDo sent in these shots of a totally bewildering Dodge Intrepid Chrysler Sebring convertible. Make the jump to read the description of the Iso; the Intrepid really needs no description. More »
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Welcome to Down On The Street, where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. So far, we've seen mostly 1960s and 1970s vehicles in this series, but we've seen a couple of 1930s machines (a 1937 Cadillac and a 1939 Chevrolet). Today we've rolled the clock back to 1932, with a new Oldest Alameda DOTS Champion. That's right, I've managed to find a 76-year-old truck parked on the street!
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I'm in Denver pretty regularly, and that means I'm often roaming about the area with camera in hand, looking for more photos of street-parked old vehicles to add to the Down On The Street Bonus Edition stash. I was happy to find three vintage Fairlanes on a previous trip, but I just about flew through the windshield in Englewood, so hard did I brake when I spotted what appeared to be an original 1950s race car sitting on a trailer in an industrial 'hood. I didn't know it yet, but I'd arrived at RoadSideWerx. More »
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The art of chopping up Pontiac Fieros and using their guts in other projects is one which occasionally, if rarely, produces something really unique. Instead of a passe Nailhead up front, or a cobbled together amalgam of collected parts, LuckyFast Eddie of Camden, Delaware has dropped the whole enchilada — engine, trans, and suspension — from a Fiero into the tail-end of a chopped-and-stretched '39 Chevy. More »
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When we brought a car with a crazy engine/transmission swap and some wild junkyard suspension mods to the 24 Hours of LeMons race, some folks thought it wouldn't last a dozen laps... but we knew better. You see, we've got the mighty Hellhammer, aka Junkyard Dave Schaible, as crew chief, and this guy can build anything. Here's one of my favorite Hellhammer projects: one of the first- if not the first- of the current generation of Northern California rat rods, built back in the early 1980s. It's a Model T body (which was found, complete with bullet holes, sitting in a Castro Valley field) on a Model A frame, powered by a '49 Cadillac 331-cubic-inch engine spinning a seriously lumpy mid-50s-vintage Isky cam. It's built entirely from stuff Dave had sitting around, including a Geo Metro back seat, '40 Ford brakes, handmade headers, etc., and I'm having a tough time thinking of any vehicle that's more fun to drive. Those of you heading to the Billetproof show in September will get to see this machine in person. More »
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This is the 24th 1950s vehicle we've seen so far in this series, and it seemed right to follow up the '58 Mercedes-Benz 220S with something from Detroit. You can't get much more Detroit than an old Ford, so here comes a car from a two-time DOTS owner (as far as I know, WhatWouldJesseDo is the only three-time DOTS honoree). More »
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Those hosers up at Dave's Farm sure are professional hoons. And they're not too bad at doing good ol' fashioned backwoods engineering too. Check out this creation: The Buick Halfmaster. It's a '90s Buick Roadmaster with a severely shortened wheelbase that's been converted to an open-air 'amino. Now, you might question how much of a truck this car really is since it doesn't have a proper bed, but c'mon. It doesn't even have headers; the small block V8 exhales flames straight out of the head! So, judge for yourself; does the Halfmaster fit in with Maximum El Camino Day or not? [YouTube] More »
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A 1934 Plymouth sedan isn't a typical starting point for a hot rod, but that's just the beginning of the uniqueness of this car. It's a hodgepodge in the best sense of the term; '79 GM A-body rear suspension, 400 cubic-inches of '73 Plymouth V8 power, a custom intake manifold, and 3 Rochester 2bbl carbs. The wood headliner is actually made from a tree that was growing in the owner's yard. That machine gun styled air cleaner even utilizes the leftover portion of the shortened driveshaft. And would you take a look at that homemade hood ornament; its a "screw" flying though a "U." The best part? The owner bought the car just to get one part for another car, but ended up deciding to build this up just for fun. It's stuff like this that make us love Autorama. More »
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It's doesn't come as a shock to find that Studebakers haven't made much of a showing in this series (so far we've had just an Avanti), given that the Studes were never all that common even back in the day. But hey, at least the Studebaker Pines are still standing tall, and so is this quasi-rat-rodded '60 Lark VIII! More »
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You know I was reaching for the camera in a hurry when this car loomed into my field of vision. This Plymouth is owned by the guy who has the Creamsicle '54 Ford we saw a while back, and I can say from firsthand experience that the copper paint job looks perfect when illuminated by streetlights after dark. The perfect mix of classic Detroit and postmodern irony. Something like that. Anyway, it looks very, very good, and it has suicide doors to boot! More »
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We've seen 11 Alameda vehicles from the 1950s in this series, but not a single one of them was a Ford product. Well, that changes today! I spotted this heavily customized Ford when I was lured down an East End side street by a quick glimpse of a late-60s Dart, spotting this '54 in all its lowered orangitude just across from the Mopar (don't worry, Dart fans, you'll see that '69 pretty soon). There's no telling which model this car is, what with the utter absence of any sort of trim, but I'm hoping it's a Mainline. Damn, that's a great car name- bring back the Mainline, Ford! More »
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What can you do to make a Porsche 356 more interesting? Well, there's Junkman's approach, of course. But what about the rat-rod treatment? Steadfast commenter Vintage Racer sends us these shots... More »
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There were so many cool rods at this event that it's hard to highlight them all. Can you really highlight a Caddy with an air suspension that's "layin' frame" over a nutjob that put flappers on all eight hand made exhaust pipes? Or how about epic pinstriping over oh so smokin' hot rockabilly chicks? You don't. If you're lazy (like me), you post all the great shots of cool stuff in one gallery for the people of the year (you) to ogle for a while. At the end of the day, even though I ran from the barrage of giant raindrops like a little girl to my overengineered Deutschmobile, the rods at Billetproof '07 were so nicely built that I can't help but mark my calendar for next year - and that's an indication of radness right there.– Ben Wojdyla More »
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When we saw this minitanker mit bier thema — duallies, high Schlitz shifter, bull's head hood ornament and exposed u-joint — it was as if we'd found our hot rod soulmate. It's low, it's rough, it's a little bit ugly, but it is creative and it brings (or pretends to bring) hoppy refreshment to the unwashed masses. There isn't much not to love. If there were beirmaidens involved we would have never left.– Ben Wojdyla More »
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Once, we were trying to think up a clever and marketable name for the sport of tying small knives to the paws of crazed squirrels and setting them loose in yuppie restaurants. We only came up with funny names (e.g., Super Amazing Squirrel Knife Fight Happy Time), but nothing that was both instantly recognizable AND clever. Billetproof on the other hand is evocative of the growing anti-trailer queen hot rod movement and it happens to be the name of an eleven-year-old car and culture show. The rules include no billet (imagine that), no digital gauges, no cars newer than 1964 ('65 in the Cali events) and the like. Awesome old-style rods converged on tiny Davisburg, MI this past Saturday, and while the Gods smote us with a gnarly thunderstorm eventually, radness had its moment in the sun. Stay tuned for full coverage. If you live on the left coast, check out their site for details on the September NorCal show. See artsy image of the pending smotage after the jump. – Ben Wojdyla More »
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Ha! I made it! You didn't think I'd pull it off did you? All day with the posting. It's hard to do this work all day. I'll have you know I only was only able to pay weak attention to the showcase showdown today. More »
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Okay, so maybe it would have to be Grandpappy from the American side of the family (before coming over to Deutschland), but that's the first thing I thought when I saw this low and lean roadster. Looking at that worn paint, the zoomies, the Native American blanket seat cover and the underhung headlights. It all makes me giddy as a schoolgirl. There's just so much coolness packed into this little car. It's a wonder I didn't walk out of that place with a significantly lighter wallet and a basketcase that looked really cool. For no good reason, the craziest/coolest part of this car is the trunk if you believe it or not. Take a look after the jump.– Ben Wojdyla More »
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A couple of stretched out bruisers were sitting nose-to-nose in the first row of the lower level. I almost fell over when I saw em. They were raucous and unconventional, seemingly thrown together with whatever parts could be found. They were also done with so much style you had to love 'em. What's not to love about a car with gull-wing doors, whose rear axle is under the your knees, that's also called "Hemirod"? Or whose roof has more metallic sculpture than the Guggenheim museum and a dually truck axle? Nothing, that's what. – Ben Wojdyla More »
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