So when did hot rods and street rods make it onto the American scene? Most point to the period immediately after World War Two. In addition to this, southern California is credited as the place where it all really began.
Not that souping up cars didn’t occur prior to the war. It certainly did, especially during the era of Prohibition, when moonshiners wanted to outrun the feds. During this era there were also informal races held by the rum runners themselves for bragging rights. Who had the fastest souped up car for evading federal agents. By the last half of the 1940’s, racing became organized as described below.
A hot rod is a car that has been changed so that it can be driven and raced at very fast speeds. A street rod is generally referred to as a old car, about 1948 or earlier, that has been well maintained and typically has been provided with a powerful, modern engine and modern interior fittings. The 1948 and earlier definition for street rods reflect the case that most prewar styles and mechanics were changed after that year. Civilian vehicles were not produced during the war thus it took several years for truly new post war styling to be introduced.
To get hot rodding started you needed a good supply of older cars in which to tune up into fast, powerful machines. These were plentiful after the war. Today, of course, it’s much easier to make performance changes because of all the performance parts suppliers available. Just glance at a hot rod or street rod engine today and you’ll see the familiar names such as Edelbrock and Weber just to name a few.
Back in the latter 1940’s, unless you had access to machinery or you were a wizard with automobile engines, the tried and true way to increase speed and performance was to strip a car of unneeded parts. In other word, get rid of excess weight you didn’t need. With that being said, it really didn’t take long for the aftermarket industry to begin turning out performance parts. Where there is a profit to be made an industry will form and it’s been growing ever since.
Where to Race
Aside from the fact that street racing was illegal not to mention dangerous to both drivers and pedestrians, the early drag strips and race tracks were typically found on unused land including unused plane landing strips. Most drag strips were built in fairly remote areas. The Los Angeles area once abounded with drag strips. Some disappeared because as LA grew the once remote land became quite valuable. Some strips disappeared simply because there were too many of them and as years went by, and the freeway system grew, LA residents had more more entertainment venues to enjoy.
The original drag racing strips were much wider and longer than they are today. Drag strips were strongly encouraged early on by civic organizations and law enforcement so to get hot rodders off the streets. As drag racing became more popular it was necessary that some type of organization was needed to ensure that certain levels of quality and safety were in place. This led to the formation in 1951 of the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA).
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