50's Fun: Hot Rodding Culture In It's Heyday

People used to take fenders and body panels off of cars to modify their cars, now it’s more common for people to add on fender flares onto their cars to stance their cars. I’ve been reading a book called Fifties Flashback and I’ve learned quite a lot about what it was like to be a gearhead in 50’s America. Here are a few things about the era that stand out to me…

Car Clubs

Car clubs back before the Internet were important for several reasons. Swap meets weren’t common in the early days of hot rodding so club meet ups gave members the opportunity to buy hard to find car parts which was often a better alternative than scanning every classifieds section of local newspapers. TV was still catching on and car clubs were a good way to have a social gathering, the club did a lot of stuff together including beach trips, picnics and movie nights. Another thing hey did was something called a reliability run; this was about a driver and co driver piloting a car through a designated series of roads within a certain time promoting safe driving and togetherness. Most car clubs tried to help every broken down car on the side of the road that they saw and after they assisted the stranded motorist, they would tell them that they has been saved by (insert car club name here).

By The Numbers

It was a big deal if your car could hit a trap speed of 100 MPH or more in the quarter mile in the 1950’s and now, any car that’s slower than that is usually considered slow. You could buy a running and driving 30’s Ford coupe for less than $100 easily. One muffler would run you about $8 while an upgraded camshaft for your car would cost $30.

Open Roads And Street Racing

The streets and byways of America after World War 2 weren’t as crowded as they are today. This allowed gearheads to enjoy driving more (and street racing). Street racing occurred more often than it does today because police and speed cameras weren’t as prevalent in the ancient times. During those street races, many cars were running unsynchronized manuals so speed shifting was trickier and a missed shift could mean a broken transmission or rear axle (a problem prone to early Fords). Not everyone was driving either, often times the husband would drive a lot more than the wife of a family so one car seemed to do fine.

Modifying Hot Rods

Hot rodders were prone to lowering their cars through body channeling and roof chopping but they didn’t mess with the camber of the wheels much. Fenderless cars were popular and considered good looking but some states mandated fenders on street cars and could get you pulled over. Hub caps were a big deal during the early years of hot rodding; they were easier to clean than wire wheels and eliminated wind noise at speed. During the early days of drag racing, removing hubcaps at the racetrack wasn’t necessary but when they started to fly off during races, officials required the removal of them for inspection of the wheels to make sure they weren’t broken. Some drag racers ended up not putting them on to go to the races and wheels without hubcaps became synonomous with race cars. Hubcaps were relatively easy to steal so some car owners put locks on them to prevent them from being snatched. One of the first modifications petrolheads did to a new car they bought was installing dual exhaust pipes onto it because a single exhaust pipe was considered wimpy. Some hot rodders literally cut holes in body panels to make their cars faster at the races, they looked like Swiss Cheese!

Imperfect Hot Rods And Shiny Dreams

A lot of gearheads back in the 1950’s aspired to having the perfect hot rod with pinstripes and every part of the car painted and clean. However, not everyone had cars like this. A lot of hot rods in the 50’s were well worn, wearing primer instead of glistening paint. Fenderless cars threw up mud and water onto the bodywork and in rainy and cool climates, not using fenders on your hot rod was a serious decision.