Thread: What is your definition of a Hot Rod?

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i think of a hot rod is pre 60s car with a bigger engine rework for going fast every thing made to fit .60s and up muscle cars like gtos ect off the show room floor hot rods that the maker built with bolt on part s . street rods are more just for the street mild build .not a hot rod were they are more strip/street. i know that is not the way many think but that is the way i see it .like my chevy it is not a street rod .it is a hot rod

It's like what they said about porn.....".I can't define it, but I know it when I see it." Over the years I have changed what I call the cars I like to build. I used to refer to them as Street Rods because I built them to drive on the street. But the more I thought about it that term wasn't strong enough to describe the cars I like. I like them hoodless, fenderless, loud, and with enough edge so that the person sitting next to you at a redlight knows they are looking at something different than they are used to. "Street rod" seemed to tame, I want to be driving a "hot rod."

I also think hot rods have to be from a certain era. I don't think for example a 49 Ford with no hood and 6 carbs peeking out from a fire breathing Olds engine is truly a hot rod. It might be a cool as heck car, and I want one, but it is not a hot rod by my definition. I have also heard someone say "yeah, I have this hot rod 68 Camaro, and......." No, you have a Street Machine or Muscle Car 1968 Camaro, but not a hot rod..........at least by MY definition.

I guess that is the point. Ask 1,000 people and you will get 1,000 different answers.

Don

Hot rod magazine has covered everything from ledsled customs to rail dragsters, v-drive boats to factory muscle-cars to street-rods to corvairs and 914's with v-8's shoehorned into the back..... They have promoted the stuffing of oversized v-8's into just about every known front engine/rwd vehicle under the sun. They have promoted the modification of trucks, panels, and even embraced the vans of the seventies. In all their photo-shoots, they put a "Hot Rod" plate on the front of the vehicle, so I guess the term hot rod covers a lot of different styles of cars....
To me, any v-8/rwd vehicle wearing more tire on the rear, slightly lowered in the front, and dual exhaust with a healthy sound is qualified to be generically referred to as a "Hot Rod"!!

Call it what you want, as long as you build it yourself.