Thread: Street Rodder Magazine

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Henry,
I am just logging on late after a football game and an afternoon torquing the heads on my 350. I agree about the expense of the cars in Street Rodder. Still on page 10 there is an editorial by Brian Brennen about how cars should be driven to be enjoyed so to some extent he is saying the same thing. I have come to realize that I cannot achieve the economic level of the cars featured in Street Rodder, but I still want a car to drive so I will continue to build. Several years ago I visited Carmel on the Calif. coast where Clint Eastwood has a shop for Western clothes and the street was full of Mercedes. Then compare the pictures of the cars in the L.A. Roadster Show and it is apparent that the cost of living is much higher on the West Coast. I canceled my subscription to Hot Rod because it did not help me at all but on the other hand Street Rod Builder flirts on the edge with what this Forum calls rat rods, so Street Rodder at least has very high quality cars that we can aspire to meet somehow. Nevertheless I agreee with you in that I would like to see a magazine where "we" are not locked into billet deuce or Auburn dash boards. For instance I would like to see an article about how to use Radio Shack digital logic chips to convert one of the many modern instrument clusters for a 4-cyl or V6 to a V8 tach so we could use inexpensive modern junk instrument clusters rather than a $500 setup for an instrument cluster. Other innovative lower cost "tricks" need to be developed based on "modern junk" rather than "classical (expensive) simulated junk". Still Editor Brennen seems to realize what is going on and notes the problem and the Street Rodder articles do feature rods from all over the world. What can we do if a few older rich men (and some women) can afford to implement their teen age fantasy in metal and rubber along with the best paint. It is the old syndrome of "who dies with the most toys wins!" but I plan to enjoy driving my car.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder