Have you noticed the recent popularity of retro-styled custom cars? Suddenly people who were born well after the original hotrod craze of the ’50s are building custom ’27 “T-buckets”, ’32 coupes and ’55 Chevys (and just about any other car from the ’30s through the ’60s), either styled for the dragstrip or in a custom cruiser style. This rebirth of the American street rod is strongly nostalgia-driven, with styling cues that recall both drag racing legend “big daddy” Don Garlits and custom car guru “big daddy” Ed Roth. This post, and future posts, are about the the old days, before the term “groovy” had come into use. In the ’50s and early ’60s, wheels like these were “the kookiest.”
I was inspired to write about this stuff as I browsed through my old collection of car magazines, which includes Hot Rod, Rod & Custom and many others, some as 
old as 1954 but most from around 1960. Now and then I’ll select an issue to thumb through, and this time it’s the October 1962 issue of Hot Rod. I acquired these magazines when I was something like 11 years old, and I can’t tell you how many times I poured over them in my pre-driver’s license days. I just thought the cars from that era were the coolest, and, along with a lot of other people, I still do. This issue is chock-full of dragsters and custom street-rods, as were all the car mags from back then, but I had forgotten about the other topics that they would cover: go-karts, slot cars and plastic models. That’s right, it wasn’t uncommon to read about a big drag meet or someone’s newly-built roadster, and then flip the page to see a story about go-kart racing or customizing a model car kit. It actually made perfect sense to include these diverse topics, as they all targeted “car nuts”, regardless of their age.
The coveted cover shot is of Bob Urquhart’s De Soto-powered model-T, complete with four Stromberg carburetors and whitewall tires. Inside, the first thing that caught my eye was a two-page advertisement for AMT, a company that made so many of the plastic model car kits. This time they were promoting their “Authentic Model Turnpike”, a slot-car racing set. The most memorable part of the ad (click to see the big version) is undoubtedly the “Model Car Builders Corner”, written by Budd Anderson from AMT who opens with:
“Man, like it’s here! I’ve been yakking you Kats it’s the greatest. Now just cast those orbs across the page and tell me if I wasn’t right. AMT has cracked the barrier with the most advanced speedway track on the market…Authentic Model Turnpike!
Like, where did he pick up that crazy beatnik lingo daddy-o? Unfortunately I can’t cover the whole issue here (old mags are cheap, and if you’re interested you can probably find one on eBay), but before I go I want
to mention an article about a type of vehicle that would soon become immensely popular, the dunebuggy. It’s clear from the story that Bill Chisholm, our intrepid buggy-builder, was in uncharted territory as he designed the machine. The Volkswagen Beetle was already the vehicle of choice when putting a buggy together, but most of the design particulars were sorted out by the individual builders. Proper (big) off-road tires weren’t common, so this one featured dual wheels on each back corner to keep it buoyant on the dunes. It was just a few years after this (3 or 4?) that those fiberglass dunebuggy kits came out (with the really sparkly metalflake colors!), which made their construction less “experimental”.
Well, I’m going to call it a day. From time-to-time I’ll review other magazines in my archive, and, even though I haven’t looked at them in years, I still remember some of the content. I clearly remember an article that covered a grueling go-kart race in Tecate, Mexico, with dual-engined karts flying through the dirt streets. Wild!
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Mark,
It’s a little past the 50′s, but I got interested in racing early to mid 60′s. Out of that era we can’t overlook racers such as Stone-Woods-Cook, Big John Mazmanian, Wild Willy Borsch, and Ft Worth’s own Gene Snow. As you can probably guess I got hooked on drag racing, then the dirt track ovals came later (mid 70′s). I had a really good friend that was the announcer at several tracks (Little River AKA Temple Academy Raceway, the defunct Austin Raceway, Heart of Texas in Waco), he also drove a little “A” Gas Anglia (English Ford) so I hung around lots of local race tracks in from the 60′s until present time. I have marked the website and will check back from time to time to see the latest topic.
Best Regards
Roy
[I spent a lot of time at Green Valley Raceway as a kid, and remember Gene Snow well. (and remember Dick Harrell?) I also got to see "Wild Willy" run at Dallas International once...good times. And who can forget those Anglias? There were so many, and I wanted to build one for the street so bad I could taste it. Of course the dreams of a teenager often exceeded the budget. Thanks for sharing! - Mark]
I had an AMT slot car set and it was revolutionary. The best part was that the cars were 1/25 scale and not those 2 inch long things that all other slot cars were. We must have raced 50000 miles with that thing and the best part is i sold it a few years ago for 10 times what i paid for it. A great investment – all model cars from the 60′s are.