By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

Some maniac stuffed a Chevy small-block, along with a Ford front straight-axle and steering box, into an old Worthington tractor: goofy, ridiculous, awful, and awesome all at the same time. And as of right now, it’s sitting at 1000 bucks! Check out the auction on eBay.

By Antonio Alvendia

Antonio Alvendia

With December in full swing and Christmas-time near, tis the season for parties and holiday cheer. With hot rods on the freeway, plus an onslaught of rain, I had to yell at times, “stupid ass, stay in your lane!!!”

This past weekend, I attended the Annual Mooneyes Christmas Party at Irwindale Speedway. I can’t believe it’s already been a full year since the last time I visited the show. I have to admit… cold, rainy weather makes me feel pretty lazy. Living in Southern Cali, I think I’ve gotten used to the weather being 73 degrees all year round, so when it dips below 55 degrees outside, it’s pretty hard for me to convince myself to leave the comfort of my baffled goose down comforter behind and trudge through the rain with 30+lbs of camera gear and flyers on my back. This Saturday, it was especially difficult because I was out with my friends at a house party and didn’t get back until 4:30am on the day of the show.

However, I’m really glad I did make it to Mooneyes this year. Speaking to my friend Shige (the man behind Mooneyes and Crown Classics in Yokohama Japan), we both agreed that the rain did put a bit of a damper on the event’s attendance, but it was good in a way. It weeded out most of the “trying to be down” scenesters and showed everyone who the real hardcore hot rodders were. Most of the guys who came to this year’s Mooneyes Christmas Party actually drove their period correct traditional hot rods with vintage whitewall tires on the 605 freeway IN THE RAIN to and from the show. Now that’s dedication! Much respect! Continue reading and view more photos on MotorMavens!

By Antonio Alvendia

Antonio Alvendia

Detroit’s annual Woodward Dream Cruise rolled into town this weekend along with droves of visitors looking to get in on the fun and Cruise Woodward. The estimated attendance was to the tune of just over 1 million visitors, which is said to be a few hundred thousand less than last year, although I’m not sure exactly how you’d go about counting everyone. Despite the Los Angeles-style traffic that comes with so many visitors, the boost in the economy is more than welcome around these parts. I even saw a few nuns, of all people, hustling visitors for their prime parking spots at a church parking lot. Well done sisters!

For Detroiters, it was a pleasant surprise to see the American automakers on hand and still showing their support for the event. Ford went as far as shutting down a portion of 9 mile Rd. in Ferndale,MI to turn it into Mustang Alley, lining both sides of the street with Mustangs from all generations and styles. It was pretty impressive such a variety of Mustangs including the original Shelby’s from the mid-60′s.

Continue reading and view more photos at MotorMavens.com

The biggest picture post I’ve ever seen just went up over at Frankensteiners (if you’re on dialup, don’t even think about clicking the link). I noticed some nice Mopars on page 4, too.

Continue reading "The Mother of All Rat Rod Picture Posts" »

By John Coyle

Editor

While I’m surely running afoul of rockabilly nomenclature by even mentioning the phrase "rat rod" in regard to this ride, I don’t really care. Seriously, unless we’re talking about bourbon, I’m about as far from a "purist" as you can get. So I’m not going to say sorry until somebody with sleeves and slicked back hair threatens to kick my ass. Anyway, this gorgeous creation was parked in the Firestone Industrial Products booth, and I had to stand back to keep from drooling all over the sheet metal. How dope do the motorcycle tires look up front? Since it’s running a Chevy 350 mated to a Tremec six-speed, I have to admit I was a little confused by the Peterbuilt badge about the grill. But that doesn’t make this creation any less awesome. Check out a bunch more glamor shots and the full specs after the jump.

Continue reading "What Do You Call a Rat Rod That Isn't Ratty?" »

The car scene is like any other in that certain trends come and go. I remember some trends with fondness, like when Vans were cool back in the 70s and 80s. However, there are some that I wish would just go away. One of them is this whole "rat rod" thing. As I understand it, the term refers to a hot rod or custom that appears to be in an unfinished state, evoking the run-what-you-brung days of hot rodding, when owners would use whatever was on hand to get and keep their cars on the road. I don’t have a problem with that, but what really annoys me is that quite a few people are stating that they have a "rat rod" when what they do in fact have is just an incomplete piece of crap. Then there are those who I just don’t understand, like this gentleman selling his so-called rat-rod Rambler on eBay. There’s nothing "rat" about this ride—it’s just a matte-black Rambler with red wheels, so what? I don’t know if it’s really just come down to throwing around a trendy term, but as far as I’m concerned you either have a hot rod or a custom whether it’s finished or not. I think it’s time we buried this entire "rat rod" thing. What do you think?

On Saturday the Last Originals car club hosted the Seabowl Car show in Pacifica, California, and my buddy Stu snapped a bunch of pics. Pacifica is pretty much always cloudy, and it looks like this weekend was no exception. Incidentally, there is a long feature article on the Last Originals in issue #17 of Gearhead magazine, which just hit the newsstands. More pics from the show after the jump.

Continue reading "Seabowl Car Show" »

The 22nd annual edition of the Mooneyes Street Car Nats was held this weekend in Tokyo. There was everything from rat rods to Mopars to crazy JDM rides. This "VW Bus" leaves me scratching my head–what the heck is it? I’ve got a ton more pics after the jump, and if you want to see all of them, go to HemiDave’s full Photobucket gallery. There’s also some pretty good coverage over at auto-otaku.com.

Continue reading "Mooneyes 2008" »

Duffy recently acquired this 1950 Plymouth Deluxe with a 1950 DeSoto front clip, a 1978 Firebird front end, a 1974 Camaro rear end and a big block 400 out of a 1972 Catalina. Right now he’s broke and working on other projects, but hopefully this summer it will start coming together.