So you heard that hot rodding was dead. Maybe you overheard somebody saying that all the old tin was gone, rusted away. Well, not excactly.
People are still out there, keeping on what the kids in the 30ies and 40ies started, what became big in the 50ies and 60ies and slowly died away in the following decades. The 90ies brought us shiny airconditioned comfortable street rods and you were looked at in a weird way when you were one of the few guys still running a car in primer on classic steel wheels.
Then came the actual matte black craze in the early 2010s which Porsches, Bentleys and other expensive cars all of a sudden being wrapped in matte black for whatever reason. All of a sudden the uncool became mainstream and we had to metalflake our stuff in order to stand out again.
Now it’s the year 2018 and hot rodding is actually pretty much alive and well. There’s a considerably big group of young guys getting back into doing the things the way it was done back in the day: Making old things work again and then beating the shit out of them. This dedicated group of people might be small, but it’s noticeable getting more and more attention as time passes.
With publications like Hop Up Magazine, the LOWTECH BLOG or this very small effort in documenting the scene that we have right now, interest has kind of returned and people are starting to actually get why we do the things “traditionally”. With more and more oldschool focussed events like The Race of Gentlemen, Hot Rod Hill Climb, Poker Runs, dirt track and beach races everywhere, a new chapter in the page of hot rodding has been opened and we’re looking forward to what the future will bring.
In the meantime, check out this new video about real backyard hot rodding and don’t forget to rewatch the classic “hot rodding is dead” video we’ve all probably seen a thousand times already.
If you’d like to see more video-related content here with me sharing some of the good stuff found surfing the interweb, please let me know in the comments.
Oh, and one more thing: If you’re into what you see here and want to support a good thing in one way or the other, feel free to head over to my shop, grab a shirt, a hat, some stickers and soon: an actual printed magazine. Let’s go shopping!
Anti Attitude 