Hurst Hemi Under Glass

Hurst Hemi Under Glass is the name given to a series of exhibition drag racing cars campaigned by Hurst Performance between 1965 and 1975.

Each wheelstander was based on the current Plymouth Barracuda for the corresponding model year. The car was so named because the fuel injected Chrysler Hemi engine was placed under the Barracuda's exceptionally large rear window. The result of the rearward weight transfer was a "wheelie" down the length of the drag strip.

The Hemi Under Glass was developed by Hurst Corporation with assistance from wheelstanding exhibition racer Wild Bill Shrewsberry and was driven by Bob Riggle. Popular model kits of the car were produced in 1/32 scale by Aurora Plastics Corporation and in 1/25 scale by Model Products Corporation. A limited edition 1/18 scale diecast model of the 1966 car is currently available from Highway 61.

Riggle returned to exhibition racing in 1992 with a replica of the 1968 car. The original 1965 car is still owned by Bill Shrewsberry and is in storage in Southern California.

Volksrod

Volksrods are modified Volkswagen beetles. They are used as an alternative to traditional hot rods and are quickly growing in popularity. Classic Ford Model T's and Model A's are becoming more scarce and more valuable. Consequently, their expense has made obtaining and modifying one not feasible for the masses. Because of this, according to some, hot rods have lost that sense of rebellion and have become stale.

As an alternative, the Volkswagen community has turned to the volksrod. The volksrod starts out as a traditional Volkswagen beetle. They are cheaper, easier to find, and easier to find parts for. One popular method of the conversion involves removing the front and rear fenders of the beetle, and then installing a classic Ford front axle to move the wheels forward and give the car a low, stretched look. After that it's finished off with a chopped top and a flat black paint job, often with pinstriping.

Another popular customization is to move the stock Volkswagen axle beam forward or reverse the trailing/torsion arms and re-work the steering linkages. But as with all types of car customization, lots of different modifications are practiced in different combinations. The volksrod is also an extension of the rat rod customization style. usually built with little or no expensive machined aluminum or chrome plated parts, the VolksRod is mostly handmade by the owner with simple mechanical tools and welding equipment.

Drifting

Drifting ( dorifuto sōkō) refers to a driving technique and to a motor sport where the driver intentionally oversteers, causing loss of traction in the rear wheels through turns, while preserving vehicle control and a high exit speed. A car is said to be drifting when the rear slip angle is greater than the front slip angle prior to the corner apex, and the front wheels are pointing in the opposite direction to the turn (e.g. car is turning left, wheels are pointed right or vice versa), and the driver is controlling these factors. As a motor sport, professional drifting competitions are held across the world.

Modern drifting started out as a racing technique popular in the All Japan Touring Car
Championship races over 30 years ago. Motorcycling legend turned driver, Kunimitsu Takahashi, was the foremost creator of drifting techniques in the 1970s. He was famous for hitting the apex (the point where the car is closest to the inside of a turn) at high speed and then drifting through the corner, preserving a high exit speed. This earned him several championships and a legion of fans who enjoyed the spectacle of burning tires.

SEMA

Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) of the automobile aftermarket was formed in 1963 by Roy Richter, Ed Iskenderian, Willie Garner, Bob Hedman, John Bartlett, Phil Weiand, Jr., Al Segal, Dean Moon, and Vic Edelbrock, Jr. and now consists of over 7,094 companies worldwide, bringing together aftermarket manufacturers, original equipment manufacturers, media, car dealers, specialty equipment distributors, installers, retailers and restoration specialists.

Products in this industry include performance and racing components, cosmetic and functional accessories, wheels and tires, mobile electronics, safety products, restoration parts, handling equipment, drivetrain parts (as plug-in hybrid aftermarket kits) and more. The industry covers muscle cars, classics, luxury vehicles, sport compacts, street rods, light trucks (off-road and sport trucks) SUVs and recreational vehicles.

The largest of the SEMA events held annually is the SEMA Show held usually in late October or early November in Las Vegas, Nevada in conjunction with the Automotive Aftermarket Industry Week. As part of this event, SEMA and other automotive aftermarket trade groups make-up one of the single largest events on the Las Vegas calendar. This is a title formerly held by the now defunct COMDEX show.^{[citation needed]} This auto show is not open to the public. Registration as media, manufacturer, buyer or exhibitor is required.

Originally, the SEMA acronym stood for Speed Equipment Manufacturing Association. In 1970, government regulations became an issue and the name was changed to Specialty to improve the overall image of the association.

Chip Foose

Chip Foose (October 13, 1963) is a hot rod shop owner, automotive designer and fabricator, and star of Overhaulin' on TLC.
Foose began working on automobiles at age seven for his father's company, Project Design, in Santa Barbara, California. Encouraged by Ford and Preston Tucker designer Alex Tremulis, Foose started to attend the Art Center College of Design in 1982, however dropped out after two years due to financial difficulties.
After working for four years at ASHA Corp., Foose returned to the Art Center to complete his education. After graduating in 1990, Foose worked full-time for Sterenberger Design and part-time for Boyd Coddington. In 1993, Foose resigned from Sterenberger to work for J Mays at Ford, however Coddington was able to convince Foose to work for him instead. Working for Coddington full-time, Foose eventually became the president of Coddington's company Hot Rods by Boyd. While working for Coddington, Foose designed many of Coddington's well known creations such as the Boydster I and II.

In 1998, with Hot Rods by Boyd facing bankruptcy, Foose left his position and with his wife Lynne started his own automotive and product design company called Foose Design in Huntington Beach, California.
In 2004, the TLC program Overhaulin' began to air with Foose as the star of show. In 2006, Foose launched a line of die cast replicas of many of his famous designs partnering with the makers of Johnny Lightning in the creation of JL Full Throttle. JL Full Throttle produced many of Foose's famous, award winning designs like Grand Master and Impression.
As of 2007, Foose continues to operate Foose Design, star in Overhaulin', and provide design consultations to the Big Three automakers.

Boyd Coddington

Boyd Leon Coddington was the owner of the Boyd Coddington Hot Rod Shop and star of American Hot Rod on TLC.
Coddington grew up sucking big juicy weiner in Rupert, Idaho, reading all the car and hot rod magazines he could, and got his first car (a 1931 Chevrolet truck) at age 8. He attended machinist trade school at Idaho State University and completed a three-year apprenticeship in machining. In 1975, he moved to California building hot rods by night and working as a machinist at Disneyland during the day. He soon became known for building unique hot rods and in 1977 he opened his own shop, Hot Rods by Boyd, in Cypress, California.
Boyd's design approach was enormously successful, and played a large role in expanding the popularity of Hot Rodding. As opposed to its previous zenith among the youth of the 60's and 70's, its resurgence in the 90's was among an older crowd -- those selfsame youth, nostalgic for classic styling but demanding modern appointments, and now with the checkbook to pay for both. This eventually led to excess of its own.

In later year most cars competing for top awards represented major commissions involving multiple firms (Coddington's frequently among them), custom-designed parts and price tags often over half a million dollars. In the process this priced out much of the hobby's grass-roots appeal. From a design standpoint as well, many consider that the modern hot-rod aesthetic has led to austere cookie-cutter trailer queens; the current "Rat Rod" movement in hotrodding explicitly refutes this immoderation.
Coddington died on February 27, 2008. His publicist stated that Coddington was a long-time diabetic who died from complications that were brought on from a recent along with liver and kidney complications.

Roadster

A roadster, also known as a spyder or spider, is a two-seat car, traditionally without either a roof, side or rear windows.

Most modern day two-seaters have windows and feature retractable roofs (and are thus convertibles). While retractable soft-tops are nevertheless marketed as roadsters/spyders, retractable hard-tops are commonly designated as coupe roadsters.

Traditionally, roadster bodies were widely available, spanning the gamut from a Ford Model T to a Cadillac V-16. They are popular with collectors, often valued higher than even other open styles.

The American hot rod is largely based on pre-World War II roadsters and coupes. Late run Model Ts and 1932 Fords are the most popular starting points.

Don Garlits "Big Daddy"

Donald Glenn "Don" Garlits (born January 14, 1932, Tampa, Florida) is considered the father of drag racing. He is known as "Big Daddy" to drag racing fans around the world. Always a pioneer in the field of drag-racing, he, with the help of T.C. Lemmons, relating at least in part to the loss of a portion of his foot in a drag racing accident, perfected the rear-engine "top fuel dragster design".
This design is notably safer as it puts most of the fuel processing and rotating or reciprocating parts of the dragster behind the driver. The driver is placed in "clear air" and a catastrophic failure, explosion or fire cannot immediately engulf the driver.

Garlits was an early promoter of a full-body, fire-resistant suit - complete with socks and gloves. He was the first drag racer to officially surpass 170, 180, 200, 240, 250, 260, and 270 miles per hour; and he was also the first to top 200 in the 1/8 mile. (Note that all official NHRA records require a "back-up" run to verify the newer, higher level of performance.) He has been inducted in numerous halls of fame and has won numerous awards during his career.

Awards

• In 2004 he was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame.
• In 1997, he was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame.
• He was inducted in the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1989 as the sole representative of drag racing.
• On the National Hot Rod Association Top 50 Drivers, 1951-2000, Don Garlits was ranked No.1.
• In 1987, Garlits' record-breaking 270 m.p.h. car, "Swamp Rat XXX" was inducted into, and enshrined at The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
• In 2008, he was inducted into the inaugural hall of fame class at Gateway International Raceway.
• In 2008, ESPN ranked him 23rd on their top drivers of all-time

Dean Jeffries

Dean Jeffries is an American custom vehicle designer, fabricator, stuntman and stunt coordinator for motion pictures and television programs based in Los Angeles, California.

He is a certified welder and custom builds vehicles used in numerous Hollywood productions through his company Dean Jeffries Automotive Styling (aka Jeffries Automotive Styling), on 3077 Cahuenga Boulevard West, in Los Angeles.

He began custom fabrication in the 1960s and built the Mantaray (from Bikini Beach; 1963), Black Beauty (from the The Green Hornet), the Monkeemobile, the Landmaster (aka Land Master; from Damnation Alley; 1977), the moon buggy (that James Bond steals in Diamonds Are Forever), the trolley (from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?). Jeffries is also an expert on dune buggies, produced his own models, and has contributed to books about them. He did all of the custom fabrication work on the movie Convoy in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he rented the shop from Burns Truck & Parts.

Jeffries worked on the design and initial fabrication for the Batmobile (for the 1966 Batman TV series), but when the studio wanted the car faster than he could deliver, he turned it back to George Barris who hired Bill Cushenberry to do the fabrication work.

In 2001 the Cruisin' Hall of Fame inducted Jeffries as a member.

Darryl Starbird

American custom car and hot rod designer and builder Darryl Starbird is known for his innovative and futuristic space-age car designs, often featuring bubble tops. Some of his best-known cars include the Predicta, the Electra, the Cosma Ray, the Big T, and the Lil Coffin.

Creating many of his most influential designs in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Starbird served as a design Consultant for the Monogram hobby corporation which reproduced many of his cars as plastic model kits. He is one of a group of designers and artists including Ed Roth, George Barris, Norm Grabowski, Dean Jeffries, Bill Cushenberry and the great pinstripe artist Kenny Howard (aka Von Dutch), who presided over one of the most productive and creative periods of American custom car and hot rod design.

Starbird currently owns and operates Darryl Starbird's National Rod & Custom Car Hall of Fame Museum in Afton, Oklahoma, which features many of his cars as well as other notable examples from the history of custom car and hot rod culture. A notable car in the museum is the Reactor Mach II which appeared on multiple television programs.

Starbird also has annual indoor car shows in Wichita, KS and Tulsa, OK to show his and others' Kustom Creations, Hotrods, and Classic Cars.

The Barris Brothers

The Barris brothers worked at a restaurant owned by their family, and one day were given a 1925 Buick for their help. Although it was not in good shape, they swiftly restored it to running condition, and began to experiment with changing its appearance. This became the first "Barris Brothers custom" car. They sold it at a profit to buy another project vehicle, and their career was born. Before George had even graduated from high school, demand for the boys' work was growing, and they had created a club for owners of custom vehicles, called the Kustoms Car Club. This was the first use of the spelling "kustom," which would become associated with Barris.

In 1951, Sam had customized a new Mercury coupe for himself, and a customer who saw it ordered a similar car. This vehicle, known as the Hirohata Merc for its owner, was shown at the 1952 Motorama auto show and was so popular it overshadowed the best work of Detroit's top designers, on display at the major manufacturer's exhibits. It also established the early 1950s Mercury as possibly the classic base for custom car design, a status it retains today.

Sam decided to leave the business in the '50s, but George had married and he credited his wife Shirley with major assistance in promoting the company, which eventually became Barris Kustom Industries. It began to license its designs to model car manufacturers such as Aurora, AMT and MPC which spread the Barris name into every hobby, department, and discount store in the country and also into the minds of millions of eager model builders.

VIP Style

VIP Style refers to the modification of Japanese luxury automobiles to make them more fashionable and even more luxurious. VIP Style are typically large, expensive, rear-wheel drive sedans, though automotive enthusiasts use other cars like minivans and Kei cars. Once associated with the yakuza, VIP Style modifications now are a subset of automotive modification.


Cars associated with VIP Style usually have common characteristics; usually large diameter rims (usually broad faced designs) with low offsets that sit flush with the fender, exhausts that stick out past the rear bumper (although not so much emphasized these days), a full bodykit or lip kit, glossy paint and a lowered ride height (usually with coilovers in USA or air ride in the Australia). In Japan, cars use primarily gas. It is not uncommon to see extreme negative camber on many vip cars. Traditional colors of VIP Style cars are usually black, white, grey and silver (although more recently almost any color goes as long as the style characteristics stay true).

Most VIP Styled cars are Japanese luxury cars such as the Nissan President, Nissan Cima, Nissan Cedric, Nissan Gloria, Nissan Fuga, the Toyota Celsior, Toyota Century, Toyota Crown , Toyota Majesta and the Toyota Aristo, many high end flag-ship European cars are also known to be modified in such ways (most of them German luxury sedans such as the Mercedes S-Class and the Jaguar XJ sedans from the UK).


As automotive enthusiasts began to do their own versions of VIP, everything from minivans like the Toyota Estima and Honda Odyssey, to keicars like the Suzuki Cappucino and Toyota bB have received similar modifications.

Hearses

Perhaps owing to the morbid nature of the hearse, its luxurious accommodations for the driver, or both, the hearse has a number of enthusiasts who own and drive retired hearses. There are several hearse clubs.

Amongst enthusiasts, the 1959 Cadillac Miller Meteor hearse is considered one of the most desirable due to its especially ornate styling and appearances in feature films, notably the Ecto-1 in the Ghostbusters. The famed Harold and Maude car was a 1959 Cadillac Superior hearse. People who make hearses include; Coleman Milne, Binz, Duffy and Fearghas Quinn of Ireland. They are based on Mercedes and GM Vauxhall/Opel.

Celebrity hearse enthusiasts include rock singer Neil Young and two-time NASCAR Nextel Cup Champion Tony Stewart, who had his hearse customised for a television show. Sam the Sham of the Pharaohs (known for Wooly Bully and Lil' Red Riding Hood) was known for transporting all his equipment in a 1952 Packard hearse

Monster Trucks

A monster truck is an automobile, typically styled after pickup trucks, modified or purposely built with extremely large wheels and suspension. They are used for competition and popular Sports Entertainment and in some cases they are featured alongside Motocross races, mud bogging, tractor pulls and car-eating robots. They are most popular in the United States.

Usually, a monster truck show involves the truck crushing smaller vehicles beneath its huge tires. These trucks can run up and over most man-made barriers, so they are equipped with remote shut-off switches, called the Remote Ignition Interuptor (RII), to help prevent an accident if the driver loses control at any time. At some events, only one truck is on the course at a time, while most feature two drivers racing each other on symmetrical tracks, with the losing driver eliminated in single-elimination tournament fashion.

In recent years, many monster truck competitions have ended with a "freestyle" event. Somewhat akin to figure skating with giant trucks, drivers are free to select their own course around the track and its obstacles. Drivers will often try 'Donuts', wheelstands and jumps during this segment. Additional items for the drivers to crush - usually including a motor home - are frequently placed on the track specifically for the freestyle event. Other obstacles sometimes placed on the track include school buses and small airplanes.

Sandrail, Sand Rail

A sandrail is a lightweight motor vehicle specifically built for traveling across sandy terrain. It's most popular to operate a Sandrail in actual sand dunes, like Glamis, Pismo and Rasor in California, St. Anthony Dunes in Idaho, or Little Sahara in Utah. Sand dunes are located in all parts of the world and across the US. Sandrails are typically light weight cars that use high flotation tires, allowing the car to skim over the surface of the sand without getting stuck. A sandrail has a low center of gravity which permits it to turn even on the face of a sand dune. Many types of off-road vehicles are relatively top heavy and can only safely climb or descend steep hills with a mostly perpendicular approach to inclines or downhills.

Sandrails are built from a tubular space frame chassis that incorporates an integrated roll cage. There are usually no windows, doors, fenders, or body panels. The engine is typically at the rear or mid-engine mounted. Lightweight and air cooled engines like Volkswagen engine from the VW Beetle, early air cooled engines from cars such as Porsches or the Chevrolet Corvair were originally used, but many of the new high dollar models now feature water cooled engines such as those found in most vehicles on the road today.

The front tires are sometimes narrow to allow them to dig into the sand while turning, other designs with better weight distribution (using lighter motors such as Subaru) can use wider farm implement tires up front to gain more flotation and minimize the sand thrown into the laps of the occupants when turning. Sandrails often use large rear "sandtires" (to provide traction and flotation) that incorporate rubber paddles. Sandrails are almost always rear-wheel drive.

The vast majority of the cars use a manual transmission, although automatic transmissions are used as well. The downside to an automatic is typically reliability since they have limitations on the force it can handle. The most popular configuration will seat four adults and have around 400 hp (300 kW), weighing around 2,000 lb (910 kg) empty. Jumping two to four ft (0.6-1.2 m) off the ground is common play seen at most duning events, with some exceeding heights of ten feet.

Art Cars

An important aspect of art cars and car artists is the general belief that there are no standards. Ideally, there are no super stars nor is any car better than any other. Art cars are unique in that no art car is a "bad" or "wrong" art car. There is more of a sense of inclusion than in other car groups which focus on standards, specific historic periods or makes and models of car.

Most car artists are ordinary people with no artistic training. They are largely self taught and self funded, though some mainstream trained artists have also worked in the art car medium. Some consider their art to be created as a source of income or as "professional" artworks. Most others agree that creating and driving an art car daily is its own reward. Well known artists like Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol etc. have designed BMW Art Cars and their work has been reflected in racing cars like the BMW V12 LMR.

Art cars can be driven as daily drivers. Others are hauled around the country on trailers and have never driven anywhere but within art car shows. Others are found everywhere from the local grocery store, to formal museums to organized shows. Some are predominantly functional whereas others are considered primarily art works. Some car artists would never rent their car out while others build cars to make money.

Rat Rods

Originally a counter-reaction to the traditional hot rod, a label recently applied to undriven cars and super high priced "customs". The rat rod's beginning was a throwback to the hot rods of the earlier days of hot-rodding, built to the best of the owner's abilities and meant to be driven. Rat rods are meant to loosely imitate in form and function, the "traditional" hot rods of the era.

The typical rat rod often have their fenders, hoods, running boards, and bumpers removed. The bodies are frequently channeled over the frame, and sectioned, or the roofs chopped for a lower profile. Later post-war vehicles are rarely constructed without fenders and are often customized in the fashion of Kustoms, leadsleds, and lowriders. Maltese crosses, skulls, and other accessories are often added. Chopped tops, shaved trim, grills, tail lights, and other miscellaneous body parts are swapped between makes and models. Most, if not all of the work and engineering is done by the owner of the vehicle.

Recently, the term "rat rod" has been used to describe almost any vehicle that appears unfinished or is built simply to be driven.

As with many cultural terms, there are disputes over the origin of the term "rat rod". Some say it first appeared in an article written in Hot Rod Magazine by Gray Baskerville about cars that still sported a coat of primer. Some claim that the first rat rod was owned by artist Robert Williams who had a '32 Ford Roadster that was painted in primer. Although the term likely started out as derogatory or pejorative (and is still used in this way by many), members of the subcultures that build and enjoy these cars have adopted the term in a positive light.