The Evolution of Street Rodding - Page 3

No Longer Crude and Rough

Today's street rods are a far cry from the early rods that tore up the streets and high school parking lots a few decades ago. Thanks to a bevy of specialty manufacturers, you can get the very best parts and components for increasing performance, handling, comfort and safety in a street rod. Without a doubt, many street rods today are at least as good as many of the vehicles Detroit cranks out - and some are even better, since they're assembled from the best of OEM products and others from top-quality aftermarket takeoffs.

It's not uncommon to see street rods sporting Jaguar or Corvette independent rear suspensions, Camaro front sub frames, Mustang II independent front suspension, and dropped I-beam solid or tube front axles. Transmissions run the gamut from three-on-the-tree to four-on-the-floor or automatics and some even have overdrive for highway cruising. Others offer conventional steering with drum juice binders, power rack-and-pinion steering with four-wheel power discs and anything from single carburetors to multiple carbs with blowers or fuel-injected engines. There are no limits on the amount of ingenuity and engineering you can put into a street rod - literally, anything goes.

Cabin accoutrements such as power windows, air conditioning, CD or DVD players with color monitors, killer multi-speaker stereo systems with graphic equalizers, tilt-telescopic steering wheels, rear view mirrors with electronic compass and outside temperature indicators built in and more are frequently found in today's street rods. Color-screen X-Boxes and Nintendos are even being installed in street rods to keep the kids (or grand kids) happy when taking the family out for a cruise.

Seating can range from a molded fiberglass racing seat with a minimal amount of padding and a five-way harness all the way up to six-way adjustable power seats with lumbar supports upholstered in the finest leather. You'll also see cloth and Naugahyde bench seats, contoured buckets and other seating configurations as well. As with all aspects of street rodding, variety is the spice of life.

As far as exterior finishes go, you're liable to see everything from the retro hot rod look of gray primer all the way up to multi-stage pearl, metallic and metal-flake paint jobs and iridescent finishes that change color as you change your viewing angle. You'll see scallops, flames, splash, shredding and "ghost" effects like flames that only become visible at certain angles as well.

Ground effects are popular with street rodders, too. Neon license plate frames and neon tubes affixed to the undercarriage give street rods a nighttime glow all their own. LED license plate bolts and tire valve stem lights, fluorescent light rings that backlight the disc brakes, strobes and other lighting effects are all used to make unique street rodding statements.

Talking The Talk

And street rodding has its own jargon, too. You'll hear terms used to describe changes rodders routinely make to set their cars apart from the mainstream in an effort to produce something truly unique. A few of the more common terms are:

• Chopped - A hard-top car that has had its roof lowered;
• Channeled - Cutting the floor so the body rests around the frame rails rather than sitting on top of the frame. This gives an overall lowered appearance;
• Sectioned - Removing a horizontal section of bodywork to lower the overall height of the body;
• Raked - The front end has been lowered more than the back. This can also refer to a slanted windshield;
• Nosed - Chrome details and trim removed from the hood and smoothed over;
• Decked - Chrome details and trim removed from the trunk and smoothed over.

There are several genres of street rods and there's something for just about any taste you could think of. Here's a small sampling of the kinds of street rods you'll see at cruise nights and car shows:

Resto-rods or sleepers - these rods look original on the outside but have all kinds of performance modifications under the hood and in the cabin;

Nostalgia rods - these have the retro look of the hot rods of the past. These are sometimes finished in gray primer or black sealer and may have wide whitewalls mounted on chrome or painted reversed steel wheels. They may have spun aluminum wheel discs, spinners or flipper wheel covers, a pair of fuzzy dice hanging from the mirror, a lady luck shift knob and a suicide knob on the steering wheel - the whole nine yards to invoke memories of Ricky Nelson's rod on the old Ozzie & Harriet TV show;

Techy turn-key rods - these are top-drawer, expensive vehicles built by professional rod builders. These rods usually have all of the best available engineering components such as hydro-formed frame rails, Cadillac North Star power plants, On Star systems and other state-of-the-art features. More often than not, these rods cost six figures;

Lead sleds - these are also nostalgia vehicles that have had their fender seams and other joints filled in (traditionally with lead solder, hence the name) to smooth them out. They're usually lowered and have frenched headlights and tunneled radio antennas;

Highboys - these are usually fenderless early Fords but they can be other makes as well. The name derives from the fact that they sit at the same height as the original stock vehicle;

Labor-of-love rods - you'll see lots of these since they're the pride and joy of the build-it-and-drive-it street rod set.

And that is both the essence and beauty of street rodding: the freedom to build and drive whatever it is that appeals to each rodder on his or her own personal level. And as long as you like what you've built and what you drive, it matters not what others may think. That's what street rodding is all about - gettin' in and gettin' it on.

Note: This article has been excerpted from Tom Benford's book The Street Rod. It can be purchased from Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com or other national booksellers. Or you can order an autographed copy directly from Tom at www.tombenford.com/books.html"