Cruisin' Back to the '50s

Read the history of hot rodding and you'll learn that Culver City, California, surrounded on all sides by Los Angeles, was a hotbed of hot rod activity in the '50s. We don't know exactly what a "hotbed" is, but we have heard a lot of stories from those days--about Dick Kraft and others early drag racers meeting up at the Piccadilly Drive-In before heading over to a long, straight stretch of industrial road nicknamed "Thunder Alley" for purposes we can only speculate. Elsewhere in town, the roundy racers tore up the planks at the long-gone Culver City Speedway.

George Barris remembers those days, and relives them in May when he hosts the Cruisin' Back to the '50s hot rod show. The event packs a couple major streets and several minor ones in the downtown area with hundreds of rods, customs, bikes, classics, street machines, and many of Barris' TV and movie cars.

Here's a gallery of rides from George's recent party in the streets of Culver City.