If circumstances had played out differently, Harry Hibler, of Shadow Hills, California (born in 1935), wouldn’t have been managing San Fernando Drag Strip to turn a blind eye when the Fueler guys showed up during the nitro ban, or at the helm as publisher of Hot Rod magazine, because he’d have been busting some organized crime crook for the Bureau.

At a young age Parnelli Jones would jump the fence by the outhouse at Carrell Speedway to watch his idol Troy Ruttman run from the back of the pack and win races in his track roadster. Ruttman would go on to win the ultimate prize, the Indy 500, in 1952, driving for J.C. Agajanian in the No. 98 car. Parnelli would realize his dream by winning the Indy 500 in a car that carried the No. 98 for Mr. Agajanian in 1963.

1957 First Hawaiian Motorama • Honolulu, Hawaii

1960 National Speed Trials • Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah

The Santa Ana Creepers at the 1957 NHRA Nationals • Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Say the word “archive” and you’ll get the full attention of Art Director Aaron Kahan–that is, as long as he’s not already buried in the digital files of the newly created Petersen Archive at the moment! As you may have recently witnessed from our Little Pages annual 2012 issue (“Jewels From The Archive: Nosed!”), the results of Source Interlink Media’s archivist Thomas Voehringer’s tireless efforts have literally opened the doors to Petersen Publishing’s past—in digital format–including Rod & Custom.

Tommy Ivo was born in 1936, some 1,023 miles from Hollywood in sunny Denver where it can reach as high as 90 degrees—one month out of the year. Burr! Weather was the deciding factor for a move to the movie capital of the world. “My mother, Sara, had arthritis so bad she was practically in a wheelchair. She thought if we came to California we’d get into the good weather. We came out in 1943, just her and I, in the winter. My dad, Hans, who was a meat cutter, stayed home along with my brother, Don. We were pretty poor.

Hot rodders didn’t assemble engines—you know, put them back together as the manufacturer intended—your friendly car dealer did that. Hot rodders built engines. That bunch of upstarts not only didn’t follow the instructions, they had the audacity to improve Detroit’s designs by miles … miles per hour that is!

The word “tradition” gets tossed around pretty frequently in hot rodding these days. There’s a lot of conversation about “traditional” cars and “nostalgic” parts and accessories. That’s a good thing—it’s important to know the roots from which hot rodding grew. But how many people—or companies—have truly been around long enough to remember when all this “traditional” stuff was new?

As long as there are high-performance enthusiasts who feel strongly that an internal combustion engine is more than just the means of propelling a vehicle from A to B, the name Arias will be remembered long after he, and we, are gone.

Hot rodders, the so-called hooligans, didn’t hang out in bars, they hung out at speed shops and drive-ins; drive-ins to find out who was going faster and speed shops to learn how to go faster.

Those lucky enough to have access to Post War SCTA Racing Programs will see an astonishing number of competitors who raced at El Mirage Dry Lake with little or no recognition. The official entry list from September 25-26, 1948, had 249 entries. Of those names listed were the points leaders: Stu Hilborn, Alex Xydias, Phil Remington, and Ak Miller, whose achievements at the lakes and in the automotive industry drew the ink and made them legends.

The Great Depression altered countless lives and maybe some for the better. Bob Bondurant was born in Evanston, Illinois, in 1933. Bob’s father owned a car dealership that sold fast cars in nearby Chicago; very fast cars—Cords to be exact.

The ultimate for all American land speed racers was/is Bonneville. For many, their paths lead to the Indianapolis 500. The all-American racers who competed at Indy from its inception to the ’50s would give way to the foreign influence in the ’60s.

This story is about Don Blair, his speed shop, and the guys who worked there back in the day. But it was a young Don Blair’s interest in racing at the dry lakes that propelled him into opening a small business selling speed parts. If any business contributed to hot rodding in Southern California, it was Blair’s Speed Shop in Pasadena when 25-year-old Don opened for business in 1946. (However, Don’s older brother, Bruce, was an equal racing competitor and contributor in the speed shop business before he was killed while riding in a ’34 Ford that hit a tree on Foothill Boulevard in Arcadia. Bruce had an ad in Hot Rod in 1948 for his own product line out of Blair’s Speed Shop that offered dealerships “Lower the front of your car with a (his) dropped axle”.)

If you were among the millions who followed open-wheel racing during the ’50s and ’60s, all you needed were the initials “A.J.” Except during that same period there were two dominate racers named A.J.—one drove race cars (Foyt), the other built them (Watson).

Though as few as three of the original examples may have been cast, the boat-type windshield frame that Duke Hallock created for the early Model A roadster endures as probably one of the most recognizable shapes in early hot rod history. Only not that many people know the story behind it. Editor Fortier asked if I could change that.

Tim Timmerman was one of the first employees to work at Blair’s Speed Shop in Pasadena at Don’s location on Arroyo Parkway before Blair moved to Foothill Boulevard and Daisy. Tim later became one of the premier racing engine builders in Southern California for over 60 years. Tim raced his hot rod wheel to wheel with some of the biggest names in auto racing in the ’40s.

Young Danny Eames was a regular spectator at Legion Ascot Speedway in Alhambra, California. It was close enough to his parents' home to almost smell the benzene and Castrol R oil. What he saw and heard was enough to get him hooked on circle track racing.

If you owned a gow job back in the '30s, you owned a race car. You raced it on the street, then you went to the dry lakes and raced it. It was that simple. You might have only raced that "hot iron" a few times, just before World War II, or a "hot rod" just after, and you probably did so with little or no notoriety.

Henry Ford kinda started it all, as far as land speed racing (LSR), when he cranked off 91.32 mph in 1903 (the speed of light in 1903 terms) on a frozen lake in Michigan.

Dick Megugorac, from Peoria, Arizona, and Bob Wenz, from Los Gatos, California, were inseparable in the early '40s. They hung out together at Santa Monica High School, they raced together on the street, and they raced as fast as their gas pedals would let them at the dry lakes. Bob was Dick's best man when he married his high school steady, Lois. The two were inseparable, that is, until life separated them.

Do you want to put creativity, as well as fun, into your business? Hire a gag cartoonist, 'cause nobody thinks like those comedic pencil pushers. That schnozzle, that lantern jaw (and that cool hot rod, too) may be material for their next cartoon character. Robert Petersen got all of the above and more when he hired 28-year-old Tom Medley in 1948 to add a little humor to his new mag about hot rods. Little did Mr. Petersen know his employee would become a much-beloved legend.

Noise and air pollution have always been excessive in the L.A. Basin, but in the '40s and '50s it was particularly prevalent in Glendale (just west of L.A.), where the sound of uncorked racing engines and the smell of methanol permeated the air. Imagine being a kid growing up in the town next door (Eagle Rock) where that pollution got into your system and you weren't able to get it out. Don Zabel was that kid.

Had Dick Burley (born in 1927) stayed in Iowa instead of moving to Culver City, California, he wouldn't have been hooked on the sound of Ford Flathead V-8s screaming for mercy or broken records at El Mirage dry lake that would've stirred his hot rodding juices in the late '40s.