Americruise Returns to MOIt's been called (by us), "The finest and funnest rod, custom, and classic road trip in the greatest country on earth." On July 17-18, the ROD & CUSTOM magazine Americruise, sponsored by Flowmaster, will return to the Ozark Empire Fairgrounds, site of the first Americruise event.
Americruise is open to all rods, customs, and trucks through '72.
The fun starts earlier in the week. Three cross-country tours are planned. Mooneyes in Santa Fe Springs, California, will be the starting point for a western cruise to Springfield. Vintage Air in San Antonio, Texas, will launch the southern cruise. Heidt's Rod Shop in Wauconda, Illinois, will be the start of the northern/central tour. All three tours will arrive in Springfield on Friday, July 16.Pre-registration is $35 and includes all tour activities and the show in Springfield. On-site registration will be held during the tours and at the fairgrounds. Day-of-show registration is $50. For more info or to register for Americruise '04, go to the our Web site at www.rodandcustommagazine.com.
200 mph in a Four-Cylinder Deuce RoadsterFrom now on we'll think twice about choosing a four-banger car to race against. This four-cylinder '32 roadster goes 200 mph. Okay, we're not talking about a Model A block with a Winfield head and 94 carb. The RaceDeck Salt Rod runs a 700hp Mopar SRT-4, equipped with a turbo and retrofitted for rear-wheel drive. The car was designed and driven by RaceDeck owner Jorgen Moller and built by Jeff Nish, with help from many others. During Speedweek in August the black, white, and red roadster set new land speed records in the Vintage category: 184.667 for F/BSTR (Blown Street Roadster) and 187.744 for F/BGR (Blown Gas Roadster). Three weeks later, it upped the F/BSTR record to 188.652 and set the F/BGMR (Blown Gas Modified Roadster) record at 199.48, with a return pass of 200.50 mph. Read all about it at www.racedeck.com.
R&C Book ReviewThe Hot Rod: Resurrection of a Legend By Brock Yates, MBI Publishing Company
In the February Roddin' Around, we talked a little bit about the Duffy Livingstone Eliminator, the famous T-bucket that won races galore in the '50s and won the Hot Rod class at the Concours d'Elegance in Pebble Beach last year. We mentioned that the long-lost T had been unearthed by automotive writer Brock Yates, who had it restored and was writing a book about its history. Between then and now, we got our hands on a copy of Yates' "auto" biography The Hot Rod: Resurrection of a Legend, fresh off the press from Motorbooks International.
As with all hot rods of fifty years ago, the Eliminator's beginnings were humble. Frank Livingstone, nicknamed Duffy, was partner in a muffler shop when he built his "craggy, high-mounted T-bucket" from second-hand parts in the back of his Pasadena, California, garage. Brock Yates, then a young hot rodder himself, remembers first reading about the car in a '53 issue of Hot Rod Magazine. He had never seen the car before, nor heard of Duffy Livingstone, but in the years to come would develop a fascination with the hot rod and ultimately a friendship with its first owner.
Many histories of early hot rodding focus on the action on the dry lakes and the drags, neglecting another prominent post-war automotive phenomenon: sports car competition. Livingstone was in the center of that activity, road racing his comparatively unsophisticated-looking hot rod competitively against British, German, and Italian sports cars.