Why the 97? Chandler-Groves. Ford. Holley. Carter. Rochester. They were all around at the same time. A lot of them were bigger too but the Stromber g97 offered more bang for your buck.

A year or two ago my good friend and fellow Brit Geoff Stilwell purchased a land speed roadster from Mike Kuhl and Carl Olson and with a lot of help from friends Bob ‘Floyd’ Muravez, ‘Sparky’ Perry and Bill Schultz and set a A/BFRMR record at 258.569 mph first time out.

I’m not sure the words “affordable” and “hot rods” can be used in the same sentence—it’s kind of oxy-moronic, but I think if you’re careful and make some sound choices you can get a rod on the road without breaking the bank or wasting your money.

I Googled louvers and got all these images of Datsuns, DeLoreans and Mustangs and the like with louvers—plastic rear window louvers, not hot rod louvers.

Dry lakes racer Bob Rufi turned the lakes racing scene upon its head when in 1939 he appeared with a bomb-shaped bolide built from electrical conduit wrapped in aluminum.

Y’all know what a Jimmy is right? In our world, Jimmy is slang for a GMC supercharger typically similar to what you see atop a V-8 engine.

The line of what we call a street car is very blurred these days. With most classic cars being emissions exempt the sky and the engine bay is the limit on what you can stuff under the hood.

I’d never heard of this situation before until I stopped by Rick ‘Speed’ Lefever’s shop in Pomona, CA, to photograph his son Rayce’s Model A coupe and saw him working on this Ford engine and Tremec five-speed transmission for Carl Akin’s Deuce 3-window.

A race is one thing, there’s usually a clear winner, but in the show car world things are not quite so clear-cut.

Two years ago, Luis Rodriguez with his radical half-fighter plane, half car 2JetZ based on an original concept by Dwayne Vance, won the inaugural 2018 Hot Wheels Legends Tour.

In 2018 ProCharger won the SEMA Show’s Best New Performance-Racing Product with their CrankDriveTM supercharger system that unlike most conventional belt-driven blowers is driven off the front of the crank. Intrigued with this modern take on an old concept TorqTalk dug a little deeper.

Nostalgia drag racing has seen steady growth over the last decade or so and that growth didn’t escape the notice of UK racer Tim Garlick who, wanting to go quicker and faster than his ‘fastest Rover-powered race car on the planet’ (at the time), looked at the momentum of the US-based Nostalgia Funny Car scene and made a phone call

As we learned in our flathead Ford V8 story here: www.torqtalk.com/home/ford-flathead-the-first-performance-v-8, the Ford V8 was not initially a performer. Out of the crate in 1932 the 221 ci produced only 65 bhp and even by the end of its life in 1953 the 239 ci ‘flattie’ only produced 110—no big deal. Note: The ’53 255 ci Mercury did make 125 bhp.

The English take historic sports car racing seriously. Escalating values have proved no barrier to the competitive nature of racers and some of the best racing can be seen at the Goodwood Revival each year where insanely valuable cars can be seen tussling for pride of place on the podium.

Andy Bond, owner of the ‘Ugly Sister’ ’56 Chevy and I are old friends, he used to crew on my Pro Mod Olds Cutlass. For a while he ran a 600 ci Street Eliminator Mustang Cobra with nitrous.

The Lincoln Continental name first appeared in 1939 after Henry Ford’s son Edsel commissioned numero uno in 1938 to be his personal transport. Designed by Eugene ‘Bob’ Gregoire, its styling was described as European or Continental hence the name.