Antique & Classic Cars Blog

Old school or new school? Two pedals or three? At the Back to the ’50s event June 22 to 24 at the state fairgrounds in St. Paul, you’ll find a wide selection of hot rods, each its owner’s own vision of the coolest ride.

Hot rods were built to go fast on the California dry lake beds in the 1950s. The idea was to take an older car that could be had cheap — that’s what young people could afford — put in or soup up the V-8 engine and make it light and fast to outrun your buddies and challengers. Old schoolers like their hot rods done up the old way, with drum brakes, a flathead or other vintage engine and old parts from the ’50s and ’60s and before. The other school values useable and safe and dependable — why build up with old parts when you can keep those curvy lines and have all the modern amenities, like power seats, windows, CD player or satellite radio or even satellite navigation?

The best hot rod is … the one you want the most. Is that a cop-out? Walk around the fairgrounds the fourth weekend in June (22-24), and then ask again. You’ll find yourself gaping at machines from both camps, done up with a boatload of care and a lifetime of rodding enthusiasm. If you want stock, buy stock. If you want to tweak it, build it your way.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 7th, 2007 at 3:42 pm and is filed under Back to the 50s. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.