HOT ROD Magazine: 75 Years

celebrates the stunning content that has been created and published by the magazine’s staff in all or parts of nine decades. Witness how has been on scene for the entirety of the postwar performance movement with photographs and articles detailing , , and their . Take a look back through pages that have captured the imaginations of gearheads nationwide by featuring the works of like Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, Von Dutch, and George Barris, to name a few. There’s also a look at the great journalism of such as Gray Baskerville, and the creations of builders like Pete Chapouris, Boyd Coddington, Steve Moal, Roy Brizio, and Chip Foose—complete with decades of of the cars and personalities that comprise hot rodding history. In the late 1940s, a young photographer and Army Air Corps veteran named Robert E. Petersen astutely noted the rapidly growing hot rod scene in Southern California. Buoyed by war veterans with tech savvy, disposable income, and a need for speed, the hot-rodding hobby was without much in the way of informational publishing. In a brilliant stroke, Petersen stepped into the void in 1948, launching magazine. Petersen Publishing would grow into a worldwide media empire featuring several publications. Today, magazine endures as . is not simply a magazine—after 75 years, it’s still magazine of automotive enthusiasts, known and appreciated the world over. This is the definitive and officially licensed look back at that influence.