Nothing gets dated-looking faster than a street rod. Either built to current vogue or slammed together on a budget, it's pretty easy to look at an average rod and name the date-of-build within a year or two. The good news is that these somewhat passe cars are the cheapest to buy, and the better news is that they're pretty easy to update to current trends. And so begins our two-part series on how easy it is to transform practically any hot rod with a few well-chosen tweaks.
2002">
<b>2002</b>
Are we slaves to fashion? Yes and no. Remember, a big part of why many people build street rods is to get attention. But when the look grows stale and bystanders stop drooling, it's time to shuffle the deck. Of course, it also runs deeper than that. Many owners view their cars as paintings that are never finished. From adding a few fresh brush strokes once in a while to completely stripping to bare canvas and starting over, the passage of time (and the availability of newer parts and technologies) is as good a reason as any to make some adjustments in the name of progress.
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<b>1993</b>
So we present HRM Associate Publisher Ed Zinke's '40 Chevy Master Deluxe sedan. Ed has owned the car for the better part of 15 years and was the one who saved it from a rusty death as a Midwest chicken coop. Between 1990 and 1993 he and his son Jaeson transformed the hulk into a very respectable street rod, doing most of the work in the family's three-car garage. Ed: "It was pure low-buck. I didn't always know what I was doing, but at least I got it done." It has a '69 Camaro front subframe, a lowered stance thanks to cut coils, 15-inch rolling stock, shaved chrome, and a decent home-sprayed radiant white finish. The drivetrain starts with a B&M-blown 355 and a B&M-fortified TH350, and ends with a 3.31:1-geared Camaro 10-bolt rear axle. Neat but hardly awe-inspiring, this Chevy suffers from a case of the blahs. It needs a makeover.
The prime offenders were the wheels and the monochrome treatment that, so popular in the '80s, really takes some character away from the car. To get a new vision on the car, Ed contracted renowned designer Thom Taylor to sketch a vision of what the '40 was to become with just a wheel/tire swap, some body tricks, and some graphics. We'll show you that next month, but for now, watch as we lose the tiny brakes, dated rollers, and crunchy suspension bits.
