Some 10 years after its founding, Hot Rod was branching out, looking for new trends to appeal to its speed-hungry readers. Late ’50s and early ’60s issues continued to cover the traditional hot-rodding venues—Bonneville, Indianapolis, Pikes Peak and NHRA-sanctioned dragstrips across the country—but other forms of motorsport were appearing regularly, too.

In the days of hot rodding’s infancy, there were a lot of ways—and places—to go fast if you lived in Southern California. Top-speed runs at the desert dry lakes had been going on since before World War II; drag racing was beginning to boom for those whose speed needs could be contained in a quarter-mile; and oval tracks flourished throughout the area, drawing everything from rough-and-tumble jalopies to nitro-fed midgets.

Not content with launching just a publishing empire, Robert E. Petersen put on a series of car shows in the early ’50s that he called Motorama. The first one was held in 1950 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, but later shows were staged at the art deco palace that was the Pan Pacific Auditorium. Hot rods, Bonneville race cars, drag racers and custom cars straight from the pages of Petersen’s magazines made up a big portion of these Motorama shows, but they also included new cars, antiques, motorcycles and classics from the ’30s and ’40s.

The next big fad is GMC superchargers,” wrote LeRoi “Tex” Smith in the June 1964 issue of Rod & Custom magazine. He was talking about how blowers were moving from pure racing applications to the street, and the opening pages of the story included this photo of Tom Beatty in his shop in Sun Valley, California. “Mr. Supercharger himself,” as Tex called him.

The equipment may have changed, but many of the tips laid out in this October 1964 Car Craft magazine story on “Photographing Cars” are still worthwhile for anyone interested in taking better pictures of their cars (or trucks, hot rods, customs, sports cars, motorcycles, you name it).

The date on the photo job for this story was July 1964, making the subject Mustang a new car. The California hard license plate and Galpin Ford plate frame suggest that it was not a press vehicle but instead belonged...

Not to be confused with the billet grilles that took off in the ’80s, bullet grille treatments were a hot modification trend in the late ’50s. So hot, in fact, that Car Craft magazine put a custom ’55 Chevy with a close-up of its sparkling bullet grille on the cover of its December 1959 issue.

The how-to story inside demonstrated how easy the pieces were to install, thanks to several bullet grille kits that had hit the market. California Custom Accessories in Los Angeles offered three different kits, with 24, 36 or 42 bullets, at prices ranging from $30 to $55. (The 36-piece kit was used for the Chevy featured in the story.)

Hot Rod magazine’s LeRoi Smith took this photo in the spring of 1963 outside of Barr’s Muffler Shop in Studio City, California, for an article on building a cost-effective exhaust system for an Olds-powered hot-rod roadster. That’s Bobby Barr in the foreground talking to Jerry Eames by the tube bender. This photo is an outtake from the shoot; in the photo that appeared in the magazine, Barr and Eames are far more intent on their work.

According to Smith, the whole exhaust system—the open headers plus cut-outs to glasspack-filled pipes running under the car—cost just $150.

Shelby American had a presence at the High Performance and Custom Equipment Trade Show at Dodger Stadium in 1967, the event that would go on to become the SEMA Show. It’s interesting to see what’s in the Shelby booth—as well as what’s not. Shelby’s iconic Cobra roadster and the GT350 Mustang are represented only by photos on the booth’s back wall. Note, too, the “wanted” poster on the easel soliciting for manufacturer’s representatives to handle Shelby’s parts and equipment.

The engine in the center of the booth is a small-block Ford outfitted with a Paxton supercharger. Shelby began offering the blower on ’66 GT350 models, though the expensive option found few takers. Only 11 GT350s left the factory as supercharged models.