Los Angeles, Cali. –  — Mark your calendars! The world’s largest traveling car show, the HOT ROD Power Tour, is heading west again in 2025. On the heels of the annual HOT ROD Power Tour’s trek through the Midwest this summer (June 9-13), with more than 20,000 attendees per city and 7,000 featured cars, dates for the HOT ROD Power Tour West are also now set: December 5-7, 2025.

SAVE THESE DATES! HOT ROD Power Tour West 2025 Schedule:

• Day 1: Friday, December 5 – Famoso Dragstrip, Bakersfield, CA, which will feature drag racing
• Day 2: Saturday, December 6 – Street Legal Dragway, Perris, CA (Moreno Valley), which will feature drag racing
• Day 3: Sunday, December 7 – Willow Springs Raceway International Raceway, Rosamond, CA, which will feature autocross

The three-city, three-day HOT ROD Power Tour West event will include thousands of cars and trucks of all years, makes, and models that will be on display for tens of thousands of automotive fanatics from California and across the U.S. The inaugural HOT ROD Power Tour West made its debut in 2023 and expanded in 2024 due to popular demand and features adrenaline-fueled events, including drag racing, autocross, and live entertainment.

Additional details on the 2025 HOT ROD Power Tour West will be available at

hotrodpowertourwest.us.

Registration Information and Spectator Tickets:

All vehicles and spectators must pre-register before arriving at the first venue they attend. Spectators can come out and witness the HOT ROD Power Tour West spectacle with a paid gate admission cost and can register for a ticket at hotrodpowertourwest.us. Watch HOT ROD social media for updates and more in the coming weeks, and book your hotel rooms early by clicking this link here. Spectator parking at each stop will be located away from the showgrounds, and parking charges may apply in some locations.

About HOT ROD

HOT ROD has been the most recognized brand in the world of high-performance cars since the iconic American magazine was founded in 1948. Today, the authoritative HOT ROD media footprint includes the HOT ROD Network, consisting of digital, print, and social media. It also offers live events with market-leading HOT ROD Power Tour, HOT ROD Power Tour West, and HOT ROD Drag Week experiences.

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So if a guy was in the market for a really well-done Model A hot rod … this baby would fit the bill!

This is quite a machine. Fancy two-tone paint job with accents. Modern V-8 power (350 hp!), digital gauges, all leather interior, 700 R4 automatic, American Racing wheels, remote-controlled radio! This beauty has everything, and it’s in awesome condition.

It’s not a cheap date with a listed price of $55,000, but somebody is going to get a very cool Texas custom. It’s for sale in the Old Cars Marketplace.

Check it out right here: https://marketplace.oldcarsweekly.com/Classified/1929-model-a-roadster-convertible-listing-3310.aspx

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Robert Blockoff owns this awesome Ford Custom. What started as a “Man Cave” decoration ended up a hot rod.

“I recently picked this up from a really good guy in California. I had it shipped to Idaho, where I polish it way too much!”

“It started out with a gentleman in Indiana, who was at a local Ford Swap meet. As it turns out, he had just completed a man cave in his basement and saw the cowl sitting there. He thought, ‘Man, that would make a really nice display piece in my man cave.’.As he was walking out, the fellow he just purchased it from said, ‘Let me know when you get it on the road.’ That statement stuck with him and when he got home, he decided there was a better life for the dilapidated cowl than sitting in his decor… and this is what he ended up with!”

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Old Cars was lucky enough to get a good look at Joel Ponty’s creation. In a quintessential tale of “one thing led to another” the Pontys, together with Joel’s son-in-law Nate, cooked up a wild beast that is part 1946 Army jeep, part rat rod and part T-bucket roadster. Think Rat Fink meets Rat Patrol.

Check it out below!

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The post Old Cars Out and About: 1946 Jeep Hot Rod appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

The post 1946 Jeep hot rod appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

It was 1962 in Tucumcari New Mexico that Rod Dickinson’s father let him buy an old model A. 

Rod was 15 or 16 years old then.

The car was still sitting on its original 19″ wheels with stock tires, but it was orange with an all over 1/4″ pinstripe. The Tijuana tuck ‘n roll interior was done in Clovis NM and it had chrome garnish moldings…Exactly what Rod wanted, a perfect start to a hot rod. His father loved him and did not want to take a chance at Rod getting hurt so he said no there would be V8 engine swap, and put an Oldsmobile insert in that flimsy wood top.

Rod drove the car for years that way. His father opened a Western wear store and used the Model A in parades.

Rod is now 74 years old and still lives in Tucumcari. Along the way, Rod had 2 kids and one of the kids ended up with this model A; he lived in Phoenix, Arizona. Unfortunately, this son of Rod had a wreck in his family’s minivan and had to sell the family’s little orange model A to fund the minivan repairs. This gets us up to 2017 in Phoenix where Daniel Shircliff steps in to the picture.

Daniel, who is a professional glass blower, musician and semi pro skateboarder who never got his drivers license until he was 39 years old. He also joined a Southern California hot rod club and a Phoenix area hot rod club to learn the history of rodding and how to disassemble and reassemble a car correctly. One of his club mates told Daniel about an orange Model A for sale. He went to look at the car and saw a ton of potential.

Daniel did not touch the body, but Rod’s son told him Rod had always wanted a 265 Chevy with 3 deuces installed. So Daniel followed through with that early dream. He also built a boxed model A frame and did all the suspension and ’40 Ford brake work. Always keeping in mind an early ’60s build with 4 Moon polished and etched dishes it easily becomes a late 50 hot rod. 

Personally, I love the cheater slick with polished kidney bean wheels. It reminds me of a young kid that could not make up his mind what wheels he wanted to run on his Revell model car. I used to have a spare box of parts for my model cars, and I was always changing around the look.

This car is wonderful to drive, and Daniel built it to drive as it appears in the Youtube linked video racing at Santa Barbara 2019 Drags and then driving back to Phoenix. The orange Model A was the poster car for those super successful TROG Drags. The car can be seen at the 4:15 mark of the video.

Daniel sold me the car in late 2019 after he found out he and his wife were expecting their first child. 

This particular model A hot rod is so fun and great to drive it is really a super efficient little car and I am very proud to be its current keeper. 

SHOW US YOUR WHEELS!

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Not unlike those swashbuckling “Top Gun” pilots Mav and Goose, Joel Ponty was feeling the “need for speed.”

The Madison, Wis., military vehicle lover wasn’t looking to break the sound barrier or do any high-speed tower buzzing, but he was hoping for something more exhilarating than the glacial pace he was accustomed to in his favorite military rigs. He was dreaming of something painted Olive Drab that could both turn heads and keep up on the highway — and then some.

“My dad [Mike Ponty] and I restored three other World War II jeeps: a ’42 Ford Script jeep, and that was from the ground up, every nut and bolt on it. That took us a quite a while,” says Ponty. “We did a ’43 Ford GPW, in the OD green, for my uncle’s 100th Infantry Division; then we did a ’44 GPW in the Desert Rat version — the 8th Army Desert Rats. We needed another project, and Dad said, ‘Well, what do you have in mind?’ And I had seen something similar on Facebook, and I showed him a picture and I told him, ‘Dad, I want a jeep that goes faster than 45 mph.’”

In a quintessential tale of “one thing led to another” the Pontys, together with Joel’s son-in-law Nate, cooked up a wild beast that is part 1946 Army jeep, part rat rod and part T-bucket roadster. Think Rat Fink meets Rat Patrol.

“My favorite car growing up was ‘The Munsters’,” Ponty laughs. “Many people have said at car shows that this is a cross between the military and The Munsters. And you know what, if that’s the impression they get, then I win. I absolutely win!”

Ponty admits he only had some vague, fuzzy ideas of what he wanted to accomplish when he first started his hot rod project. He wanted something that melded a military jeep with a T-bucket roadster. He didn’t have a final product in mind; he started with an old CJ body and just assumed he’d figure it out along the way.

“A friend of mine said, ‘I think a T-bucket frame would be perfect. I did some measuring, and yup, a T- bucket frame was going to be perfect, so we ordered a frame from Ron Pope Motorsports [in Tennessee],” he says. “We lengthened that frame out a little ways. I wanted the wheels out in front of the grille. So we started with the T-bucket frame and the motor. It was originally going to be a Rat Jeep, with the old CJ body, but as it progressed, my dad said, ‘There is absolutely no way we are putting a ratty old tub on this. Let’s buy an old World War II reproduction body.’ So we got the reproduction body on the frame and it just started morphing into this.”

Ponty is quick to point out that no actual jeeps were harmed as his mayhem machine came to life. He started with a ’46 CJ body, but only used a small part of it. Everything else on the original body went to friends or other hobbyists who could use parts for something. 

“The only part of the original CJ that we used were the two pieces of the hood,” Ponty says. “For jeeps, you can buy reproduction everything now. Through the magazines and everything … you can buy all the parts for a jeep.”

“A lot of the stuff on it is anything we could round up from all our other jeeps, we polished up and put in there. Just military stuff we head laying around. [laughs]. My dad and I are extremely adamant about preserving the history of jeeps. Big time.”

Ponty jokes that he started with the battery box and built the hot rod around that.

 “I knew some of the features. I wanted the military can for the battery box. I didn’t know where we were going to put it … We kind of started to see where everything needed to go, and [it took] a lot of fabricating.”

The jeep rod is outfitted with a .30 cal. reproduction gun mount on the passenger side with another mount in the backseat for either a .30 or .50 caliber. But to have the gun installed in back, Ponty has to ditch the canvas top, which he doesn’t really like to do.

 “If you put the .50 on there, it actually looks kind of mean, with the .50 and the .30 on the side. But as soon as we put the top on, there was something about it. I haven’t taken the top off yet. People like it with the top on!”

The jeep is fully outfitted for almost any assignment — weapons, bags, radios, tools — you name it. If Ponty could find a place to store it or hang it, it’s on there. Probably his favorite touch is the aluminum grenade shifter handle. 

“I got that from a collector one time, and as soon as I got it in my hand, I said, ‘This has got to be a on a shifter someday. It’s gotta be!’”

Ponty said one of the biggest early challenges in the build turned out to be a big blessing in disguise. He hadn’t thought much about raising the back and/or adding a lot of rake to the car’s profile, but some logistics made it turn out that way. 

“The ladder bars, when we first put them on with the flat CJ tub, we had no issues. Well, on the WWII jeep, there is a fuel sump, because it’s a 15-gallon tank, so we ran into some issues with clearance. So we had to raise the body up a little bit. The body is higher than it was originally gonna be. It’s got coil-over adjustable shocks … We raised the body and gave it some rake — higher in the back, lower in the front. And it just worked. Nate said, ‘I like that. We couldn’t have planned that any better!’”

The 5.3-liter V-8 came from a mid-1990s Chevrolet Silverado, according to Ponty. 

“It’s nothing fancy,” he says. “Nate put a cam in it. It has about 300 hp.” The biggest challenge with the engine was finding headers and pipes that worked.”

Eventually, Ponty stumbled upon some Sanderson headers that he said looked like they were made to order.

“LS motors, most people are sticking them in cars. So [the headers] come out and go down right away. I wanted something that came out,” he pointed out. “It was like these were made for it. It was incredible how that fell into place, too.”

The five-speed manual transmission is mated to a Ford Explorer rear end. 

“Again, nothing fancy there, either,” he says. “They are fairly bullet proof.”

“We had to step back a bit a couple times. Nate was scared quite a bit of the way, ‘I don’t know how you’re going to do this, or do that.’ But each project that came along, we worked through it. With the radiator, we had to do a lot of modifying. But we got that done and that worked. We were a little worried about the driveshaft, because of how short everything is. The driveshaft is probably only about 18 inches — it’s a tiny little driveshaft, custom made by a guy near Footville, Wisconsin.”

The disc brakes and hydraulic clutch assemblies were both from Speedway Motors kits, and both are hidden underneath the vehicle, mostly out of sight. The 15-gallon fuel tank is under the seat, which was done by Beechwood Canvas in New Jersey.

Big Daddy Roth would no doubt approve of the monstrous 18.5-inch Mickey Thompsons in back. The gaudy, chrome steering wheel somehow seems at home in the cockpit as well, as do the simple LED gauges. 

“The steering wheel kit is from Speedway Motors. The steering wheel itself is just something that we found at a swap meet … I got it for 15 bucks! I wanted something small, because we don’t have a lot of room with the controls the way that they are. A jeep steering wheel is big!”

These days, Ponty laughs at the notion that he wanted something that would go fast. The T-bucket jeep, with its exposed engine, growling pipes and huge rear rubber, certainly looks the part, but it’s definitely more tortoise than hare. 

“The highest I’ve had it is 65 [mph]. And I’m like, ‘I’m old, I don’t need to go any faster!’ Nate might have had it up a little faster. With the top on, you don’t want to go very fast. If you took the top off, you could go a little faster, if you wanted to. But even at 50 mph, [the wind is] whipping around pretty good.”

“This isn’t the most comfortable vehicle, as you might guess. It’s got no padding in the seat. Because we do have the coil-overs adjusted high, it’s a little stiffer than I would like it to be. And because there is no weight, if you get on it … you gotta be careful with it. It can get out of hand, if you let it.”

For now, Ponty is having a blast with his combination rat rod/hot rod/jeep, showing it off at local car shows and chatting it up with the many folks who want to know how on earth he dreamed up such a beast. He is always quick to point out that no real jeeps were sacrificed in the project. He jokes that his son-in-law, Nate, will get to field all those questions some day.

“I have two daughters, so my wife said, ‘You know, Nate is going to get that when you’re gone.’ And I said, ‘Yup, he helped build it, so he can deal with it.’ I have no intention of ever selling it. A lot of people have asked to buy it, but I said, nope, it’s not for sale. If you want, we can make you another one, you just gotta start collecting pieces. Get your tires and your frame and motor and we can go from there!”

“I don’t know what’s next. I might retire from doing that. But we did talk about doing a mail Jeep! [laughs].” 

SHOW US YOUR WHEELS!

If you’ve got an old car you love, we want to hear about it. Email us at oldcars@aimmedia.com

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The post Car of the Week: 1946 Jeep Hot Rod appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

OK, full disclosure: We don’t know if we’d really “Buy That”. It’s listed for $19,000 on Craigslist, and that’s a good chunk of cash. We’d at least have to know the answer to one important question:

“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE???!!!”

This creation is up for bids in Mora, Minn., and the listing gives absolutely no details, other than it started with a 1961 GMC and the odometer says 52,000 miles. Other than that, all we really know is there is something sort of sinister about it, and it’s just so weird.

The clincher for us is that epic wing in the pickup bed. You could hang laundry or a tire swing from it, and it certainly looks like it would handle all your down-force needs.

Somebody was goofy enough to build this rig and somebody is going to have the nerve to buy it. And we salute them both.

CHECK IT OUT

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The post Old Cars We’d Buy That: 1961 GMC Hot Rod appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

“Chief Eldo sits on a 120 inch wheelbase Morrison frame. It has a 512 cid, fuel injected Caddy engine with a 5-speed Tremec and a 9″ Ford 3:50 ratio Positraction.”

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The post Old Cars Reader Wheels: 1951 Pontiac Custom appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

“This is my 1929 Ford Roadster hot rod we call CHALLENGER. In the small Indie film Deuce of Sapdes, the owner CHALLENGED the hero to a big drag race. As near as we can tell the hot rod was built for El Mirage Dry Lake Racing in the mid-fifties and into the seventies. It is built on a boxed, pinched and bobbed ’32 Ford frame. It has a filled ’32 Ford grille shell, 2″ chopped windshield, 264 louvers and a custom fabbed aluminum hood. At one time it surely had a modified flathead V8, but now it features a 1963 Chevy 283 V8 with tri-power carbs backed up by an aluminum Powerglide. Brakes are ’48 Ford all around. The ’48 Ford rearend has a vintage Halibrand Quickchange. Tires are 6.70×15 up front with 7.50×16’s in the rear. That’s my lovely girlfriend, Morgan Kari riding shotgun. It’s a fun car that gets a lot of attention here on the streets of SoCal.”

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The post Old Cars Reader Wheels: 1929 Ford Hot Rod appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.