In the Summer 2025 issue of HOT ROD, we celebrated home-built cars—built not bought, as some would say—and that is a large part of HOT ROD’s legacy. Since the first issue, our mantra has been to ...

We wouldn’t have the hot rodding we have today if not for those gearheads and innovators who came before us. They were the risk takers and the mavericks who refused to conform and follow the herd.

Some of the very first self-propelled vehicles were products of engineers and the curious in private garages and workshops. Within a few decades of the invention of the first car, companies were ...