Choosing the Right Tire For Your Rat Rod

Author: Art Tupaczewski

Get A Sneaker For Your Squeaker

When choosing the correct tire for your project, you need to keep in mind a few things:

1. Comfort

Are you doing a lot of driving? If you are, then you might want to keep a taller tire with moderate air pressure. This is no problem for a Rat Rod
or some Muscle Cars. A tire with a wide sidewall has some give to it, giving you a gentle ride . Plus most Rat Rods have fat whitewalls and need
a taller tire to be able to show it off. Smaller sidewalls or "rubber-bands" as they are referred to are hard on comfort and driveability, but are
excellent for handling and are mostly seen on Resto Mods and most Hot Rods. These wheels go from 17" to over 22'.

2. Performance

As we mentioned previously, taller sidewalls do not handle as well as a low profile tire. Most people in Rat Rods are not
exactly tearing up the mountain roads at breakneck speeds. Nor is anyone really thinking about going much
over 65 mph in a jalopy. Most modern Hot Rods and Resto Mods have modern suspension and or air suspension and with
the proper wheel/tire set up can reveal Corvette-like handling.

3. Looks

And most important of all, how will my rust bucket look? Again, as we said before, fat whitewalls are traditional Rat Rod tires. Wrap
them around a set of 14 or 15" steel wheels and you are set. Muscle Cars always look good with the factory wheels. For extreme
originality, some go to the extent of getting the reproduction bias-ply tires. Although not as good as a radial tire, they serve the
purpose, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to invest in some spare wheels with a good radial tire for consistent driving. Modified Muscle Cars
also called Resto Mods are very popular with their use of big wheels, skinny tires. Many wheel companies are offering reproduction
style wheels at a bigger size so as to improve the handling and not sacrifice looks. Hot Rods go to the extreme with large wheel sizes.
These are usually high dollar billet aluminum wheels. Keep in mind, high dollar wheels wear high dollar tires!
I hope this is a good guide to get you started in the right direction for your quest to find the right wheel and tire combination.
Come visit us at http://www.ratrodauthority.com.com for ideas, parts, vehicles and anything to do with Rat Rods, Muscle Cars, and Hot Rods.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/cars-articles/choosing-the-right-tire-for-your-rat-rod-2653941.html
About the Author

Started by Art Tupaczewski, his experience in the auto body industry lead him to devise a way to find
that "specialty part" for your car quickly, easily, and cost effectively. Whether just starting
out, or a seasoned veteran, http://www.ratrodauthority.com has what you need.

After analyzing the marketplace, Art figured out an efficient way to get what you need fast and correct
from the comfort of your own home. His website is the most user friendly and is designed to tell you exactly
what you need to know so you can get back to your project. No guesswork and up to the date
products allow you to move at a rapid rate and checkout quickly.

Whether its an exhaust for your lead sled, wheels for your jalopy, or tires for your Chevelle or Camaro,
you can rest assured knowing that you found the only place to shop for your car.

So always remember, from rust buckets to hot rods, the rat rod authority is available 24 hours a day, 7

Corvette Corvette Corvette Classic Stock Or Hot-Rodded?

Author: Harold Stofman

The introduction of the 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray heralded major changes in the march onward in the Chevrolet Stingray. The Sting Ray was available as both a "Roadster "version with a removable hardtop and a "Coupe" sometimes referred to as a fastback.




Onwards from 1963 to 1967 the Sting Ray got even better with a greater number of options for both luxury and power performance. This was the heyday of the days of sports car customizers. And the Corvette Sting Ray was the perfect 100 % raw material for the sports car customizers. Headlights were molded and in and the bumpers were removed. So many Corvettes received an extra pair of taillights that people that they were actually a General Motors Chevrolet Corvette factory option. Later when the low profile wide tires came along, so did large fender flares. The speed equipment industry had boomed, so the majority of Corvette engine parts were being replaced by the latest: Hot Setup". Rochester fuel injectors were being removed because of service problems, and everyone heard that the single four barrel in a high riser manifold was better. In 1965 the first Chevy big-block was introduced in the Corvette, and the performance was more than awesome.



Another new body style - both larger and heavier was introduced in 1968. Many thought that this was the beginning of the decline of the Corvette, But in the vital performance department, the 427 cubic inches Rat Motor with its three two-barrel carbs and the 435 horse power ratings more than powered the Corvette legend of lore. No letting down of the powerful image of the 'Vette.



Things got even better right on up to the 1969 L-88with aluminum cylinder heads the 1970 LS-6 rated at a mighty 465 horse power rating. The word Corvette invokes the image of high performance sports car performance. An older age group replaced the street racer cult as the primary consumers and purchasers of the Vette. More and more of the Corvettes were equipped with such luxury and comfort options as air conditioning, power steering and telescoping steering columns. It was not long before the Corvette with emission devices and soon the real 'Vette type of performance was history.



What was more than interesting was the response original hot rodder modification group. The amazing part of all of this is how the circle came round. Karma sneaks in.



The same dedicated group of sport car enthusiasts and hot rodders, who modified the older, pre mainstream luxury comfort model Corvettes, is now the very ones who restore this same converted Corvette back to exact stock specifications.



How could these people justify the work and effort of taking these cars back in time to factory specs when a great amount of time, effort and cost had been invested in these very cars? A used Corvette at the time was essentially a very attractive sports car buy.



Why were restore cars in vogue and even preferred over the earlier modified ones. Partially it was a case of limited supply and very high prices being offered by the stock type Corvettes and classic car auctions and the prices being asked in the special car groups and publications. All in all it can be said it can be a combination of the custom cars getting old and needing refurbishing and the 55 mile speed limit in the time. Perhaps as well it was a question of maturity on the kids who were the Corvette hot rodders at the time. See the influence of time, life and having a family with its change of priorities can have on the wildest kids.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/classics-articles/corvette-corvette-corvette-classic-stock-or-hotrodded-218474.html
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The Recognition Of The Hot Rod In Automotive Art

Author: Jacques Vaucher

Once upon a time, only a few years ago, if you went to an art exhibition like the Saturday night AFAS show preceding the Pebble Beach Concours, all you saw depicted was classic cars, mostly prewar cars like Duesenbergs, Bentleys, etc.

Then depictions of muscle cars started creeping in, on cat's feet so to speak, but this was inevitable because some of the greatest car artists of our time are former ad illustrators like Art Fitzpatrick who painted the immortal Pontiac Grand Prix and GTO illustrations. At age 20, he was already working with Howard "Dutch" Darrin, designing the 1940 Packard four-door.
Tom Fritz , of Ventura, CA, was one of the first American fine artists to "break the mold" and depict the cars he grew up with;not LeTourneau et Marchand Bugattis but good ol' hot rods he saw on the streets of San Fernando, an LA suburb. Tom's vivid childhood recollections of the motorcycle and automotive cultures prevalent in Southern California during the 60's and 70's are reflected in his work.Among his clients are Harley Davidson and his paintings hang in many corporate collections and museums including the NHRA Museum.
And then, just like out on the lawn of Pebble Beach, hot rods appeared. Oh, the painters, many of them, were familiar with hot rods, heck many either owned or lusted after the '32 Ford "Deuce" roadster in their youth but never wanted to admit it in polite company at events like Pebble Beach where the talk was all of Hispano-Suizas, Erdmann and Rossi 540Ks, James Young Phantoms and the like.
But now the secret is out. We all be hot rodders. Because fundamentally a car is a car and if it's mechanical we love it.
The depictions of hot rodding that have appeared in fine art so far are steeped in history—say paintings of hot rods being run at the dry lake beds where hot rodders raced them even before WWII. More modern setting depictions are rarer though recently there has been a blossoming of "cruise-ins", impromptu car shows, at places like drive-in restaurants nationwide.
And then there's the problem of the commercial cliché—if you show a hot rod in a drive-in restaurant (like the kind where the waitresses rolled out on roller skates to take your order) then you risk painting something that commercial retro-theme restaurants are still currently exploiting.
And once you've opened Pandora's box, how far do you go, because there's a deep dark secret about hot rods. Now neat and clean hot rods are one thing, but deep down if you research the genre, you find out there's another vein of hot rodding called the "rat rodding." Because back in the day hot rodders had enough money to buy Smitty mufflers or Rajo axles but didn't have enough money to paint the car so they ran them in flat primer. There's a whole subtext/genre of hot rodders who have no intention of ever finishing their cars to normal "finished car" standards. To them, it is an outlaw statement on four wheels to leave it unfinished.
Call it being "in your face."
One of the first books to show this side of the car world was the artful softbound Hot Rod by Barry Gifford with David Perry taking the pictures of rough cars built by some rough looking ("wife beater" t-shirts and lots of tattoos) dudes. Perry also wrote the movie Wild at Heart. This book captures the era when driving a hot rod made you a "bad dude" --almost as bad as riding a Harley.
There was a real life example of hot rod meets fine art that I saw a couple years ago at the AFAS tent at Pebble at their party. It was when Chip Foose, a young designer who has worked for the Detroit automakers but who now is famous for his hot rod designs, drove up to their tent in a Ford roadster –the car full of aeroplane parts like exhausts from a WWII fighter!
The artists poured of the tent to see his hot rod and there was plenty of admiration expressed—indicating that, deep down in many an American-born artist famous for depicting classic cars is a hot rodder who knew the names Bill Cushenberry, Dean Jeffries and Gene Winfield long before he ever heard of Sergio Pininfarina or Giorgetto GIugiaro….
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/classics-articles/the-recognition-of-the-hot-rod-in-automotive-art-2068508.html
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