Should Hot Rodding be Outlawed?

Hot rodders in Sweden on a 60s car. (Wikipedia image)

The image of hot rodding was and is often sensationalized by media through focusing on spectacular and sometimes bloody street-racing accident scenes. This naturally hikes sales of newspapers and viewership of TV news programs and movies.

Is there a basis for this negative image? Or have they been unjustly cast in a bad light all along? Just what are the accusations against them?

Rodders are perceived as reckless. But a closer examination will reveal that most of them race on purpose-built tracks, not on public roads. Aside from dragstrips, dried-up lake beds are popular venues for testing their creations. The Bonneville Salt Flats are perhaps the most famous example.

Since hot rods are performance cars, this logically means they must guzzle fuel and pollute like smokestacks. This may have been true in the past, when adding performance meant simply bolting on parts like oversized carburetors to swill fuel into motors. But today, computerized engine operations along with sophisticated engine architecture mean that although the volume of air and fuel entering the engine is increased, the standard of combustion efficiency is maintained, so emissions still meet legal standards.

The modifying of cars often means engine swapping, so the concern is that the original street-legal motor may be exchanged with one that may not be legally used on the road, one that is legal only on a racetrack. But as long as the replacement unit still meets federal standards, there will be no problem.

Often confused with junk cars, classic cars in the process of being restored or modified become eyesores that annoy neighbors and, worse, cause real estate values to plummet. Property and zoning regulations in many states affecting inoperable vehicles were so vague these allowed even cars being restored to be towed. Many states have amended these laws in consideration of hobbyists.

Auto enthusiasts, like everyone else, need to follow laws. As long as they do, legal problems should not arise.

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