20 Years Ago
January 1998 (228 pages, $3.95): Gray Baskerville’s review of the 1950s kicked off a 50-page history lesson by staff writers, each of whom covered one decade. Individual mug shots celebrated a Top 100 of hot rodding heroes—among them, “Basket Case” himself and Andy Brizio. The Rodfather’s son and rod-building successor, Roy Brizio, based his cover car on HRM’s very first one, Regg Schlemmer’s lakes roadster (Jan. ’48 issue).
40 Years Ago
January 1978 (102 pages, $1.25): Two decades earlier, Baskerville also got the call to tell hot rodding’s story, but was allotted just 8 pages for possibly the biggest batch of archival images yet published. He also got stuck road testing a 94hp Datsun 510 that must’ve been snail slow, given that no performance numbers were given. Kenny Youngblood airbrushed a cutaway illustration of Shirley Muldowney inside the idling, flame-shooting, hot-pink fueler that set low e.t. of the recent NHRA season (5.77) en route to her first of three historic Top Fuel championships.
60 Years Ago
January 1958 (84 pages, 35¢): Nobody thought to cover-blurb our double-digit anniversary, though Wally Parks devoted his editorial to HRM’s emergence as the world’s best-selling automotive magazine. He also defended boss Robert E. Petersen’s 10-year resistance to suggestions that he “get away from that hot rod name and the stigma that goes with it.” The sexy Hemi is the 454-inch stroker that Art Chrisman assembled for Frank Cannon’s 12-second street sleeper, a ’55 T-bird featured inside.
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