BOOK REVIEW: HOT ROD MAVERICKS
The Builders, Racers, and Rebels Who Revolutionized Hot Rodding
Mavericks...I counted over sixty of them here. Introduced and well-annotated in Tony Thacker’s new colorful and cogent Motorbooks roundup of the people who made the term Hot Rodding not only synonymous with speed and performance, but with their colorful lives as well. A pretty healthy majority of which happened right here in and around our patch…in LACar country.
By Doug Stokes
Tue, Feb 25, 2025 06:00 PM PST
A book by Tony Thacker
Publisher: Motorbooks, an imprint of Quarto
ISBN 978-0-7603-8734-4
Hardcover - 192 pages - 9.5” x 11”
$40.00 US - $53.00 CAN
Review by Doug Stokes. All images courtesy of Motorbooks.
Divided into five high-revving, tire-smoking, action-packed, chapters: Pioneers, Postwar, Heyday, Mainstream, and Modern Rodding, authentic authority author Thacker here takes reader on a guided tour of the phenomenon.
These are well-crafted profiles of the people whose passion propelled them and the last of couple generations to get a little (really a lot) more performance and excitement from automobiles. Thacker’s writing is colorful, crisp and to the point. There’s a sense that it’s personal to him.
You’ll find a list of the full cast of “Mavericks” somewhere near the end of this review, in each case this insider author provides a clear, cogent portrait of the person along with background about what each brought to the movement.
His historic roll-call here spans well over one hundred years, and, if Hot Rod History 101 was offered at SC or UCLA this book would be the very first one listed in the syllabus as mandatory reading for the course.
Each story of these hot rod heroes is accompanied by an expertly-chosen (thank you Tony) set of photos that serve each story very well. And there are over 200 “in the day” color and black and white photos in this archive.
As something of an embedded sidebar here (and as many might know, I’ve been “around” the sport a long time, and have seen my share of photos of the era) I must note that the photo selections here are as cogent and illustrative of the text as any book that I’ve seen on the subject. The story here is well-enhanced.
How many of the below names do you recognize? Some have garnered a bit more press than others, but all are the people who made the movement so damn exciting and fun as well as which (in many cases) advanced, and improved automotive engineering in general.
Stand by, you’ll almost know them all by their first name soon...
THE MAVERICKS “CAST” (in order of appearance)
Henry Ford
Barney Oldfield
Ed Winfield
Eddie Meyer
Frank Kurtis
Veda Orr
Lee Chapel
Jim Harrell
Karl Orr
Wally Parks
Vic Edelbrock
Don Blair
Bill Burke
Alex Xydias
Stu Hilborn
Barney Navarro
Robert E. Petersen
Ed Iskenderian
Kong Jackson
C.J. “Pappy” Hart
Robert “Jocko” Johnson
Micky Thompson
Joaquin Arnett
Art Chrisman
Jack Chrisman
Ak Miller
Max Balchowsky
Sam & George Barris
Gene Winfield
Von Dutch
Norm Grabowski
Tommy Ivo
Carroll Shelby
Phil Remington
Art Arfons
Craig Breedlove
Zora Arkus-Duntov
Bruce Meyers
Rowland Leong
Keith Black
Ed Donovan
Ed Pink
E.J. Potter
Paula Murphy
Bob Muravez
Tony Nancy
Larry Shinoda
Don Garlits
Jim Martin
Dode Martin
Jim “Jake” Jacobs
Pete Chapouris
Lil’ John Buttera
Boyd Coddington
Chip Foose
Larry Erickson
Thom Taylor
Steve Stanford
Al Teague
John Force
Mel Stultz
Jessie Combs
And ... just for a bit of extra credit, author Thacker includes an impressive, thirty-plus acknowledgment list of people who he interviewed and consulted with in his very through preparation for writing this book.
Actually, right here I’m going to sign off and let Mister Thacker tell you himself how it really was to put together this pantheon of historic Hot Rodding figures: “The one thing I did come to understand through this journey was how hard everybody worked back in the formative days of the hobby. Of course, there were far fewer distractions, not much TV, no phones to scroll. They just seemed to work and get stuff done and I admire these mavericks for that— they were flat-out.” - Tony Thacker
- Doug Stokes
About The Author
Doug has a long and wide-ranging history in the motoring business. He served five years as the Executive Director of the International Kart Federation, and was the PR guy for the Mickey Thompson's Off-Road Championship Gran Prix. He worked racing PR for both Honda and Suzuki and was a senior PR person on the first Los Angeles (Vintage) Grand Prix. He was also the first PR Manager for Perris Auto Speedway, and spent over 20 years as the VP of Communications at Irwindale Speedway. Stokes is the recipient of the American Autowriters and Broadcaster’s 2005 Chapman Award for Excellence in Public Relations and was honored in 2015 by the Motor Press Guild with their Dean Batchelor Lifetime Achievement Award. “… I’ve also been reviewing automobiles and books for over 20 years, and really enjoy my LA Car assignments.” he added.
