Boyd Coddington
Whatever your preference in cars, Boyd Coddington took them to new heights through his exceptional ability to unite highly creative forces in a common effort, from the design stage to show-winning results.
It’s a simple concept really. You see, when you build six-figure cars for one person, many others stand by and wish they, too, could have such a fine piece of work. Of course, all that one-off bodywork, tube frame construction and sculpted interior is just too pricey for most street rodders, and that doesn’t even consider the price of an artist concept study and subsequent drawings.
However, after spending all that time, money and effort to produce an aesthetically pleasing and award-winning design based on the venerable ’32 Ford, why not mass produce the car in fiberglass with the same great chassis and super smooth lines? That thought crossed Boyd Coddington’s mind when he did the original Boydster, a fenderless highboy roadster. The next progression was to add fenders to the car and so, being a sequential kind of guy and is good with numbers, Boyd decided to call this one the Boydster II. The car embodied all the great style of the first car, but now with fenders.
When we first began publishing back in 1999, I wrote about my friend’s ’32 Vicky. That car, and a ’57 Chevy, was photographed by Scott Killeen and graced that issue’s cover. This helped serve as our coming-out statement for our company—the rest is history.
Hot rod history hit overdrive at the 2025 Grand National Roadster Show, celebrating its 75th anniversary with a killer lineup in Building 9. The big deal? A special exhibit packed with a gathering of America’s Most Beautiful Roadster (AMBR) and Al Slonaker Memorial Award winners. Teaming up with the Petersen Automotive Museum, GNRS pulled together some of the most legendary roadsters ever to roll out of a garage.
Gil Palmer just loves cars, trucks, and motorcycles. He’s owned more than 100 miscellaneous cars, ranging from ’40 Fords to ’55 Chevys to a ’70 Monte Carlo. He’s owned a few pickups, too, and this one originally came to him as the bonus gift, so to speak, in a trade of his ’32 Ford Cobo Hall winner for a motorcycle at the Detroit Autorama. The ’57 Cameo that he received in the trade had an entire ’55 front end on it, and because of that, everyone thinks it’s a ’55. But this truck was in pretty sad shape when it arrived at Palmer’s Southern California home. Just picture this one item in your mind for a minute, and you’ll get the gist of the kind of shape the truck was in: There was a hand-painted (we’re talking 4-inch-wide brush, here) Chevy Bow Tie on the tailgate. The 10:1 compression supercharged engine would overheat in a matter of a few blocks.
When the sun is high and you want to reach for something cool, the presence of this surf-inspired ’60 Mercury station wagon is meant to provide onlookers with the next best thing to a refreshing SoBe beverage. We think the effort is successful—the Merc is a refreshing approach to vehicle personalization.
Suddenly it was 2007! That may not be a big deal to a lot of people, but there were a lot of folks who were very excited that it was 2007. In fact, most of the population in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was openly excited that 50 years had passed since June 15, 1957.
Long before the automotive world was familiar with the name Chip Foose, he had already honed his skills working with his father, custom car builder Sam Foose, at Sam’s Goleta, California, shop since he was a mere seven years old. Armed with this hands-on knowledge of the mechanics of hot rods, Chip enrolled at the prestigious Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.
It’s been said that in a perfect world creativity would flourish without criticism. Most attempts to reach a certain artistic understanding are generally met by some degree of judgment, and sometimes offhanded ridicule. Call it a misunderstanding, envy even, but the bottom line comes down to outrageous personal expression, whether some understand the need for it or not.
Boyd’s Automotive Illustrator Todd Emmons is a talented guy. After all, as an automotive illustrator he makes his living transforming Boyd Coddington’s ideas into two-dimensional splendor, and when he wears his graphic artist hat, he designs the ads and catalogs for Coddington’s operation as well. So it should come as no surprise that Emmons would display a definite flair when it came to building a ride of his own. The only surprise is that he decided to channel that talent into building a pickup truck. Not that we’re complaining, mind you. As truck enthusiasts, we love the idea that high-end talents are turning their eyes toward pickups. In the case of Emmons, his muse is this outstanding ’74 Chevy C10.
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