When Petersen Publishing Company photographer Eric Rickman took this photo in October 1958, Paul Schiefer’s involvement in developing a safe, “slipper” clutch for drag racers was still a decade away. So was the honor of being the very first inductee into SEMA’s Hall of Fame.

It was no accident that the NHRA brought the U.S. Nationals to Detroit in 1959. The Big Three were engaged in a growing horsepower war, and hot rodders were enjoying the spoils of that war, turning Detroit’s big-inch, multi-carbed mills into quarter-mile terrors.

Dean Moon; The whole world went a little lunar crazy in the second half of 1969, and for good reason: NASA’s Apollo program sent astronauts to the moon—twice.

When Petersen Publishing Company photographer Eric Rickman shot this photo of Vic Edelbrock Sr. in February of 1958, the Edelbrock Equipment Company (as it was known then) had already earned its reputation for manufacturing quality speed equipment, thanks to 20 years of hands-on development and testing of countless engines.

By 1972, the handwriting was on the wall: Musclecars were a dying breed. Performance enthusiasts—and the magazines they read—were looking for new ways to have fun with cars. That’s how this tidy little Datsun 510 wound up in Hot Rod magazine.

Stu Hilborn didn’t build the sleek streamliner that has become so closely identified with him and his pioneering efforts in developing fuel injection. No, the car was originally built by a man named Bill Warth, who raced it on Southern California’s dry lakes in 1939 and 1940.

Don “The Snake” Prudhomme announced his retirement in January, closing the book on a stellar drag-racing career that spanned nearly five decades.

Why is Ray Brock smiling? It could be because he’s just stepped out of a 300F, the wide, low-slung, 375hp flagship of Chrysler’s ’60 lineup.

The cool dude in the hat and shades driving Jamie Musselman’s ’33 roadster is Boyd Coddington.

If the company president’s desk is clean,” the old adage goes, “then someone else is doing the work.” That’s certainly not the case with Ed Iskenderian.