Midwest

A Kansas City Hot Rod Milestone: This full-page feature titled “Excuse Their Dust, the ‘Hot Rod’ Racers Are Warming Up” appeared in The Kansas City Star, April 25, 1948. Written by Hughes Rudd, the article offers a rare early look at the postwar hot rod movement as it spread from California to the Midwest. The piece documents a crowd of 14,000 gathering at a makeshift dirt track in Smithville, Missouri, to watch stripped-down “California-style” hot rods race in an exhibition event. It highlights local builders like Charles and John Tadlock and captures the rising popularity of hot rodding as a distinctly American youth phenomenon.

The Hot Rod Fever Hits the Midwest

By 1948, hot rod culture was no longer just a California phenomenon. Across the country, returning GIs, young mechanics, and garage tinkerers were embracing the thrill of speed, performance, and personal style. In April of 1948, The Kansas City Star published one of the earliest and most vivid newspaper features on hot rodding in the Midwest. The article offered a time-correct glimpse into the booming scene in Kansas City, Missouri, where the hot rod movement had taken root with a unique regional flavor.

Written by journalist Hughes Rudd, the article described how thousands of spectators gathered at a makeshift dirt track in Smithville, just north of Kansas City, to watch local hot rodders race stripped-down, rebuilt cars. The crowd—estimated at 14,000 people—reflected just how quickly the culture was catching on outside of California.

According to Rudd, a few hot rods had existed in the Kansas City area before WWII, but the movement exploded in the postwar years. By 1948, the local scene had grown so fast that it was impossible to keep track of how many hot rods were roaming the streets. Organized racing was beginning to take hold, with exhibition events drawing serious attention—and serious machinery.