Tadlock Servicenter

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.

Tadlock Servicenter was a Kansas City, Missouri-based garage and service station operated by Charles and John Tadlock. Located at 43rd Avenue and Mission Road in Kansas City, Kansas, the shop became known in the late 1940s for its involvement in the early hot rod scene in the Midwest.

In an April 1948 feature published in The Kansas City Star, the Tadlock brothers were described as among the elite of Kansas City’s hot rod builders. Both were in their twenties at the time, lean and sunburned from long days spent wrenching on engines. The article noted that they had “always fooled around with cars,” and by 1948 had turned their hobby into a serious operation.

Working out of a small garage, Charles and John performed what the article called “minor miracles of engine and body work.” Their approach blended technical know-how with a strong sense of California styling. The brothers specialized in transforming rusty old cars and junkyard engines into low-slung, shiny racers and custom-style sportsters that echoed the West Coast aesthetic.

One car under construction in 1948 was a 1938 Ford convertible that Charles Tadlock had purchased for $90. He was in the process of converting it into a California model, complete with faired fenders and a lowered body. Rather than calling it a custom car, Charles referred to it specifically as a California car, highlighting the growing influence of the West Coast hot rod and custom scene on Kansas City builders. He estimated the car would be worth about $1,500 once completed, and noted that it would receive sixty coats of lacquer—far beyond what was typical of factory paint jobs at the time.

Charles Tadlock served as a sergeant shop foreman in the ordinance pool of the 5th Infantry Division during World War II. Before and after the war, he worked in garages in Kansas City.

By 1948, the Tadlock Servicenter was recognized as a hub for hot rod culture in Kansas City. Their work embodied the postwar boom in mechanical creativity and performance enthusiasm that was spreading eastward from California into the heartland.