ome projects are more exciting than others. One such tedious project is bodywork leading to primer. While it’s exciting to reach that stage, it isn’t one of the more glamorous efforts. However, Eastwood has developed something that may make this task a bit easier, faster, and, arguably, more enjoyable: roll-on primer. To be accurate, Eastwood refers to this roll-on primer as OptiFlow. According to our fellow hot-rodding friends at Eastwood, this gray primer is a well-suited epoxy primer for frames, single panels, and other small projects. Once finished, you are ready for a basecoat/color.

When it comes to painting, whether custom painting a car or a house, I’ve always had a knack for leaving a big mess behind. I have a professional airless setup that I bought new and have only used once to spray inside a friend’s townhouse; I haven’t touched it since. The thought of observing the 16 steps recommended to clean an airless setup makes me revert to using a paintbrush or roller every time. After painting my entire house, I have mastered the art of achieving good results with a paint roller.

hen building a car, decisions are made at every step of the process that affect the look of the finished project. Some cars have a very simple design, while others incorporate so much detail that it can be overwhelming.

It can be challenging to know how much detail to add, so today we’re looking at an example of a 1970 Chevelle built at Roadster Shop. We believe it has just the right amount of detail for this type of hot rod build.

The original Chevelle had a large open area between the grille and the radiator, and when the hood was open, it looked quite utilitarian. The first step in refining this area was to create a simple panel with a single lateral step. Although this was a significant improvement, the Roadster Shop team believed the panel would have a far more interesting look if a series of shallow indentations were added, giving the panel a “ribbed” appearance. While this kind of fabrication requires time and skill to execute, we think you’ll appreciate how this treatment transformed the panel into a real accent piece—one of the first things to catch your eye when the hood is opened.

ean Livermore and the crew at Hot Rods By Dean (HRBD) have built some of the most well-known, award-winning hot rods in the country. So, what do these guys do in their spare time? They build a drag race car to have fun with on the weekends.

Starting with a moderately rough 1972 Chevy Nova that was a former race car, the HRBD team thumbed through the JEGS Performance Parts catalog to find the needed parts to update the chassis—first up was the rear suspension. Since the Nova used monoleaf springs, something would have to be done to control the axle wrap and wheel hop these suspensions are susceptible to. The cure for what ails these suspensions came in the form of Calvert Racing’s split monoleaf springs (PN 294-230-45) and their CalTracs Traction Bar Kit (PN 294-2380K1).

here are a handful of customizing tenets that define the early, traditional custom style. The first and most obvious modification is to improve the factory design. Another approach is to adjust the stance and body lines to draw the viewer’s eye rearward to a distant vanishing point, creating a flowing, tail-dragging aesthetic. Finally, early customizers aimed to disguise more common, lower-cost cars by incorporating design elements of their up-model counterparts. Fadeaway fenders—modifying the fender lines of pre- and immediate postwar cars to connect the front fenders with the rears—check every one of those boxes.

Automotive design advanced rapidly from the early 1930s through the late 1940s. As that progress continued, fenders transformed from simple, bolt-on splash aprons into parts fully integrated into the body, like on the innovative 1949 Fords, whose design earned them the nickname “shoebox.” For much of that period, from around 1935 until new car design slowed for World War II, most American production cars had large, rounded fenders that covered only the wheels. These fenders curved into the passenger compartment just ahead of the doors and curved back out beyond them, creating an hourglass shape when viewed from above. But there were exceptions.

he world of custom cars experienced a significant loss on May 30, 2016, with the death of Gary “Chopit” Fioto, an exceptional talent from Long Island, New York. His career began with highly customized and carefully crafted automotive art that inspired many. Our first encounter with Gary was through our friend Bo Huff, who encouraged us to reach out after seeing the wildest bubbletop creation in Florida.

When we spoke to Chopit, his personality was as lively as Bo had described, which led to an invitation to visit him. It was here that many of us became good friends with Gary. The first of Chopit’s hot rods to be featured was his restyled 1932 Ford pickup, painted in a “blazing” fire red, notable for its chop, channel, and section metalwork. It was an incredible-looking hot rod with Gary’s signature flair.

It wasn’t until Gary fulfilled his dream of relocating Chopit Kustom to Southern California that we met him at Huntington Beach’s Donut Derelicts. There, Gary welcomed us to his shop in Stanton, California, just a block from the former site of Hot Rods by Boyd. Fast-forward to 2025 and his legacy lives on as his son, Nicholas, continues the family tradition of customizing cars in Allentown, Pennsylvania.