The most complete Hot Rod book ever written! 250+ pages comprehensively reveal every detail of how to build a T-Bucket roadster from everyday materials and junkyard parts. Build it yourself and save thousands of dollars compared to a T-Bucket kit car or searching all over for a T-Bucket “For Sale” — while customizing it to [...]

I could be accused by some as being taste-deficient, because I’m a sucker for the late 60s/early 70s psychedelic paint jobs, which incorporated panels, fogs, fades, bursts, lace, cobwebs, ribbons, stripes, murals, etc. in flakes, pearls and candies with the net result being sensory overload. While at the 2010 Buckethead Bash, sponsored by Spirit Industries [...]

As noted in Part I, Buzz Pitzen’s T-Bucket was the world’s first using a fiberglass body. It paved the way for tens of thousands to follow and it can’t be emphasized enough that had Buzz not taken the time to correct the flaws in that fiberglass body built in the 50s that the ‘glass bucket [...]

In my earlier post about The Real History of the Fiberglass T-Bucket Body, it was noted that the first fiberglass T-Bucket roadster was built by hot rodder Buzz Pitzen. The story of how Buzz came to purchase that first fiberglass T-Bucket body is a fascinating look at why over 50 years ago someone would use [...]

In 1964, the best selling instrumental rock group of all time (with over 110 million albums sold worldwide and now inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) introduced their 14th and possibly most influential album, “The Ventures in Space”. The best-selling album’s alluring cover featured a romantic young couple in a striking white [...]

The June, 1963 cover of “Rodding & Restyling” magazine featured an interesting variant of the T-Bucket style: a 1927 T phaeton body abbreviated by chopping off everything behind the front doors and with a grafted on pickup bed of sorts. What really caught my attention, though, was that it was Y-block Ford powered. I had [...]

Up until 1962, pretty much every T-Bucket that had appeared in the Big 3 car magazines (Hot Rod, Rod & Custom, Car Craft) had been from the West Coast — California, more specifically. So, it was quite a shock to see a really dramatically unique T-Bucket appear in both Hot Rod and Car Craft that [...]

Just to show what an important element of popular culture the T-Bucket became, you need look no further than the three artists who recorded this dopey ditty: Jan & Dean, The Who and Ronny and the Daytonas. I must say that I find the cover version of this song done by The Who to be [...]

The October, 1961 issue of Rod & Custom magazine had a special feature on “Midwest Rods” and the one I found most memorable was a very cool, very stubby T-bucket built on a budget by a Kansas City teen named Larry Ryan. I understand that mechanical genius George Barnes contributed significantly to this bucket’s build [...]

Nine years ago (April 4, 2001), we lost Ed “Big Daddy” Roth. I felt fortunate that two months prior I had a chance to say hi to Ed and get him to autograph a couple of T-shirts at the Chicago World of Wheels car show. Growing up, Ed’s T-Bucket inspired fiberglass creation also had a [...]