Legendary hot rod builder Boyd Coddington will use AMSOIL lubricants and filters exclusively in his mission to revive a buried 1957 Plymouth Belvedere.

On June 15, 1957, the city of Tulsa, Okla. buried a new gold and white 1957 Plymouth Belvedere Sport Coupe in a time capsule in downtown Tulsa as part of Golden Jubilee Week, a celebration of Oklahoma’s 50th year of statehood. Before the car was buried, citizens were asked to guess the population of Tulsa in the year 2007 with the promise that whoever turned out to be closest would be awarded the car at Oklahoma’s Centennial celebration in 2007. The entries were sealed and buried with the car inside the vault.

On June 15, 2007, the car was unearthed and transferred to the Tulsa Convention Center as part of Oklahoma’s Centennial celebration. On hand was legendary hot rod builder Boyd Coddington, host of the hit TLC TV series American Hot Rod. Coddington and his crew were responsible for getting the Belvedere running after spending 50 years buried in the underground vault. The process was filmed for an episode of American Hot Rod, which was air numerous times on TLC.

AMSOIL is an official sponsor of this historic event. AMSOIL lubricants and filters will be used by Coddington and his crew as they work to get the Belvedere running, with AMSOIL product placement and banners visible throughout the program.

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The hit TLC TV series American Hot Rod draws over one million viewers each week, where they watch Coddington and his crew design and build cuttingedge hot rods. Host Boyd Coddington has won the prestigious “America’s Most Beautiful Roadster” Award a record seven times and the Daimler-Chrysler Design Excellence Award twice. He’s enshrined in the SEMA Hall of Fame, the Grand National Roadster Show Hall of Fame, the National Rod & Custom Museum Hall of Fame, the Route 66 Wall of Fame, the Street Rod Marketing Alliance Hall of Fame, and he was voted “Man of the Year” in 1988 by Hot Rod Magazine.

Boyd Coddington

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The Steadily Growing Tuner Market Fuels Demand

for High Performance Products

When most people think of muscle cars, they generally think of American makes like Chevrolet, Ford and Pontiac. Classic cars such as the Pontiac GTO, the Ford Mustang and the Chevy Chevelle come to mind. However, the hot rods of the new generation are not GTO’s, Mustangs or Chevelles. They are modified, midsized imports like Honda Civics, Toyota Celicas and Nissan Maximas.

Actually, these modern-day hot rods are usually combinations of different makes and models. The body could be manufactured by Nissan, but a more powerful Toyota engine could be under the hood. They’re called “tuners,” and the scene has been steadily growing since its underground beginnings in southern California more than a decade ago.

The blockbuster 2001 movie The Fast and the Furious,centering on highly modified import cars and street racing, helped launch the tuner lifestyle into mainstream public consciousness.

Typically a youth-dominated market, it features moderately priced mid-size import vehicles juiced up with expensive performance modifications, flashy body work, custom paint jobs and expensive sound systems. “Tuner car enthusiasts express themselves using their vehicles,” says Dick Messer, museum director of Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. “The car is the focus of their lifestyle, and it’s a lifestyle that transcends ethnic, gender and socio-economic barriers. Tuner cars bring together a group of enthusiasts that is not defined by specific make or model, a geographic boundary or niche market.”

The interiors of tuner vehicles are often modified as extensively as the exteriors.

According to Motor Trend magazine, “‘Tuner’ cars are traditionally sport compact models equipped with high revving, small-bore engines, race-inspired suspensions and bodywork. They represent a modern-day approach to performance-based motoring and they have many parallels to the early days of hot rodding.” The tuner scene has no set rules, and creativity is encouraged. Some tuner enthusiasts focus almost exclusively on exterior appearance, others are more concerned with performance and others strive for a balance between the two.

An April 2003 article by Don Fernandez in theAtlanta Journal-Constitution profiled some of Atlanta’s local tuners. James Park of Lilburn, Ga., owns a 2002 Mitsubishi Lancer that boasts two-tone seats, custom exhaust and “suicide spoiler,” and he’s looking at adding a turbocharger. “Any import lovers . . . once you start, you can’t stop,” he says.

When Edgar Moreno of Alpharetta, Ga., bought his new 2003 Infinity, he wasted no time with the modifications. He removed the wood grain interior, installed a PlayStation 2 in the glove compartment and a DVD player and monitor in the air conditioner space and added fifteen-inch rims and a lowered profile for aesthetics.

Performance is extremely important in the ever growing tuner market, and tuner enthusiasts invest a lot of money in their vehicles. AMSOIL lubricants are the perfect fit for today’s hot rod generation.

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