Dominating Worldwide: Hot Rodding

It would be naive of our readers to think that hot rodding was only a stateside, fan-based subculture. Yes, it’s deeply-rooted in American culture. Almost iconic. However, if you think that its only prevalent here in the land of the free and home of the brave, you’re flat-out wrong. While it was birthed in the sunny, suburban confines of Southern California during a time of Nuclear families, and when milk was actually delivered in glass bottles to your door step, it’s more recently stepped out the back door and taken effect like a virus in other countries.

Matter of fact, hot rodding in general is growing and business is booming. It seems every minute, there’s another someone else out there building a hot rod and showing it off. It’s not only exciting, ever-building the popularity and awareness of hot rodding, but raising the bar as well. It would be selfish to think that Americans are the only hot rod builders. We aren’t, so get over it.

Case in point, the Essen Show in Germany. While Germany probably isn’t the first suspect when it comes to discovering new builds in the hot rodding game, once we took a closer look at Essen, it’s no wonder we haven’t seen more builds from these beer-drinking, lederhosen wearing sauerkraut’s. Trust us there’s no love lost, we here at PowerTV love a great beer in a large Stein, too. Sprechen sie duetsche?

Though Germany may be known for many industrial firsts, Essen is known for some great hot rod, skill building ingredients. Most notably, Essen was formerly one of Germany’s most important coal and steel centers and historically linked to the centuries-old Krupp family of iron works. If Krupp sounds familiar, that’s because its a prominent 400 year-old based German dynasty; famous for their steel production and for their manufacturing of ammunition and armaments. See where I’m going with this?

Essen seems to be filled with skill-based generations of builders and fabricators. It’s no wonder. Essen’s got all the key ingredients for nurturing a small-niche community of hot rodders. In addition, with the Mooneyes Japan coverage in full swing, we tagged along with Speedhunters.com for their coverage of the Essen Show, illustrating the greatest German hot rodding movement we’ve ever seen.

As Rod Chong of Speedhunters’s puts it, “It seems like car scenes from distant countries have an exotic allure, which seems to shine brightly against our local offerings. Perhaps the owners of these hot rods know this feeling. These are Europeans who have hooked into the lifestyle sometimes referred to as Kustom Kulture; It’s a modern re-interpretation of retro American culture which mixes up old school Hot Rodding, Pinup Girls, Lowbrow Art and Rockabilly together in an all pervasive way of life.” All said and done, we couldn’t agree more.