Hot Rod's First Primered Cover Car

It was a bold move to put a primered car on the cover of HOT ROD in 1982. That prime piece of car magazine real estate was supposed to be reserved for the hobby’s brightest, most pristine stars. Cars with nice paint, anyway—like a 1972 ’Cuda with a retina-sizzling color combination. But check out the other car on HRM’s cover from November 1982.

- Tim Bernsau

There it is in the back—the Eastwood & Barakat 1932 Ford sedan, sucking up light with its flat red oxide primer finish. The main cover blurb says “Graffiti Nights,” but it could have said “Primered Low-Dollar Deuce Gets More Attention Than Wildly Painted Mopar.”

To be fair, those people in the picture are models, posing the way the photographer told them to. And Allen Owens’ ’Cuda deserved its prominent spot on the cover. The ’Cuda was stunning, but the Eastwood & Barakat sedan was historic, and not just because it was the first primered hot rod to earn a spot on an HRM cover.