For those who don't know, hot rod culture and indeed NASCAR have their roots in moonshine liquor smuggling. Moonshine is a corn whiskey, brewed deep in the Appalachian Mountains and all throughout the Southeastern United States. During the Prohibition Era in the U.S. from 1920 - 1933, many folks made a great business out of running shine from the backwoods breweries to the big city speakeasies, underground illegal bars for Roaring-20s style turn-ups.
Smugglers had to ensure that their cars could handle the rough trails to remote stills in the Appalachian and the weight of hundreds of gallons of alcohol, while still being fast enough to outrun the police. Take a standard car, upgrade the parts to make it faster and tougher, and you can see how custom car culture grew from there. By the end of Prohibition, the smuggling business cooled off, however illicit distribution still continued in the name of tax evasion. Shine running was so popular in the South that drivers would make a show and competition of their hopped up rides. This became popular and profitable enough among the Southern population, manufacturers saw a marketing opportunity in ensuring their "stock cars" were the fastest, and with some formal regulation and sponsorship, NASCAR was conceived.
Being that this Ford is a 1932 model, right in the Prohibition period, I couldn't think of anything else to do with it. Obviously real shine runners kept their cars as under the radar as possible, so they would never advertise their services so brazenly. I wanted to create a little story behind this car to justify the theme of this wrap, and so it would stand out against the many other rat rods and rust wraps.
In my mind, this car was infamous for being the fastest runner in the country; so fast that speakeasies would ask for these bootleggers by name because they could always count on a speedy and full delivery. Rumor has it that they never lost a single drop. The runners who worked on this car made sure the speakeasies knew who to ask for, so with a little branding magic they came up with "Hot Rod Hooch." Business was so good, and the runners were so skilled, that cop-chases in the Whiskey Wagon became something of a spectacle. People would line the roads to watch the runners tear up city streets and toy with police for fun; how else would they test out their performance enhancements?
Unfortunately, this confidence turned to hubris and our runners were all but unstoppable. Due to a tip from some mobsters, upset that their own bootlegging profits were being encroached on, the Whiskey Wagon was ambushed by a large police force. It caught quite a few bullets in its escape, and the car was ultimately ditched in a barn. "Hot Rod Hooch" had become too notorious, and the Whiskey Wagon couldn't be seen in public again. It stayed abandoned and forgotten in that barn for decades until it was recently unearthed and restored. The patina and bullet holes remain as battle scars, but a thundering new V-8 engine means Hot Rod Hooch is back, and badder than ever.