Americans love speed. It suffuses our culture, coloring every aspect of it from food to mail service. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that the automobile holds a hallowed space in the American myth. Nowhere is this more evident than in the culture of the hot rod, a rich substrata in popular culture dedicated to the car. The popularity of the hot rod ties in with this American preoccupation with youth, speed, and individualism, and the artists who pioneered the hot rod have after years of ignominious labor become recognized as master artists outside of this very specific milieu. Over 50 years after its invention, the hot rod is still omnipresent on the road and off, dedicated to the pursuit of speed and style, or rather, speed in style.

Hot-rod culture first emerged in the early 1940s—the war years—particularly in Los Angeles, where, as...