HOT ROD Power Tour 2025: Freaks, Oddballs, and One-Offs Gallery
Our 31st Power Tour saw some really weird rides show up to show off at our annual rolling car show.
On Power Tour you never know what you’re going to come across, and the 2025 Chevrolet Performance HOT ROD Power Tour Driven by Hagerty was no exception. Yeah, when you get over 6,000 rides showing up for a party, some weird and oddball stuff is sure to show up. A great example is this “W-18” creation that’s a mix of several rides and fields three straight-six engines for a total of 716 cubic inches.
AI Quick Summary
The 2025 HOT ROD Power Tour featured over 6,000 unique vehicles, including a "W-18" with three engines, a 1935 Ford camper, a Caterpillar build with a 12L diesel engine, and creative designs like a car with a plane "crashed" on its roof, showcasing the event's embrace of automotive creativity.
This summary was generated by AI using content from this MotorTrend article
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We found this 1935 Ford to be a beautiful mess of a build. Yeah, it looks like Tim Miller cobbled it together, but the closer you look, the more you find that Dick Banjo is pretty well sorted out. This Hot Rod Camper is 4WD and fields a 454 big-block Chevy backed by a four-speed transmission. Designed and built by Piece-N-Grease, this thing was a hoot to see blasting down the highway.
This Caterpillar build reminds us of the Tonka toys we played with as kids but on a much larger scale. It’s powered by a massive 12L C-12 diesel engine from an International 9200 and has been heavily customized with a three-piece exhaust manifold, twin Banks ram air intakes, turbo silencer ring, and a 12-speed manual transmission. The body is a stripped-down 1928 Studebaker. This ride was built by Snapper Schomaker because he “wanted something fun to drive,” and he absolutely killed it.
Who ya gonna call? Well, the Ghostbuster might have rocked a Miller-Meteor Caddy, but these guys decided a more modern hearse would be appropriate. It certainly looked good going down the dragstrip.
Speaking of full-scale Tonka toys, the exaggerated dimensions and massive wing just made this freak fun to look at, and he wasn’t afraid to beat on it, either, just like a real Tonka.
Rat rods are still a thing, and we’ve spied this worked-over VW bug at many an event and Power Tour. If you want creativity, then Power Tour is most certainly your jam.
And now for something completely different. We’ve had planes converted into cars at previous Power Tours, but we don’t recall ever seeing a car with a plane “crashed” on the roof. The Route 66 paint job was perfect for this year’s Power Tour.
Everywhere you looked at the 2025 Chevrolet Performance HOT ROD Power Tour Driven by Hagerty, you found something fresh where a builder thought outside the conventional box and came up with their own unique take on a hot rod. Engines ripping through hoods, LS-swapped and worked-over mail trucks, Pro Street big-block VW bugs, and stuff that just defies description could be found at all the stops along the way. We like freaks, so we put together a gallery of some of our favorites from this year’s Power Tour for you to check out. We can’t wait to see what shows up in 2026!
Born and raised in Southern California I started as the technical editor for Popular Hot Rodding (PHR) magazine where I learned the business before moving over to work with Nick Licata, at Camaro Performers, as his tech editor. At PHR I built a 1968 Camaro called Bad Penny that was one of the earlier pro-touring cars that actually ran the track hard. We won the first Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational in 2008 and placed well several other years. At Camaro Performers we started several project cars and did a ton of tech. Eventually I was made editor of Vette magazine for a short time before being slotted to run Super Chevy magazine. Running the brands was fun, but I've always enjoyed being a technical writer more. So after more than 15 years I'm back to writing tech content, this time for the HOT ROD network. I enjoy being with my family, shooting, and working on my latest car, a 1969 Camaro called Tri Tip.
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