For the past 30 years, Alloway’s Hot Rod Shop has been one of the elite rod shops, winning awards at auto chains nationwide.

There are only a few “giʋens” you can rely on in this life: The sun will rise in the East every morning, you won’t have enough time to complete all your street projects mine, and, if Bobby Alloway were to make a stick for me, it would be missing and have a lock!

And while Alloway is no stranger to building specialty rods (he’s been doing it in the Louisʋille, Tennessee area for 30 years now), his tried-and-true path has recently opened up a fork in the road. Back in 1997, Boby and Rat’s Glass teamed up to produce a new mass-produced roadster, the SpeedStar. But a new concept has come with it.

SpeedStar fiberglass products were the first to create attractive, high-tech designs to emerge from high-priced professional rod shops with adequate fiberglass manufacturing capabilities. pay. Independent suspension, curved windshields and smooth bodies are all features of these one-of-a-kind steel roadsters – Boty just had Rat’s Glass build them out of glass and other Daily driving vehicle.

The first SpeedStar roadster was completed, Boty’s personal black ‘n’ caught fire. From there, selling them through magazine ads and at all the major road shows, the roadies found instant success. At that time, some people will sit down and admire what they have created, but not Bobby. Like an old dog that refuses to let go of a dog, Alloway continues to expand his line of body styles based on his original SpeedStar theme.

The next car to come out was the SpeedStar coupe. Not only does the new design feature a hood, but the grille has also been reshaped to look more like Ford’s original ’33 design. The coupe design was also a success with the public, but it took famous upholsterer Paul Atkins to refine the design and improve things once again.

Since its inception, the SpeedStar line has aimed to meet the needs of the high-tech crowd (think: independent suspension). Paul thought that by adding a drop-down hub and some classic-style American spokes, he was onto something. It turned out that Atkins was right on the money, and his bright yellow SpeedStar coupe was launched at the 2000 Detroit AutoRaмa, where it won the show’s highest honor: the Don Ridler Memorial Award.

But the classical approach that Paul had abandoned sparked another idea with Alloway. While Paul’s car (the second SpeedStar coupe to be built from the old car) was being designed at Alloway’s shop, Boby was thinking about the brothers’ famous salt lake racing coupe of the 50s. Pierson, Dick and Bob’s house. Besides the coupe’s rugged styling, the other major design element is the air-slit nose. Why not adapt that nose to fit a SpeedStar coupe?

If giving a coupe a new nose was as easy as it sounds, that would be fine with Alloway and Rat’s. Discussing the project with illustrator Thoм Taylor and stick maker Darrell Zipp also game Boby and Rat gain unique insight into what the stick should look like. But the new snout required hours of design, speculation, shaping and hard work on the part of the pair, who had collaborated on every other previous SpeedStar project (Rat’s built the molds). and creates glassware near Friends’ille, TN, while Boby turns them into magazine-worthy creations in Louisʋille, TN-ased Alloway’s Hot Rod Shop), very satisfied with the results.

The new bars, dubbed TrackStars, use different components in front of the curved windshield compared to the standard coupes. And although the aluminum grille is also new, Alloway turned to Jim Rench (Hot Rod Stuff, Jerseyʋille, IL), the grille fabricator he uses on all his projects ( th along with his SpeedStars and “regular” hot rods). The rest of the bar goes almost all the other bars come from Alloway’s (when you’re rolling this well, you’re not changing anything!).

The entire rod, including frame fabrication and assembly, Cheʋy lock installation, along with the frame and paint, is all done at Alloway’s Hot Rod Shop. Only the upholstery was done outside the house, which was handled skillfully by Paul Atkins Custoм Upholstery in Cullman, Alabama. Boaty’s personal view on color is very similar to Henry Ford’s: you have better color than black!