(Photo – Steve Magnante collection) – We’re rat bastards for doing this but we have to let you know what’s coming. Firstly, Steve Magnante is our newest BangShift contributor. Secondly, his first contribution is a three part epic series telling every inch of detail on the legendary Bad Seed project car from Hot Rod Magazine. The 500ci Cadillac powered Chevette recently resurfaced at the Hot Rod Homecoming Car show and that’s what got BS and Magnante connected. After hard fought negotiations lasting literally several minutes, Steve agreed to penning a series that told every tale about the car. We’ve read the stories already and it is a 100% tell ALL. From the VIN number of the Chevette to the corporate politics that killed the project we have it…along with more than 50 unpublished photos that you’ve never seen before like the one below. What’s going on in this photo? Oh just the Bad Seed being EFFING STREET TESTED!
We’ll run one part per week starting on Tuesday. Tell you friends…tell you enemies…tell anyone who loved the project and the “Magneto era” at Hot Rod. This is the unabridged history of one of the greatest, wildest, and most controversial magazine project cars of all time. Here’s a quick excerpt of what you can expect:
“It has been over a decade since the April 2000 issue of Hot Rod magazine appeared on newsstands across the nation. The main image depicted an austere white Chevy Chevette Scooter riding on skinny front tires and plain steel rims – emerging from a dense cloud of tire smoke. Only a magnifying glass would reveal the subtle 8.2 Liter emblem affixed to the lower – right quadrant of the car’s cheap plastic grille. There was no hood scoop, chrome plated blower, splashy paint graphics or massive rear tires, only a bright red cover blurb that read “11 Seconds for $2,000 Fast! & Cheap! Editors Go Insane!” The Bad Seed Caddy 500 powered Chevy Chevette had arrived. It was also the first Hot Rod cover car with bird shit on the windshield (see it on the passenger side of the panel). And that’s significant.”
yesssssssssssssss.
If you have Magneto as a contributor now, you have gone up a quantum level in coolness!
Big congratulations!
Looking forward to that – it was one of the most insane project cars Hot Rod built since I subscribed.
“. . . bird shit . . . .”
Magneto has a potty mouth?
I’ve gotten rid of most of my Hot Rod magazines since ’75 . I still have THAT ONE. And it is the only reason why.
Because it’s the first HRM cover car with bird feces on the windshield? Because “Steve Mags” is a “potty mouth?”
This car is the reason I have Steve’s signed business card, framed hanging in my kitchen.
Next to the Caddy-Hack, this was just insane!!!! Steve’s knowledge of history is also incredible, be it Match Bash racing or restored and rare musclecars!
500 in Caddys are perhaps the most underated towing and go fast engines there are. The valve train fix is relatively inexpensive even for the average Joe.
Take an early set of heads and strap em on a mid 70s engine and you have 12.5:1 comp right quick.
Fix the rockers and suddenly you’ve got an alchy friendly engine. T
Any car that can make Hot Rod’s legal team shit a brick is fine by me.
unfiltered Magnante? Ruh-roh……LOL. Glad to hear he’s part of the madness over here now….wondering how long ’til Lohnes scams a ride in the WIlshire Shaker(being as Steve and Brian are both Mass. residents). Awaiting the stories…..
What job did Steve move on to since Hot Rod. There has to be more than a few minutes on the bj auction and the great junk yard crawl series.