Alex Xydias, Hot Rod Pioneer and Publisher, Has Passed Away at Age 102

Alex Xydias lived a remarkable life. A hot-rodder from a young age, he served in WWII as a B-17 crewman, founded the So-Cal Speed Shop, and would go on to claim speed records, film documentaries, head Car Craft magazine, and help organize the automotive aftermarket into what it is today. He passed away last week and left a fantastic legacy of innovation, entrepreneurship, and investing in the hot rod community.

Xydias is probably best known for the So-Cal Speed Shop, which he founded in Burbank after leaving the Army Air Corps in 1946. He got lots of publicity for his So-Cal Speed Shop when his belly tank lakester, built to promote his business, was photographed for the January 1949 cover of Hot Rod magazine. He’d piloted the car in excess of 100mph using a V-8-60, a pint-sized version of Ford’s flathead V-8, but he had more in store. It got a new chassis and ran even faster with the little engine, but Xydias knew a streamliner would be even faster.

The So-Cal streamliner was created with input from Xydias, his racing partner Dean Batchelor, and Valley Custom’s proprietor Neil Emory, who shaped the bodywork. Initially powered by the same V-8-60 as the belly tanker, it soon got a full-sized Mercury flathead that pushed the sleek body to much higher speeds. The streamliner was the fastest on the Bonneville salt in 1949, but it would truly become famous when it set a Bonneville record and earned another spot on the Hot Rod magazine trophy as the first 200mph hot rod with a 210.8962mph pass. That was enough to get the streamliner on the cover of the October 1949 issue of Hot Rod.

Xydias was the editor of Car Craft and soon became the publisher of Hot Rod Industry News. Far more than a racer and innovator of hot rods, Xydias was a great friend to many in the industry and was active in the community. In 2012, the Alex Xydias & Pete Chapouris Center for Automotive Arts (AXC), a two-year program that teaches students automotive diagnostics and repair, was founded in Pomona. It’s fitting that AXC is at the Pomona Fairplex near the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum, as the two pioneers were lifelong friends, and their legacy will live on together.