Question: What were drag-racing cars called before they were known as “hot rods”?
Answer: In the 1920s and ‘30s, the pioneering prototypes of hot rod culture were called “gow jobs.” The first gow jobs were Ford Model Ts, but the more advanced Model A became the vehicle of choice in the late ’20s. “Gow” was a slang term for opium (among other things) in the crazy days of the Jazz Age, and at the time, the drug was believed to be used to hop up racehorses. Since the cars of the ’20s were only a generation removed from the horse as a means of transportation, “gow job” was an obviously cool name for modified high-speed cars. “Hot rod” was both a term and a notion still far in the future.
