Style setter or dead end? Mac’s Motor City Garage takes another look at Tex Smith’s Hot Rod Magazine XR6.

Note: this is a revised and expanded version of a story that originally appeared at Mac’s Motor City Garage on August 30, 2012. 

It’s hard to know exactly what to make of the XR6 today. Built in 1962-63 by LeRoi Tex Smith, then an associate editor at Hot Rod Magazine (MCG’s former stomping ground), the car is clearly a product of its time—as exemplified by the Jetsons fenders, hideaway headlamps, and far-out asymmetric styling theme.

The XR6 made a big splash when it was new, winning the America’s Most Beautiful Roadster award at the Grand National Roadster Show in 1963 and generating an AMT model kit. But the car’s cutting-edge early ’60s look also dated it, and the XR6 quickly sank from view as street rodding headed off in another direction, embracing traditionalism with both arms.

But today, we can look back on the XR6 and view it for what it is: one moment in time. And on that basis we can dig the XR6 for what it is, and for the brief period in rodding it so ably represents.  Thankfully, the car was never updated to reflect passing fads and trends over the years. It’s true to its origin, and from that angle it has help up well.

It’s worth asking how much the XR6 was influenced by another asymmetric design from a few years earlier, Virgil Exner’s Plymouth XNR concept. Both cars were powered by the Chrysler Slant Six, an asymmetric configuration in itself. 

The Hot Rod XR6 has also held up well cosmetically, thanks to its solid construction. As a veteran of the car mags, MCG has a secret for you: Magazine project cars are often junk. They’re not built to last or to drive well; they’re built to look good in the photography and showcase the sponsors’ products. And the work itself is often done by whatever Johnny-come-lately is willing to volunteer its shop space and labor in return for free ink. If the car can hold together long enough to get the story to press, mission accomplished.

But even after 40-plus years, the XR6 is still looking sound as a dollar. Check out the interior and upholstery, and the all-metal bodywork—there’s a genuine steel ’27 Ford roadster shell hidden inside all that hand fabrication work. The XR6 was a quality job and it shows in the car’s appearance all these decades later.

For the images in the gallery below, Mac’s Motor City Garage can thank good buddy Bob Lichty of Motorcar Portfolio in Canton, Ohio. In around 2005 or thereabouts, the XR6 entered the company’s inventory and Bob rang us with the heads-up. Needless to say, MCG headed right over there with a camera. These photos were taken shortly before the XR6 went off to its new owner, the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. Gallery below.