Legends of Hot Rodding: Eric Rickman – Hot Rod Magazine’s Lensman Extraordinaire
“Photography is a Love Affair with Life.”
-Burk Uzzle, early Life Magazine photographer
In the case of Eric Rickman, that affair was with motorsports and hot rods.
In the annuals of hot rodding, no photographer had a greater influence on our hobby than Eric Rickman, the World War II Navy vet who joined the Hot Rod Magazine staff in 1951.
A Bay Area native and devoted car guy, Rickman’s path to photography was not a direct one. Following his discharge from the military, Rickman found employment at a local auto parts store and eventually worked his way up to building engines. His powerplants were soon propelling race cars circulating the Northern California Racing Association’s Oakland Speedway.
To pad his wallet, Rickman took a night job at a photo studio called Dana Photo developing film and making prints in the darkroom. As his interest in photography grew, Rickman befriended a staff photographer at the Oakland Tribune, Russ Reid. Reid offered to take Rickman on his evening ride-alongs. They’d cruise the city – as four shortwave radios blasted out the city’s criminal and cultural mayhem – and capture the most newsworthy incidents. More importantly, Rickman learned how to quickly frame an image, set the exposure, focus, and shoot. It’s how at Petersen Publishing he earned the nickname, One-Shot Rick.
In 1948, Rick secured a booth at the Oakland Roadster show to showcase his portfolio of images. He’d also sneak away during the day to shoot the pageantry of rods and customs entered in the show. That evening, he’d make prints to sell to the car’s owners the following day.
That show also proved a turning point. While Robert Petersen prowled the show floor, talking up the attendees about his new publication called “Hot Rod,” Rickman struck up a conversation with Tom Medley, a HRM staffer. Medley introduced Rickman to “Pete,” who hired Rick to set up a photo lab and join the small staff as a photographer.
And so began an unrivaled career behind the lens, one that spanned more than half a century and included witnessing – and chronicling – nearly every important motorsports and hot rod happening of the late 20th Century. To recount all of Rickman’s travels would be impossible, but here are a few memorable ones.
Bonneville Speed Week, the inaugural in 1949. He had yet to be hired by Hot Rod, but a customer at the aforementioned Dana Photo volunteered to fly Rick to Wendover. They took off from Oakland at 3 a.m. and flying without navigation promptly lost their way over the Nevada desert. Running low on fuel, they landed on Highway 80 and taxied into a gas station. Seriously. They added five gallons of premium and continued on their way, touching down safely on the Salt.
The mercurial Bonneville weather also triggered an insightful comment he told automotive journalist Dave Wallace: “When you’re standing out there and you feel static electricity making your hair stand up, it’s time to get inside somewhere, because the lightning bolts are on the way!”
Rickman’s tenure at Hot Rod started in 1950 in a less-than-glamorous way. Petersen provided a broom closet for him to build a photo lab. He also ran a small press, printing subscription forms and promotional materials. Soon, another staffer was hired to run the lab, and Petersen wisely sent Rickman out into the field.
One of the perks (if you could call it that) of working for Hot Rod was having interesting company vehicles to drive. One of the first was a Model A roadster pickup with a dual-carb Flathead V8, but meager stopping power thanks to its mechanical brakes. That soon gave way to a Ford F1 panel truck. Famously, the panel once flipped while towing a trailer going down the Grapevine toward Bakersfield. Rickman and passenger Bud Coons simply righted the damaged ship, replaced a couple tires, and continued on. Eventually George Barris repaired it.
Photo courtesy The American Hot Rod Foundation
Throughout the 1950s, Rickman always found himself at the Indianapolis 500. Early on he used a Speed Graphic camera from WWII as well as Leica 35mm rangefinder cameras captured from the Germans. In the early-’50, requesting a Speedway press credential baffled the Brickyard’s press office, which had no idea what Hot Magazine was.
No story on Rick would be complete without mentioning his daily driver – a 1954 Corvette. In 1957 he turned the stock ’Vette over to Von Dutch for paint job. When Dutch was done, it was a wild deep metallic blue accented by pinstripes, wide whitewalls, and aero Moon discs.
Through 40-plus years as an automotive photographer, Rickman took in nearly every important motorsport and hot-rod related event. In addition to Bonneville, he was on hand for the first 1955 NHRA Nationals in Kansas, the Mexican La Carrera Panamericana road race, a dozen or so Indy 500s, car shows from Oakland to Detroit, the NHRA Safety Safari, plus countless feature cars, tech stories, and more. His work is the definitive record of America’s early hot rod culture. His images appeared in Hot Rod, Motor Trend, Car Craft, Rod & Custom, Cycling, and many more.
He has been recognized for his work by organizations sanctioning off-road vehicles, offshore boats, car shows, dry lakes racing, hot rods, motorcycles, and customs. Eric Rickman passed away in 2009 at the age of 90. He won’t be forgotten. There are thousands of images that assure he won’t be.
