We get poked pretty often and have been accused of copying or stealing the ‘Roadkill’ name — The simple fact is that we are the original Roadkill.
The Roadkill Show originally appeared in 2012. Their website first appeared in 2015.
We started our operation as Roadkill Rod and Custom in 1996. We finally made it to the web and first registered the RoadkillCustoms.com domain name in 2006, but foolishly allowed it to lapse, and reregistered the domain on March 3rd, 2008. This is confirmable by doing a whois lookup.
In 2006, we discovered the roadkill.com domain name was already in use by an organization called Roadkill Consulting. When we inquired, they were unwilling to sell the domain to us.
Clearly, we did not have the same clout and financial wherewithal as Hot Rod and Motortrend, and they purchased the Roadkill.com domain name in 2015, at least that’s when the first Roadkill Show content appeared on the domain.
- Our first appearance in the Internet Archive was May 19th, 2009: https://web.archive.org/web/20090519191507/http://www.roadkillcustoms.com/
- Earliest Internet Archive of Roadkill Show content on the domain was September 5th, 2015: https://web.archive.org/web/20150905123118/http://www.roadkill.com/
- Prior to September 2015, the last entry was for Roadkill Consulting: https://web.archive.org/web/20150420051558/http://www.roadkill.com/
We established our first social media presence on Facebook on January 27, 2010. Our YouTube channel was created the same year on November 6, 2010.
No matter how you look at it, we had them beat to the name by years.
To this day, folks either say we copied the name or confuse us with MotorTrend’s Roadkill. We don’t think it really matters, we just want to build kick-ass hot rods and help others do the same.
