Traveling salesman Tom Phillips (Dana Andrews) is driving home to Boston, Massachusetts for Christmas when he encounters a drunken driver on a rain-streaked road.

Since he can no longer be a traveling salesman, his brother arranges for Tom to buy a remote motel in the desert town of Mayville, California.

But when they reach the desert, they are accosted by a pair of drag racers and a "party girl" in a modified, high-performance 1958 Chevrolet Corvette who jokingly force them to swerve and avoid a collision.

Matters come to a dangerous head when Tom's daughter (Laurie Mock), fascinated by Duke, goes to see him in the motel bar and grill, called the Arena.

This game ends only when Tom outwits the teenagers by parking his car on a narrow bridge, with the headlights on, evacuating him and his family to a safe spot 20 yards off the road.

Faced with an unmoving object, Duke turns "chicken" himself, running his car off the edge of the bridge, after which he and Ernie, bruised, battered and with scraped knees, swear that they will never give Tom any trouble.

The Arena exteriors were filmed in Calabasas, California at a place then known as Billingsley's Steak Ranch, near the intersection of Highway 101 and Las Virgenes Road.

Hot Rods to Hell received nearly universal scorn from critics but had a profitable run, given its very modest budget, grossing over a million dollars.