Tabla de contenidos para Sep-13 en Rod & Custom

rob.fortier@sorc.com The clocks have been set an hour ahead and the days are longer. For most of us, the weather’s warming up and, well, it’s time to end our cars’ winter hibernations. Ultimately, what’s that all really mean? It means it’s time to drive ... give or take a little late-spring snow shoveling, that is. Unfortunately, we all have a big proponent working against us: sky-high gas prices. With budget strings already tightened to the hilt as it is, are we looking at a decrease in event participation this summer? Even with the recent slight drop in prices, will there still be a decline in long-distance road trips? If I actually had a car on the road, I could probably better speculate—if I did, maybe I’d rethink my normal spending…

Metalworking isn’t always about big expensive tools, such as power hammers or even English wheels. Sometimes you can get a lot done with simple tools. This month we got to use one of Eastwood’s Panel Beater Bags and a metal-forming mallet. The 18-inch square suede top cowhide bag uses all-leather construction and is double-stitched with glued seams. Useful, as it has to contain sand or shot without spillage! The bag yields with the metal as it’s worked to minimize stretching, nicks, and gouges. Eastwood has a range of teardrop and round mallets, all with their blue, ultrahigh molecular weight heads. We used a 2 1/2-inch teardrop mallet. The bags and mallets are available separately, or you can purchase the combination we used as a pair, saving a few bucks while…

Illustration by Jimmy Smith Last month’s installment of our 60th Anniversary Speedway Motors Tribute T was fairly painless, as getting it to the rolling chassis stage was genuinely like building a 1:1 scale model kit, except we used nuts ’n’ bolts instead of glue. This month we veered away from the kit ethos, as though Speedway Motors offers pre-bent brake line kits for some of its other T kits, as of this writing, they don’t offer one for the Tribute T. They can, however, supply lengths of straight 3/16-inch brake tubing, flex hoses, and all the fittings and line clamps required, along with the tools needed, should this be your first time. It’s easy to get confused when bending brake lines, but plan it out and go slowly and it…

Indy-Inspired Deco Deuce Photography by Tim Sutton Illustrations by Jeff Norwell There’s this book, Allure of the Automobile, coauthored by hot rodder and all-around automotive aficionado Ken Gross, that since the day I opened its cover for the first time has intrigued me beyond belief. Whenever I glance at the selection of “fine art” classics, among which are included stunning examples of coachbuilt excellence, such as the ’34 Packard LeBaron Runabout Speedster and ’37 Delage D8-120S, I imagine various cue elements incorporated into hot rods and customs. On occasion, I’ve seen efforts made; sometimes the interpretation works, while others, it falls short. This past January, however, my visions literally came to life when I laid eyes on Jim Farley’s ’32 Ford on display at the Grand National Roadster Show. Though…

Photography by Hot Rod, Car Craft, Rod & Custom (The Petersen Archives), Laurie Petersen, and the Author Last month we set out to define the wheels that revolutionized the hot rod and custom car market. That’s a huge subject to broach; cars have worn all sorts of wheels over the past 100 or so years. So we began where the market began: with OEM and early accessory steel wheels. Even that niche is so broad that we had to narrow our scope to include only the really noteworthy ones. This month we’re fixing our scopes on the aftermarket magnesium and aluminum wheel market. Though broad, the steel wheel segment is merely a few degrees wide compared to the alloy wheel market. With almost no exceptions, the alloy wheel market exists…

kevin.elliott@sorc.com Ben Callahan II KNOB NOSTER, MISSOURI 1949 MERCURY CONVERTIBLE This is Ben Callahan II with his ’49 Merc convertible in August 1955. At the time his father was working in Greenland for nine months of the year, and in March 1955, on his way home to Whittier, California, he stopped in Detroit, scouring used car lots until he found this black convertible, paying $400 for it. With a set of U.S. Royal wide whites installed, he headed for Missouri where he bought a farm, then headed home to California. Back in Whittier, with U-Haul trailers on the Merc and the family ’51 Ford convertible, they headed for Missouri. Ben drove the Merc all the way, a big deal for a 16-yearold, taking old Route 66. Once settled in their…

By Rob Fortier rob.fortier@sorc.com PETTY-LESS Petty question, but where did you get the motor mounts for the Flathead/Tudor project? Try’n to find ones like that with the chrome ring on the rubber. I’ve looked around, with no luck. It’s the little stuff that set things off. Thanks, Gary Criss Via the Internet No such thing as a petty question, Gary. While Speedway Motors offers the “biscuit”-type motor mounts, the ones we used on the Tudor—the ones with the chrome trim—came from Reid’s Rod Parts in Orange, CA. You can probably source them through SO-CAL Speed Shop as well. WHEELIE SPEAKING Your recent features and photos of ’50s rods and customs reminded me of the old mantra: “The major way to alter a vehicle’s appearance is to change the wheels.” In…

Photography by Tim Sutton What is a “real” hot rod? Don’t get off on a tangent regarding steel versus glass, ’cause that’s not what this is about. It’s about a certain look … a particular vibe. It’s about style. You can look it up in the dictionary if you don’t know, and you most certainly can buy it, but if you don’t “get it”, you never will. Like a certain family group once said, “It’s our thing.” Cliff Hansen gets it. He may not be a generational hot rodder, per se, which is quite often inconsequential, but he is a true car guy. An ex race car pilot (fast ones … of the Indycar nature), he knows the innermost workings of some of the world’s most technologically advanced vehicles—at his…

Static car shows can be fun, but getting out and driving hot rods and customs is even more so. Reliability runs have been around for decades, with the Pasadena Roadster Club’s run dating back to the late ’40s for example, though these days you’ll usually find them to be invite-only events. This limits the number of attendees, as well as dictating the style of the cars that participate. Oftentimes, organizers will want to keep the style to a particular era. Around a decade ago, Jim and Carrie Benitez hosted their Ranch Run in North San Diego County, an event fondly remembered by many who took part. So much so that three local hot rodders, Russ Hare, Justin Baas, and Rob Bennett decided the time was right to organize a similar…

When it comes to metalwork, some jobs bring out excitement and ambition . . . while others lack even the slightest glimpse of luster. Items such as frenching, chopping, and shaving all have the benefit of adding that “edge” to one’s ride that makes a hot rodder eager to hit the garage. Unfortunately, the flip side of that is the backbone of the metalwork industry; items such as patchwork, rust repair, dents, and dings. It’s the type of metalwork that is the equivalent of opening your wallet only to find a stack of receipts and no cash! But, it’s all part of the necessary evils to building one’s ride. One of the major areas of this fundamental groundwork is repairing floors. Between road rash, rust, cuts, and much more, hot…

What’s to say about Josh Scott’s pickup that can’t be summed up briefly? It’s a satin blue, Flathead-powered ’41 Ford pickup dropped over chrome wheels and whitewall tires. He didn’t fight to get it, nor did he struggle to bring it back from the dead. There’s hardly an exotic part on the truck. Yet chances are you can’t help but check it out. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Largely what makes it so right isn’t what Josh did as much as what he didn’t do. You might even say he just sort of let the truck happen. “It’s a good story actually because I got screwed at first,” Josh jokes, describing the ad for a ’41 Ford pickup in Kettle Falls, a town about an hour and a half north…

kevin.elliott@sorc.com NEW GUARDS FOR OLD SCHOOL Gravel guards get rusted, banged up, scraped, and sometimes go missing. The Filling Station has tracked down these quality replacements for ’53-54 two-door Chevrolets. Add some stainless steel trim and protect your paint from stone chips while you’re at it! These often-replaced fender shields fit nicely on all two-door ’53-54 Chevrolet models, including convertibles, hardtops, sedan deliveries, and sedans. For more information, contact The Filling Station at (800) 841-6622 or www.fillingstation.com. TOUGH BUFF STUFF Mothers introduces Professional Rubbing Compound and Professional Finishing Polish, two industry-proven formulas used in body and detail shops worldwide, but now available to consumers. Over time, all finishes are subjected to small scratches, water spots, and abrasions. Professional Rubbing Compound quickly cuts through water spots and effortlessly removes heavy oxidation,…

Cliff Hansen HUNTINGTON BEACH, CALIFORNIA 1932 FORD FIVE-WINDOW COUPE CHASSIS Cliff Hansen’s hot rod coupe, aka the “Cliffster Coupe”, is founded on a Roy Brizio Street Rods (South San Francisco, CA) Deuce frame set up by Jack Stratton. Moving back from the ’32 spreader bar, a SO-CAL Speed Shop 4-inch dropped beam axle is located via chromed hairpins, mounting Wilwood disc brakes via Chassis Engineering forged Ford spindles. To keep the transverse-sprung, hydraulic-dampened frontend in check, Stratton also installed a Deuce Frame Co. sway bar in conjunction with a Borgeson-Vega cross-steer setup. Further back, a Winters V-8 quick-change, also placed with hairpins, features a driver-friendly 3.90:1 street gear and 31-spline axles. QA1 coilovers and 11-inch Wilwood discs complete the rear. DRIVETRAIN Underhood, a ’12 Edelbrock GM 350 smallblock was used…

Illustration by Eric Black A few months back—June ’13 issue, to be exact—we half-tackled the steering on our ’33 Tudor project. I say half only because that’s just what we did, the lower “half” of the Vega-based cross steer setup. The remaining portion, that being everything above the Borgeson Universal Company box (as with most things on the build), was still in the air at that point regarding what Jimmy White and I would need to complete the steering. You may have noticed that for mock-up purposes, we’d incorporated an original ’37 Ford steering column, complete with banjo wheel. A then-reluctant White eventually gave in, literally, offering up the parts for the cause. That was/is great for me, as it made for one less item (or if you dissect everything,…

Photography by Tim Sutton When I first laid eyes upon Justin Hills’ ’49 Buick that we subsequently featured in our July ’11 issue following its GNRS debut, I knew I was looking at a car built by someone with a true eye for classic custom styling. I also knew to expect more from Justin’s Australian-based shop, Hills & Co. Customs. Well, my expectations were met this past January, at the very same place I became acquainted with man and machine to begin with, the Grand National Roadster Show. Amongst an array of vividly colored custom creations sat Justin’s latest effort, his spaceage-inspired ’60 Dodge Phoenix, “Atom”. Like its predecessor Buick Sedanette, subdued paint (in this case, solid silver metallic) made as much of a visual statement as did the vibrant…

Photos courtesy of the Petersen Archive DEAN “THE KID” JEFFRIES • FEBRUARY 25, 1933-MAY 5, 2013 As we were wrapping up this issue we got the sad news that Dean Jeffries had died. He lived 80 solid years doing more than most do in a lifetime. From a humble small town called Lynwood, a “kid” saw Von Dutch as an idol and followed right behind him. Minds were quickly blown away in a place in California now known as Kustomland. Soon this kid was working with all the big names, including Barris, and fame followed. He partied hard with Dutch, but straightened himself out early on, taking his talents to the stratosphere. From sketches to finished product, this man could do it all. Pinstriping, airbrushed monster shirts, motorcycles, scratchbuilt cars,…