Tabla de contenidos para May-14 en Rod & Custom

rob.fortier@sorc.com There’s a phrase, one not just limited to the hot rod and custom world, that’s never sat well with me: Built not bought. I get it, trust me, I get it. I also think it’s quite irrelevant. If you look at any motorized hobby as a whole, its majority of hobbyists are not the sole creators of their devices. It’s the minority who does the building, leaving many to the subsequent buying. So, without said buyers, what’s the point of building in the first place unless said builders are only doing so for themselves? If it were purely a hobby of self-enjoyment without any compensative aspect whatsoever, then that credo would surely hold solid ground. But it’s not. I myself enjoy constructing cars, motorcycles, what have you. I find…

Troy Ladd’s company, Hollywood Hot Rods, has attained a high profile over the past few years. Think of Ladd’s own “Respect Tradition” ’32 roadster, STREET RODDER magazine’s Road Tour ’40 Ford, or the Mustang HHR built for Ford that debuted at last November’s SEMA show. Marching To A Different Drummer Going back a few years, it was in this very magazine that HHR gained its first ink; a roof chop tech article on a ’50 Chevy. That ’50 was owned by Zulu, who now owns this ’27 T coupe, also built by HHR. Being friends with Ladd, it was a no-brainer to get Ladd’s fledgling shop to chop the ’50. And while Zulu had a lot of fun with that car, driving it every day, the urge to own a…

We love creature comforts. Though we openly lament the complexity of our daily drivers we think nothing of heaping electrical devices on our fun cars. We’ll go way out of our way to get power windows, power door locks, highwatt audio gear, climate control, high-powered lights, and electronic engine management. Unfortunately, the effort we invest in electrical devices doesn’t seem to extend to their installation. Generally speaking we mount electrical components well but we tend to drop the ball when it comes to integrating them with the rest of the electrical system. Most of us simply hard wire a device to the rest of the system and dread servicing the part or any other one near it. Because to remove a hard-wired electrical component means cutting its wires and that…

Our story starts back in early 2012, in Detroit. Terry Smith Sr. and his sons Chris and Terry Jr. had made the familiar trip to the Detroit Autorama. Except this time they’d be taking home more than T-shirts and souvenirs. We’ll let Terry tell the tale: “As usual I made a beeline for the basement, where the traditional rides are located. I find my Speedshifter Wheel Club friends and socialize awhile with a beverage, then start “the walk”, both sons still with me. It didn’t take long before I spotted this awesome silver ’30 Model A. I’m looking it over pretty good and see a very small For Sale in the windshield corner. Even though the car wasn’t finished (no gauges, no shifter, and other things) I had to find…

Hershel “Junior” Conway’s second version of his famed ’50 Ford business coupe appeared in our Sept. ’60 issue. It was a standout in an 18-page story titled “Shoebox Showcase”. While in high school Junior took over a project that he had started with his brother. His first time working at Barris’ shop was basically sweeping floors after school. He left for a short time, but eventually Barris asked him to come back with an offer of a larger salary. It wasn’t long before he proved himself as a competent painter and soon was spraying high-profile cars like the “Hirohata Merc”. His mild custom was masterfully crafted, simple, and elegant, but a with a more thorough inspection tons of modifications are evident. This “calling card” was the foundation for him to…

kevin.elliott@sorc.com SOLID START While there is vast satisfaction in being able to say you built your car or truck yourself, there are some areas where it’s both cost-and time-effective to let someone else do the hard work. A case in point being the frame: You could spend weeks cleaning, modifying, and welding on a frame, or buy one ready-built. JW Rod Garage now offers frames for ’48-52 and ’53-56 Ford trucks. The frames are made of fully TIG-welded 10-gauge steel. Mustang II front crossmember, tubular centersection, rear coilover crossmember, and body mounts all come standard. For more information, contact JW Rod Garage at (888) 414-8787 or www.jwrodgarage.com. GOIN’ ALL HOLLYWOOD Classic Instruments has released the latest in an exclusive line of instrumentation designed specifically for Hollywood Hot Rods. The series…

I can’t be the only one who’s had trouble hooking up a speedometer to a modern transmission—especially when a cable can’t be used and an ECU converter or pulse signal adaptor or generator is required. While Classic Instruments’ installation manual shows you how to wire their electronic instruments to both a generator and adaptor (allowing the signal generator to be used with a Ford or Tremec transmission with a cable speedometer drive), there’s now a much simpler way. Not only is this method simpler to install, but it makes calibration so much easier than before, too. Classic Instruments calls their answer to this problem SkyDrive, an electronic speedometer sending unit that uses GPS satellite signals. It updates 10 times per second and with the push of a button it’s ready…

Chevy-powered hot rods are more than commonplace, they’re a fixture among our hobby, like it or not. Same goes for Chevypowered ’34 coupes. However, that familiarity often applies to V-8–equipped rods of a Blue Oval nature. So when we were first pitched on not only a Chevy-powered ’34 Chevrolet, but a straight-six’d one, no less, well, we were all ears … and subsequently, all eyes, once seeing Joe Hickenbottom’s coupe. Typically, the venerable Stovebolt six is lowrider and vintage drag racing fare (also one your editor is a huge fan of), especially with its unmistakable audible note. When one goes to the length (quite literally in many cases) to incorporate a 216/235 into a prewar hot rod, it illustrates the same passion as that put into a Flathead-powered Ford ……

Who’d have thought, when Steve Gibbs, then executive director of the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum, stated, “We’re only going to do this once”, that 22 years later the Hot Rod Reunion would still be going strong? In fact, stronger than ever, as Famoso Raceway near Bakersfield reverberated to the sound of nostalgia Top Fuelers, Funnies, Altereds, and more. Speaking of Funny Cars, who’d have imagined just a few years ago that 0.9 seconds would separate the 16-car field of Funnies, with the top qualifier on 5.73/241? Or that you’d be able to watch “Winged Express” duke it out with “Pure Hell”? Or that nostalgia racing would be so popular? But it’s not all racing, as the swap meet and car show draws the crowds in too, and the latter…

kevin.elliott@sorc.com Lou Reade ROSEMEAD, CALIFORNIA 1954 CHEVY SEDAN One of Lou Reade’s first cars was this ’54 Chevy (below), mostly stock other than the spinner hubcaps and long lakes pipes. Lou paid (in installments) $250 for the car. He hardly knew anything about mechanics or maintenance, saying if it weren’t for local junkyards with used parts, he would never have learned anything. In his words, “In those days junkyards and cheap spray paint cans were the heartbeat of building low budget cars.” Going through a lot of lowbudget cars through the years, last year Lou traded a panel truck for a stock ’50 Chevy hardtop DeLuxe with a 235ci six-cylinder. After going through the motor and replacing the rubber hoses with stainless steel lines, he added a set of twice…

rob.fortier@sorc.com THE MONSTER LIVES … SORT OF The subject car still exists. I visited it last fall in Central Indiana. It is a beast … don’t know that it will run again, as its engines need a lot of parts. Its current owner has another Allisonpowered truck also. Jim Dubois Magnolia, TX SMALL THINGS Hey there. You finally forced me to write in with a gripe. Your Feb. ’14 issue has the same irksome error printed on multiple pages of a car magazine from which I, quite frankly, expect higher standards. I checked the mailbox and immediately fell in love with “The Emperor’s Polished Emerald” (even though it’s not emerald green). Then I get more excited—there’s a Falcon and it’s on the cover of my preferred car magazine. I remember…

“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” You’ve probably heard that quote any number of ways attributed to any number of people. And while all of those attributions may be false, the statement endures for one reason: It’s so true. It’s exceedingly difficult to distill an expression to its essence and still retain its statement. Proof that it’s easy to overdo things is particularly obvious in the cars built to represent a bygone era: they usually bear two or three cars’ worth of goodies. Well to know history is to understand that the pioneers modified older cars not for preference but out of necessity; for the most part they modified older cars to look more like the new models they couldn’t…

Nearly 1,000 show cars and motorcycles; 15,000 spectators; in upwards of 300 vendor booths; and 40 active pinstripers. These stats are impressive for any one-day indoor “domestic” show, here or abroad. But, apply them to an event in a foreign land showcasing mostly “foreign” vehicles (there’s the catch) and that is something else altogether. That’s precisely what the statisticians recorded following the 22nd Annual Mooneyes Hot Rod & Custom Show (HRCS) held this past December 1 in Yokohama, Japan. Of the vehicular entrants, it’s safe to say that a good percentage, if not the majority, was foreign to the Japanese participants and spectators who flocked to the Pacifico on a sunny winter Sunday. It’s stuff we’re accustomed to seeing here Stateside—from lowriders to customs, hot rods to Harleys, and all…

Despite a bit of slow progress on the Tudor (solely on my part), things are still progressing. Our recent accomplishment with the ’33 at Circle City Hot Rods entailed plotting, configuring, and routing the brake lines—and out of that we managed to pull some tips and tricks regarding various methods, as well as problem solvers, for the above mentioned. Personally, I find chassis plumbing one of the more enjoyable facets of building hot rods; I also find it quite nerve wracking. First off, there’s no fabrication involved, other than the exception of welding flex line tabs, so it’s rather clean and straightforward. However, when it comes to complex routing of the brake lines, be it along the contour of a shapely rearend housing or snaked through the tight confines of…