As an automotive journalist (that's fancy talk for a car guy that can hold a pencil), I've had the opportunity to write hundreds of articles over the past few years. Some were fun, some were grueling, and some were purely an excuse to get closer to some wild ride or piece of aftermarket eye candy I couldn't get out of my head. Such was the case with the car you see pictured on these pages. Anybody even remotely familiar with ROD & CUSTOM probably knows that I've been building this Lakes Modified in a series of articles over the past year. What you may not know is that I first spied the Real Hot Rods concept illustration for a Model A lakester before I worked for the magazine, back when I was nothing more than a reader with a dream of owning an open-roof race car.
After I was hired on as the Technical Editor here at R&C, I pursued my story assignments and learned much about the inner workings of the street rod industry, but all the while I still had visions of that little black-and-white Lakes Modified illustration dancing in my head. After a while I worked up the courage to call Real Hot Rods, and I spoke to company founder Keith Ashley. He gave me all the details on the ready-to-assemble kit, then was kind enough to send along more illustrations and a parts list. A few months later I journeyed to my first Street Rod Nationals in Louisville, Kentucky, where the Real Hot Rods guys were displaying the very first of the Modified kits, bearing a big red "5" on the door. I was hooked. From that point onward I bugged the higher-ups at the magazine until they finally relented and agreed to let me build one as a project car. Having built several show-winning musclecars and cruisers in the past, I didn't think putting together a little roadster kit would be very challenging. Ah, the ignorance of youth...
Thinking that I had plenty of time to put the car together at my leisure, I agreed to drive the car on the '03 Americruise East. Unfortunately, due to some shipping delays I only had a scant six weeks to complete my project, road test it, and get it on its way to Texas (the kickoff point for Americruise East). Real Hot Rods ships their kit as a loosely assembled but unpainted roller, so I was able to start planning the car's "look" right away. Since Modifieds peaked in popularity in the '40s (by the '50s hot rods had transitioned to a more street-friendly vibe), I knew the car had to have a certain old-school style. However, I have a tendency to ride my ponies hard, so I knew it needed to be as reliable and road-trip-friendly as possible. Of course the smoke factor was also a criteria that needed to be dealt with. For those of you who aren't in the know, the smoke factor demands that a hot rod be able to ignite the tires into flaming piles of rubber at any given moment, in order to satisfy my screaming inner delinquent that never seems to shut up. With all that in mind (and my deadline rapidly approaching) I chose a fully decked-out and totally reliable GM Performance Parts 350 H.O. crate motor to provide power. The stamped chrome valve covers were swapped for more vintage-looking Moon pieces, and the standard aluminum four-barrel intake and Holley carb were changed out for Moon's new Stromberg-look-alike fuel injection. I originally planned on backing up this package with GM's latest and greatest overdrive transmission, the 4L65E, but after struggling to mate the Gen-3 transmission to the early-style block, I finally gave up and swapped in a 700-R4, which ended up working great.