We humans are a silly lot, really. Maybe a Louis Leaky or Margaret Mead can prove me wrong, but as far as I know, the human is the only animal that attempts to replicate something it cannot have.
While it's perfectly natural to clone, it's not without flaw. When we car people endeavor to clone historic cars, for example, we often overlook the most important element: charm. Charm is the hole worn in a running board cover by a boot heel over decades of use. Charm is the rust bubble forming around a cowl vent leaded shut ages ago. Charm is the bracket cobbled together by a kid who didn't know any better but was willing to try. Charm is simply the proof of a life long lived and as such we can never imbue any new expression-even a clone-with its forebears' charm.
My ol' man's maroon Deuce started as a clone, although it's near impossible to spot the lineage. He alit on a particularly worn red roadster with primer spots on the fenders and threadbare carpet outside an L.A. Roadsters' Father's Day meet. Years later we tried to capture part of that roadster's magic on measuring tape as its very flattered owner oversaw our xerographic ritual.
Through a roundabout series of events that not even we fully understand, my dad got the opportunity to care for that particular roadster. As we looked at it with new eyes, it suddenly made little sense to copy it; no recreation could capture its charm and any attempt to do so would marginalize the duplicate car's spirit. Instead, my pop appropriated a few of that car's elements and did his own thing.
He commissioned SO-CAL Speed Shop to build one of their Brookville-bodied roadsters to roller status, only on a standard frame with fenders. Former SO-CAL fabricator Bill Stewart constructed the in-car tube-and-turnbuckle structure and undertook the painstaking task of making the body panels fit-we sheepishly admit-better than stock. Considering that this car would get driven per instruction and that its Las Vegas hometown is a bloody hot place a few months out of the year, current SO-CAL fabricator Pelle Forsberg built an underdash structure for a climate control system and hinged vent plates to hide the ducts when not in use.
SO-CAL delivered the car as a roller to my father and he and family friend Scott Gafforini disassembled the car at Scott's shop (SG Speed Shop) and parceled its elements to various Las Vegas-based shops.
Admittedly, my pop feels more at home with a calculator than combination wrench, however, his input from this point really distinguishes his car-although it's impossible to notice by sight. He and Gafforini started with a Chassis Engineering front spring and scaled the car for Eaton Detroit Spring to build a rear spring. The duo fine tuned the springs by adding or subtracting leafs and Eaton recalculated the rates based on the final leaf count. Once they knew the rate, the duo shimmed the springs and forwarded the information to Steve Duck over at RCD Engineering. The RCD crew valved Bilstein monotube shocks specifically to suit the car's weight, spring rate, and shock dimensions.
My dad then ironed out as many remaining handling quirks as possible with tire pressure tuning. The process took numerous sessions, however, the resultant ride and handling qualities rival, if not beat, most radial-shod cars' ride and handling qualities. Furthermore, with 7 1/2 degrees of caster angle in the front axle, the car tracks straight as an arrow at speeds high enough to land him in jail should he get caught. He uses the car as a means to dispel the rumors that bias-ply tires and buggy springs can't offer good handling, ride, and high-speed driving qualities, and he's won numerous converts in the process.
My dad applied similar tuning obsession to the small-journal 327 Gafforini built from internal dimensions appropriated from one of editor Lee's former project engines, although with a 12lb aluminum flywheel. One friend and veteran race car builder on Indy's Gasoline Alley likened its lively response to that of an old Sprint Car's throttle response.
With the tuning tasks tidied up, George Fonseca fabricated interior panels and shod them and the seat in LeBaron Bonney Tobacco Brown leather. What doesn't wear leather dons square-weave wool carpet.