I've always been partial to '34 Fords. Although I've owned several in the past, there was always something modified or done that I didn't like so I sold them. In 2002 I was on the hunt for another three-window, and by this time it seemed impossible to find one that was not really expensive or a pile of junk. Finally, long-time friend Rudy Rodriguez turned me onto a five-window that was an old hot rod and had a cool chopped top, so I bought it and gave up on a three-window.After acquiring the five-window, I started looking for parts and ended up at the Kennedy brothers' shop. As luck would have it, Jay Kennedy was selling his hot rod three-window body. Without hesitation, I bought it with a handshake (the money would have to come later). Now I had to sell my five-window, which I did and still regret.
The three-window consisted of a bare body with doors. It had already been chopped, although slightly crooked with butchered windshield posts, but the rest of the body was in decent shape. After getting it home, I needed a frame to get started. The Kennedy brothers came to the rescue again with a '34 Ford truck frame.
I began getting the frame in shape by bobbing the rear and boxing the front 'rails. The rear was mocked up with a Model A rear crossmember and spring with split wishbones supporting a quick-change rearend. A Mor-Drop Ford I-beam and split '32 'bones were added up front.
Since I wasn't running fenders and the front was open, it had to look good and the stock front frame horns didn't do it for me. After playing with a few ideas, I ended up grafting the rear frame horns to the front, which gave it the look I wanted. I also modified the radiator support brackets so the cut-down radiator (3 inch shorter) would have the same degree angle as the A-pillars. Guzman Radiators took care of the radiator, reusing the original Ford core and tanks (Guzman Sr. is an old craftsman of a lost art of radiators).
I do body and fender work for a living and have been inspired and groomed by two old-school bodymen--Nori Morita and Ken Young--so I was going to handle most of the bodywork myself. I started by mounting the body to the mocked-up frame, then aligned the doors and braced the body so I could begin to repair the already chopped top. I wanted the windshield posts leaned back, so I started by removing the piece of metal someone added to lengthen the roof when it was originally chopped. I replaced the butchered windshield pillars with a donor cowl, then removed another 3/4-inch out of the rear and 1 inch out of the front, resulting in a total chop of 3 3/4 inches in the rear and 4 inches in the front. Thanks to some assistance from my good friend Mike Garcia, who helped with some labor and served as another set of eyes, I'm very pleased with the final look of the chop.The rest of the body was pretty nice so I only had to replace the rocker panels and rear quarter patch panels and fill the cowl lights. Channeling the body over the frame was the next big task. It needed to have a bit of a rake so it ended up with 5 inches in front and 3 1/2 inches in the rear. When it came time for the firewall, I wanted it to look factory, so I used an original firewall and pretty much flattened it to accommodate the Caddy mill (which was really important to the car's appearance since I wasn't running a hood). The body was prepped with a Dupont 2k primer and finished with a single-stage PPG concept black.
I wanted my upholstery nostalgic so I went with 2-inch tuck 'n' roll. The dash, which is out of one of my old hot rods, was filled and metal-finished before I added the gauges and insert. The original '40 Ford truck steering wheel was donated by my good friend John Edwards.
Everything I stated here resulted from years of swap meets and parts collected from other projects. This is not an off-the-shelf car with a real Ford body; it was built with a lot of heart and soul. As far as patina, I'll earn mine.