When you grow up in a hot rod family like Butch Harness did, hot rodding is in your blood. Around the Wichita area, the name Harness is well known when it comes to rods and customs. Butch's dad, Arthol, has built a '32 roadster, '34 Fordor, and a chopped and channeled '32 pickup. Butch's uncle, Hub, has a '32 three-window plus numerous customs. Even an uncle on his mom's side by the name of Larry Farber owned a famous '32 sedan called The Lil Coffin in the early '60s.
About seven years ago, Butch built a nice 'glass '32 highboy roadster. As with most young men, Butch got married and started a family. These days, with three sons and a wife, going to rod runs in a roadster has its drawbacks. Butch needed a sedan with room for the family. Luckily, friend Mike Martin had this '32 sedan with a lot of history sitting in his garage. A deal was made, the roadster was sold, and the sedan was in Butch's garage.
Any car that has survived more than 70 years has to have some history, but this '32 sedan has more than your usual forgotten past. In the late '60s, Dave Stuckey, the builder of The Lil Coffin, was asked to build a car for C. Ray Hall, who owned the 81 Speedway in Wichita. When Dave built the sedan, he bobbed the rear fenders, filled the cowl, removed the windshield wipers, and filled the holes. All this work was done in lead. Then Dave painted it candy orange with white pearl-laced fenders, which was radical for its time. The sedan had a small-block Chevy and real magnesium Americans and went on the show circuits, becoming well known in this area.
When Butch bought the car, it was in primer and on its way to being restored to stock condition with a Flathead replacing the small-block. Butch completely disassembled the car down to every nut and bolt and found every part to be in perfect condition with no Bondo. All the bodywork was in lead and still intact. It still had the stock insert in the top and rubber on the running boards.
Butch wanted to keep the car nostalgic with a wild hot rod motor, and ended up doing all the work on the Tudor in his home garage with the exception of the upholstery updates and the pinstriping of the firewall and dash. Following in the Harness tradition and being only 30 years old, we think he nailed it.