"This all started out as a quick clutch and throwout bearing change in my first car, a '32 Ford five-window coupe," says H. A. (Jack) Frost. "Two and a half years and $1,200 later, it was running again as a ratty-looking A-V8 street roadster.
"I was 16 when I started on it with only handtools and a quarter-inch drill, a Motors manual, monthly Hot Rod magazines, and a part-time job in a hardware store. I rebuilt the 01A block with Edelbrock heads and dual 97s, an Engle 3/4 cam, '40 column shift transmission, Auburn clutch, and 3-inch Belond headers with lakes plugs and Huth glasspacks. Other details included SW gauges, '40 Ford spindles and brakes, '49 Pontiac taillights, and a finned aluminum oil filter. The frame was Z'd the width of the side 'rails, but I couldn't afford a dropped axle.
"To save money on all those new parts, I started an 'on-paper' speed shop business in 1949; I believe it was the first one in Iowa. I moved with the hot rod to Salinas, California, in 1951 only to run head-on into the California fender law. These pictures were taken just before I took it all apart to rebuild a '32 Ford five-window coupe. Through fellow members in the Hi-Timers hot rod club (NCTA) in Salinas, I found a good used frame for $10, a good complete body for $20, and a complete 'cherry' set of fenders, bumpers, running boards, etc., for another $10, and began working on the car at night. The car was about two-thirds done when I joined the Air Force. My dad sold the whole works to an AWOL sailor friend of mine for $235!"
Mail your vintage photos of you and your hot rod, along with a brief story, to Tim Bernsau, Rod & Custom, 774 S. Placentia Ave., Placentia, CA 92870, or e-mail them (3x5 inches at 300 dpi) to timothy.bernsau@primedia.com. We are unable to return any submitted material.
We start looking forward to the next "Mad Fabricators Society" DVD as soon as we finish watching the previous one 50 times. Piero De Luca dropped off Volume Three, the latest of these raucous hot rod/custom car video magazines that the crew at Tri-Power Productions (in other words, Piero de Luca, who directs, produces, and edits most of the segments, with help from co-director Bob Bleed and many other behind-the-scenes people) has been putting out at the rate of approximately one per year.