One of the reasons Red Stauffer bought this Deuce Vicky almost 30 years ago is that he needed a ride home. He had driven a '29 sedan delivery to the Nats West in Merced, California, sold it at the show, and needed wheels to get himself, his wife at the time, and their two boys back to Florida. "I saw the Victoria with a small 'For Sale' sign on it," he remembered. "I thought it was beautiful and bought it."
At the time, the beautiful Vicky was wearing an ugly shade of green, '57 Eldorado wheels, and a cheap Tijuana upholstery job-but the body, with its chopped top, was perfect. Red added a bumper hitch to haul the luggage trailer and started for home with the family. The bone-stock flathead blew a piston within a few hundred miles, but Red was able to drop in a new one at an L.A. gas station and didn't have any more problems until a cylinder head cracked in the middle of the desert. A good Samaritan in a '56 Nomad helped out with a couple gallons of water and a bottle of Stop Leak, which got the car back on the road with no more problems until it ran out of gas a block from home.
Once he finally had the car in the garage, Red completely disassembled and rebuilt it. When gray Baskerville photographed the finished car for Hot Rod magazine in the late 1970s, it had been painted black and loaded with a Chevy drivetrain, Jag rear, velour interior, and Zenith wire wheels. Red drove the car more than 100,000 miles before selling it to a friend. A few years later, he bought it back, unchanged and undriven. He was busy racing Sprint Cars at the time, so the high-mileage '32 went without any attention for several more years.
In the spring of 2006, Red started his second inside-and-out rebuild of the Vicky. This time, the Chevy drivetrain was replaced with a dressed-up Dodge Red Ram Hemi connected to a five-speed. The wire wheels were exchanged for some vintage Halibrands, the interior was completely upgraded, and the black paint was re-sprayed. Less obvious are all the smaller details, such as the spindle-mount caliper brackets, rotor adapters, stainless exhaust, and other parts, all fabricated by the owner in his garage.
Red finished the Vicky this past August, the night before he and his girlfriend, Debbie, drove it to the Street Rod Nationals in Louisville. Two days later, we got together and shot these photos. The day after that, it was back on the road. It's nice to know that after 30 years, 100,000 miles, and who knows how many modifications, this hot rod Vicky is still Red's ride home.