We all like a rare early car, and some of the rarest are the ’32 Ford B400 and sedan delivery. Compared to the panel delivery, of which just over 6,000 were produced, only 406 sedan deliveries rolled out of Henry’s factories, based on a regular Tudor sedan body but with a rear door and paneled-in rear side windows, at an extra cost of $90 over a stock sedan. A very limited number of “flower cars” were also built, retaining the rear side glass.

It never ceases to amaze me how many times coincidences play a part in either this lifestyle of ours or, more specifically, my profession. A chance conversation can trigger a chain of events when it comes to resurrecting old cars, or buying parts to build new ones, while publishing a long-lost photograph can fill in huge blanks in a car’s history. We can go for months writing features on new builds or restored hot rods, yet rarely do we get to feature cars that have some form of family history.

What comes to mind when you hear the word “Gasser”? For many, visions of a nose-high Tri-Five come to mind, and naturally so. While ’55-57 Chevys only comprise a fraction of actual Gasser material, next to a ’30s-40s Willys, they just seem to best fit the mold for a good number of street-driven versions we’re mostly all familiar with. But, all Gassers are not created equal—not by a long shot. Some, as you’re about to see, are just as suited on today’s highways and byways as they are on a quarter-mile strip.

Much like a majority of us, Troy Howard’s a second-generation “car guy”. No ethanol or synthetic—pure-leaded fuel and petroleum-based oil run through the Bakersfield, California, hot rodder’s veins. “My dad got me interested 40 years ago, taking me to the drag races and talking about the cars he’d had throughout life. He always had me handing him tools or turning a wrench with him,” Troy recalls.

It’s not too often that you will find yourself reading a feature story written in the first person. So, take this rare opportunity to hear an owner’s story firsthand, grab yourself a cold one, and sit back and enjoy the tale of Mike Alexander’s very first finished ride!

Hand-me-downs usually come in the form of high-water jeans with worn-out knees or sweaters with mustard stains, right? Not always. At least not in this case, as Mike Carlson couldn’t quite wear what his father eventually passed down to him. But it almost didn’t come to be, as Mike is about to tell—a case of teenage temptation that initially netted a lengthy grounding, but fortunately, led to a happy ending.

Many projects these days start out, or even stay as, barn finds. While Dave and Patti Hochevar’s ’42 Dodge had been a farmer’s truck all its life, and had been stored indoors for the majority of that time, it wasn’t really a barn “find”, as Dave had known about it literally all his life (his grandfather bought it new in 1942!).

“I first met Jason Graham at the Goodguys show in Bowling Green, Kentucky, last fall. He had a ’29 Model A sedan there that I absolutely fell in love with. We talked about building a car together—he basically told me to find a body and he would handle the rest.

“I found this as a started project on eBay a couple of years ago. I showed Jason some pics of the car and he said it could be made into something cool. Jason had already built an American Austin with an injected Hemi for me, so I knew he could easily handle this project. I bought the car and then took it to Jason. Well, as often is the case, it looked better in pictures. Even though the whole rat rod thing has almost ruined hot rods for me, I wanted a nice, finished car built out of what started life as a four-door limo. The car must have been pretty rough, because why else would someone cut up a Pierce Arrow limousine?

“A couple of years ago, I bought a ’30 Ford pickup from a guy on the H.A.M.B. It had an early Caddy motor and, for the most part, was pretty cool—but not quite how I wanted it. Initially I’d taken it to Arizona Street Rods in Phoenix to have some work done, but unfortunately, it burned in a shop fire before the work was finished. From there, I decided to take the remains of the pickup project clear across the country to Jason Graham Hot Rods. As I would learn, Jason’s shop had also suffered through a fire, but by this point he was back on his feet and quickly getting business back to normal.

There are some differences of opinion that will never change as long as we’re still able to modify cars; ’glass or steel, bias-plies or radials, and driven or trailered, all spring to mind. The “built not bought” debate is another, with some owners of cars they bought preferring to say they built them. Not so with Jack Elderkin, who, whilst capable of building his own—and indeed he has done—is the first to admit he bought this ’55 Chevy exactly as you see it here.

Everyone has their ups and downs. It’s all part of our life process, and, oftentimes, it’s completely out of our control. Life’s lows are rarely predictable, let alone avoidable. What we do have control of, however, is determining how we rebound after being hit by a curveball, whether it’s losing a job or losing your business. Jason Graham has firsthand experience with both extremes, and as you can see from the features we’re about to present, he rebounded from the two blows with his chin bruised, but held high.

“. . . This roadster was built to emulate what type of high-end elegant vehicle would have rolled off the assembly line in Detroit if Edsel Ford had control of the company in 1932.”

You’ve got to have dedication and perseverance in this hobby to see a project build through to the end; and anyone who actually gets a full-blown project on the road rather than advertising it for sale as an unfinished project deserves some kind of recognition. With regular life, career, and budgets, it’s a small wonder that though the average build time is somewhere around three years, five- or even ten-year projects are not unusual.

There definitely seems to be a theme to cars built by members of the Persueders Car Club out of Hollister, California. Big ’50s and ’60s cruisers in suede paint sitting low seem to be the club’s mainstay. You might remember Ki Hansen’s Mercury featured on these pages back in April 2009. Hansen is a buddy of Danny Dornan, who owns this ’61 Chrysler Newport, and knowing Danny was looking for a project, he called him when he spotted an ad for this car in the local paper.

Custom Touring. It’s a phrase very few, if anyone at all, has even heard of till now. That’s because up until Zane Cullen at Cotati Speed Shop commissioned Brian Stupski to do renderings of a ’50 Merc for customer Knick Jimenez, the phrase didn’t even exist. It was Stupski who actually coined the term, which sums up the mixture of traditional custom touches with pro touring hard parts that the Merc will entail.

Nearly 60 years ago, our soon-to-be-sister publication Hop Up magazine declared NorCal’ian Al Dal Porto’s handsome racer the “World’s Most Beautiful ‘Lakes’ Roadster” on its July ’52 cover. Inside, the cover roadster was given appropriate accolades to back up that mighty statement—among them, credit given to metal artisan Jack Hagemann for the roadster’s beautiful, hand-crafted front section and intricate frame and to John Errecalde for the stroked, 296ci Flathead, not to mention an accompanying cutaway drawing by Jim Richards. In all, the feature was very complementary and fairly in-depth for the space allotted. For a car of this caliber, further print coverage would undoubtedly follow … or would it?

Nick Kallos’ ’29 on Deuce ’rails first came to our attention when we walked out onto the floor at the Grand National Roadster Show earlier this year to check out the contenders for the America’s Most Beautiful Roadster (AMBR) title. For the first time in years that list contained at least three owner-built cars, at least that we know of. We’ve already brought you the “Takeout T” from that bunch. Note we didn’t say homebuilt cars, as Nick was given the opportunity to put his A together on the floor of SO-CAL Speed Shop Las Vegas, in full view of customers.

October 2011

The annals of the custom car have been pretty kind to ’46-48 Fords. Pressed to build new cars for a reinvigorated post-war market yet deprived of the time and resources to develop one from scratch, Henry’s crew slapped a bold new beak on the make’s aging pre-war models. That the redesign survived three years suggests it was a worthy industrial design. That re-stylists in the nascent custom-car world championed it only proves that point.

For most, the day a custom project is finished once and for all is undoubtedly a day of pride and joy. For Austin, Texan Jennifer Laosa, it was probably filled more with bittersweet emotions than anything else. To understand just why that is, let us first start at the beginning of her ’66 T-bird.

When the topic of early customizers arises, one of the first names that comes to mind for most is Harry Westergard, who’s thought to have been the creator of the classic ’30s tail-dragger. Whether that’s true or not is speculative, but what isn’t questionable is the fact that he wasn’t the only custom builder in Sacramento at that time, nor was he necessarily the best. While Westergard was credited for doing the majority of the customizing in NorCal during the late ’30s and early ’40s, ultimately he wasn’t able to capitalize on his craft financially, so to speak As he was trading in his customizer’s cap for that of body man, one of his competitors, Dick Bertolucci, was doing just the opposite—he was not only continually honing his skills customizing cars, he was also developing quite a talent for making cars go fast on the salt and on the asphalt. And whether he was slinging lead or burning rubber, when it came to his own set of wheels, he was and still is a good old Bow Tie boy with a true passion for straight-sixes—especially the big inline GMCs.

Growing up in England, I know about rusty cars, but it’s fairly safe to say that Pennsylvania’s Ed Wilson has me beat. Despite appearances now, the 1934 Chevy coupe spread across these pages was certainly no peach when he found it. As Ed describes the purchase, “I bought the car off of eBay from Whitey Ballanger in Connecticut. It originally started life as a dirt track car but was never finished. The body was channeled but just sat on the frame. A friend and I drove to Hartford to pick it up, we left at 5:00 a.m. with a hurricane chasing us; and it rained the whole time until we got home at midnight. Coming home we were driving through rain so hard I couldn’t see the car on the trailer and when we finally arrived the rockers were gone and the body had fallen down over the frame and pulled apart. It was only held together by the roof. Almost all of the wood fell out of the car because it was rotten and all of the glass was missing. The wooden deck on the trailer had wood screws and busted glass lying all over it. I would hate to have been following me with everything falling off of the car!”

I’m a firm advocate of getting out and driving hot rods, so it pleases me to say that you’d be hard pressed to find someone who drives ’em more than Vernon Walker. See, not only was he behind the wheel of this 1939 Chevy sedan when I called to discuss this feature, but he was 30 miles shy of the odometer turning 100,000. But what’s even more impressive is that this Chevy is one of an almost identical pair that Vernon owns, and the other one has already surpassed the 100,000-mile mark! Both this green one and the blue one—both Mack truck colors—have covered that mileage towing trailers too! In fact the only time they aren’t towing trailers is during events, which is why they have RideTech supplemental airbags in addition to Posies Super Slide leaf springs in the rear. Sometimes those trailers are carrying 2,000 pounds, and sometimes they’re almost empty and the airbags allow suspension adjustability.

Back in the very early ’90s (yeah, ancient history, I know …) I had what was in essence my first real custom: VWs, more specifically Cal-look Bugs; ’60s Chevys with wire wheels and a lowered ’76 Datsun pickup with Porsche 356 hubcaps don’t count. And though I’d end up parting with it too quickly and for the wrong reasons, I would never have imagined that chopped ’49 Ford sedan turning out to be such a pivotal part of my life at the time. Despite being unfinished and powered by a Flathead that barely got me to WCK’s old Los Banos show (13-plus hours each way from SoCal), that little shoebox that could did. Among numerous things, most importantly it landed me this job, but also, it united me with a group of like-minded custom guys in Orange County—the Lonely Kings, a small but dedicated club with a unique variety of members ranging from musicians to tattoo artists. At that time, unlike today, you didn’t need a pocket reference guide to identify all the younger-based clubs through a sea of wool fingertip coats and freshly cast plaques. Even though they’ve been defunct for quite some time now, you’ll still see a car or two wearing a Lonely Kings plaque every once in a while—and if it wasn’t mine, chances are, it was one of Robert Lomas’, whose chopped ’34 coupe you may recall gracing the cover of R&C not so long ago. Stunning as it was, that car didn’t bring back all the good club memories like his latest does—and not just because it’s a shoebox, though it does help. Robert’s ’51 Vicky embodies the sole type of car that you’d have seen 20 years ago rolling into Johnnies Broiler with a Lonely Kings plaque perched in the package tray or dangling off the rear bumper. Well, as you can see, some things never change, and for Robert, that would be his true passion for mild customs.