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  Photograph courtesy Barrett-Jackson

Feature: Hot Rods Are Going, Going, Gone

Ken Gross

October 1, 2004

Jim King and Dave Simard decided to take a few liberties with the restoration, but the completed car had to represent modifications that could have been done in the era in which the car was built. Simard fitted Lincoln Bendix drum brakes, an improvement over the stock Ford items.

Top photo: An uncompleted hot rod and Bottom photo: a finished car, both from So-Cal Speed Shop. So-Cal says its customers have received offers for their cars substantially in excess of original purchase prices. Photograph by Ron Read (Top photo); Courtesy So-Cal Speed Shop. (Click images to enlarge)

The engine is now a period-perfect 1950 Cadillac 331 cid V-8, with an Edmunds twin carburetor manifold. The car is painted Titian Red, a ’53 Buick hue that was a favorite with customizers, and the firewall is painted white, just the way customizers did it in the period. Stephen Pierce, of New Hampshire’s One-Off Technologies, expertly fashioned an authentic Carson top and redid the interior in maroon and white leather.

Among the amazing designs from Huntington Beach’s Chip Foose is an artfully modified ’34 Ford coupe constructed for Ron Whiteside, intended to represent what Mercury might have done in 1934. (The Mercury nameplate did not start until 1939.) A close inspection of this three-window coupe reveals that the top is wedge-chopped for a racy profile, the knife-chiseled grille is completely redone and canted rearward, the hood has been reshaped, the door hinges are hidden, and the fenders are subtly reshaped. In short, every panel was modified and massaged for a cleaner, more streamlined appearance before the car was painted a custom iridescent copper shade.

Ross Myers, a Pennsylvania collector whose company specializes in what he calls “heavy civil construction, like bridges and buildings,” has a ’36 Ford three-window coupe he has owned since he was 9 years old. “I bought a ’36 Ford roadster when I was 10,” Myers says, “fixed it up with a hot flathead, and drove it all through high school. The coupe was stored, and I never did anything with it until now. But it was the first car I ever owned.” Myers’ collection includes a one-off Farina-bodied ’32 Ford cabriolet, built for the 1932 World’s Fair, that won the custom Ford coachwork class at Pebble Beach. He also owns the ex—Tony LaMasa channeled ’32 “lowboy” hot rod roadster that was driven by Ricky Nelson in episodes of the Ozzie & Harriet TV show.

At Roy Brizio Street Rods in South San Francisco, Calif., they have been turning out nostalgia-style feature rods for years. And the demand shows no sign of slackening. At the 40th annual Los Angeles Roadster Club Father’s Day show last June, 26 Brizio-built highboy roadsters were part of a special display. Brizio’s shop is currently restoring a famous George Barris—built full custom pickup, called the Ala Kart, for Bay Area venture capitalist John Mumford. Brizio is also preparing a famous chopped ’36 Ford coupe, originally built by Jack Calori, a Long Beach motorcycle policeman, for the forthcoming 2005 Pebble Beach early custom class. Brizio insists he has never been busier. “We’re building a lot of interesting cars,” he says, all of them nostalgia-based. There is a ’32 three-window coupe with a Chrysler engine, a roadster with a nailhead Buick and another one with a J-2 Olds powerplant. “My customers today want different engines and drivelines,” says Brizio. “We’re doing a Pagan Gold ’36 three-window with steel wheels, really a full nostalgia look, but it’s running a new Cobra 5.0 V-8 with a 5-speed Tremec.”

So-Cal Speed Shop built an award-winning, sports car—themed ’32 Ford two years ago for Kirk White. It ran a hot Ford small block, reportedly the last engine built by the late Doane Spencer, a legendary hot rod engine man and fabricator. So-Cal tries to build value into its cars by having a numbered chassis, assigning the project to one noted builder, and using a named engine constructor–in this case, Doane Spencer–to add further worth. Says So-Cal spokesman Tony Thacker, “We want our customers to walk out of here with a car that’s worth more than they paid. Fred Fleet paid about $125,000 for his So-Cal built ’32 roadster and turned down about $175,000 six months later. Likewise, Kirk White has benefited with the Doane Spencer—engined roadster he commissioned. This is an awesome selling tool that is not easily duplicated by other shops.” While “your results might vary,” as the popular expression goes, the combination of high demand for quality cars and a car built by a top shop, with an unusual powerplant, is often a formula for success. How long this will last is anybody’s guess.

The Rolling Bones Hot Rod Shop, run by Keith Cornell and Ken Schmidt, builds brand new cars, using vintage parts and distressing surfaces to replicate hard usage. Photography courtesy Rolling Bones Hot Rod Shop. (Click images to enlarge)

Taking hot rodding to another extreme entirely is the team of Ken Schmidt and Keith Cornell of Rolling Bones Hot Rod Shop, based in the Albany, N.Y., area. These guys turned up on the hot rod scene three years ago with a pair of wildly chopped, fenderless ’32 Ford coupes. Schmidt’s car ran a hot flathead; Cornell’s powerplant was a mid-’50s Ford Y-block. In a disguised concession to modernity and cruising, they used modern Tremec transmissions with vintage-style shifters. The two raucous three-windows were unpainted, sans mufflers, and had abbreviated bulldog front ends, straight axles, louvered hoods, bare metal interiors, minimal glass, and Mexican blankets for seat covers. An observer can be excused for assuming that the hammered coupes were built in Southern California in the early ’50s.

In fact, both cars are brand new, but built with authentic old parts. The primered surfaces were artfully distressed to mimic faded paint and years of hard street and track life. Schmidt and Cornell drove their cars cross-country to California and stopped at Bonneville, several times, adding to the coupes’ overnight legendry. This year, the New Yorkers appeared at the June L.A. Roadster Meet with a ’32 Ford roadster in much the same vein as their coupes. With faded and distressed black paint, a worn canvas top stained with tea to look as though it were half a century old, a ratty flathead, and faded leather interior–not to mention a genuine Southern California Timing Association Dry Lakes Timing Tag on the dash–the roadster really had tongues wagging.

So-Cal Speed Shop, 909.469.6171, www.so-calspeedshop.com
Dave Simard, 978.537.9474
Barrett-Jackson, 480.421.6694, www.barrettjackson.com
Foose Design, 714.842.0880, www.chipfoose.com
Roy Brizio Street Rods, 650.952.7637, roybriziostreetrods.com
Rolling Bones Hot Rod Shop, 518.885.6758

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