Resourceful RPU

As last week came to a close, I ran into a pretty serious dilemma that we all face from time to time—I found a car I just had to have. I played out scenarios in my head that could potentially make it happen. (These schemes involved address changes, money orders and crash-courses in fabrication and mid-range mechanics.) The car was a ’56 Chevy—clearly a late ’60s dragstrip survivor—complete with a well-built front subframe, solid body and a lot of the difficult stuff already somewhat put together. Did it have wheels? No. Front sheetmetal? Not quite. But have you seen the firewall? I’d say to anyone who’d listen. And that body? It’s practically rust free! Post car, pristine wheelwells and some great sun-baked orange paint. It didn’t matter; the car was a little too much for me to handle in my three-quarters-of-a-car San Francisco garage. I had to pass.

I had all but driven the straight-axle ’56 out of my mind until I came across the July 1966 issue of Popular Hot Rodding. Just after the magazine’s halfway mark, they ran a feature on Jonathan McKeig’s Model A RPU, causing some of those thoughts to storm right back into my head.

Thanks to his older brother, Jonathan became interested in hot rodding at a young age. He saved nearly every dollar he had and bought a ’29 Model A and a pair of Deuce rails. In an effort to juggle performance, reliability and budget, he dropped in a 327. “Since Jonathan’s financial funds were limited and it was necessary for him to use many of the stock parts, he wanted the security of knowing they were in good running condition,�? R.L. Wilde reported, “He proceeded to disassemble the engine and when satisfied that everything was in good order, reassembled it.�? In addition to the stock internals, Jonathan installed a Mickey Thompson cross ram, AFBs and headers he learned how to weld together in shop class. All of the Chevy’s 375 horses were transferred through a Borg-Warner 4-speed. Simple enough, right?

Jonathan set up the chassis for both street and strip action. Up front, he went with a dropped tube axle and homemade radius rods supported by a transverse spring. In the rear, he opted for a beefy Pontiac differential stuffed with 4:10 gears. Coil springs and traction bars sealed the deal.

The ’32 frame, A body and bobbed fenders were finished in 30 coats of Canary Yellow lacquer while the interior was stitched in black Naugahyde and treated to a walnut dashboard. A simple chrome roll bar was added to satisfy dragstrip safety requirements.

I’ve always been a fan of McKeig’s RPU. The quad headlights, Moon tank and Halibrands wheels scream mid-’60s, as do the cross-ram and matching bubble shield skid lid. According to the PHR piece, this truck was Jonathan’s daily transportation. He drove it to school, took it to work and raced it at the strip without any major problems. That sounds like a pretty good setup if you ask me.

—Joey Ukrop

Photos by R.L. Wilde, PHR, July 1966