The Broyles ’32

So Mr. Johnny Joyo pulls up in my driveway rolling a Ferrari F355. It was hard not to giggle like a little girl… I might have even chuckled a bit. The owner of the red Italian also owns a bitchin little ’32 roadster and I wanted to do a follow up piece on my “Ferrari Shoot” from a few years earlier. On paper these two cars looked like they might be perfect together for such an article. However, as soon as the ’32 pulled in behind John and the Ferrari, I knew it wasn’t going to work. As beautiful as the Ferrari was, the ’32 was just too dynamic. It stole show.

But this isn’t my story… This is Johnny Joyo’s story. I’ll hand the baton off to him and let him pass it on to one Mr. Dale Shaw:

About a year ago my pal, Dan, tells me about this guy he knows that has a purple hot rod that he thinks I would like. I tell him that I’d love to see it and don’t think anything of it beyond that conversation. About 2 months later, I’m standing by the window of the shop and I see a purple roadster pull into the parking lot. It’s got a cool-old-timey look to it, so I head out to investigate. Channeled 32 roadster, nerf-bars, vintage sbc with a 4×2 Weiand intake… I like what I’m seeing. By now, the whole shop is shuffling out to the parking lot to see what this channeled ’32 is all about. Then I noticed the column shift, the Kinmont disc brakes, and the massive amounts of chrome underneath…

This car is the real deal. Turns out that this was Dan’s friend Ron. Truly one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet AND the perfect caretaker for this old hot rod. He knew all of the history and knows the car like the back of his hand. Ron bought the car from Dale Shaw. Dale Shaw was a long time hot-rodder, was the president of the Gear Grinders and owned Alamo Plating in San Antonio, TX for years. He is the one responsible for all of the chrome you see. While Dale was in the hospital, he wrote down everything he could recall about the car. I’m going to let Dale’s hand-written note tell the rest of the story…

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A side bar of sorts… I mentioned at the beginning of this post that I had planned on shooting this car with Ron’s Ferrari F355. Again, I was certain this shoot wasn’t going to work as soon as I saw the purple roadster pull up. However, I couldn’t help but try a couple of shots. And the shots I did take proved that the ’32 should stand alone. Even so, I can’t help but post a few of them for fun:

The F355 was Ferrari’s V8 mid-engine offering from 1994 to 1999. The 3.5 liter, 5-valve per cylinder plant made about 380 horses. All well and good I guess, but the real glory of this car is it’s sound. Many consider this one of the best sounding Italian V8’s of all time. It’s glorious when pissed at high RPMs.

Special thanks to Joyo and Ron for making this happen.