Best $300 build to make a '50s mag cover Time warp with pics.

Since getting on the hamb I've been thinking about a good a pretty good period car story I knew but with out pic's it would have been just a story.


While in a local hydaulics supply company I noticed a picture on the wall in the owners office that looked familiar. I was a kind of "sports rod" that I had seen somewhere long ago but couldn't place. By the time I was in again I had figured out where I had seen it. It or one similar had been on the cover of a '50s Mechanics Illustrated. This time the owner was in and I aked him what the deal on the picture was and that I was sure it was the same as the cover car. He replied that it was the cover car and was suprised that I had reconized it. He the told me the story of his shop teacher in the '50's in Stockton CA. and the vocational high school he went to. He had an idea for a sports car "a poor mans Corvette" and the auto shop class could make one or more. The plan was all junk yard parts and fabrication. I turns out they built three over a two year period. They were built off of '39 Ford/ Mercs with with '40? Chev sedans sacrificeing their tops and fenders. After he told me the story and we discussed it , he floored me by asking if I'd like to look at it! Damn right!
We went outside and opened a shipping container and it was inside with a couple of other cars which made it tough to get a good look at. After we went back in the shop he finished the story by expaining that he had recently restored this car and cleaned up some of the rough edges and mildly souping the stock junkyard flathead that was in it. This had been the magazine car. The second car built belongs to this fellow and he still has it also; The third car is still in the Stockton area. He had kept in touch with the shop teacher over the years and about 15 yr's ago he talked to the guys son who said his dad had passed away and the car was outback under a tarp. So he bought it and brought it up here and restored it. End of story untill today.
Today I go on a poker run/unhamb like garage tour with one of the local clubs and stop to look at an impessive collection of hi per limited ed Corvettes and here in the showroom is the "sports rod". This turns out to be the same fellow with the hydraulic shop. We talked somemore about it and I told him i would like to get some pictures this time and also that I would put them on the web if he didn't mind He didn't so here they are. He also said they figured at the time they had about $300 plus labor in each of the cars. He said he remembered it cost $10 to replate the narrowed shoebox bumpers that the used.

 

Wow! that is a cool story!!!

 

Wow Oldebob! Thanks for sharing this, it's awesome!!! I wonder how it drives...

 

Kick ass!!

 

Cool story. Its like the real grease lighting! haha

 

neat looking car

 

Too cool Bob! Wish I could have went on the run but had to work I havn't forgot about your measurement either, if you saw the roadster frame right now you would understand....she's burried!!!

 

Relating to Mechanix Illustrated mag,,back in the early '50's, they had a "how to" story on building an MG/Lotus 7 style sports car using a Ford frame and gear. Used conduit to frame up an all flat panel body. Anyone remember that,,,

 

X2. Thanks for sharing. As a teacher, I love to see this kind of stuff, even if it was 50 years ago... We're still trying...

 

Man more lost history! Super stuff, boy get the time machine ready to go back and watch that build.

 

Cool Story, Thanks for sharing.

 

I screwed up and didn't climb up and look at the date of the magazine. The article was very complete and showed how all the cut up and modified pieces fitted to gether. It is interesting that the '39 Merc lower body was not channeled, the red area at the bottom of the body is the radically Z'd frame rails. The rear deck is from the rear upper part of the chev sedan roof. The hood and grill opening is front 1/2 of the same roof narrowed with the w/s cutout serving as the grill opening. They welded thin steel rod around all the exposed cut lines which really stiffened things up .

Most people these days looking at the car assume it is a fibreglass kit car. Maybe some one on here has the actual magazine article and can scan it. Man if I had a '39 coupe laying around , I'd start making me one of these. lol

 

Bob,
I have a 39 coupe for sale...it's a Ford though

 

Nah! Have to cut up a '39 Merc to get the dash insert

 

I think this is the article, it was posted on the Hemmings Blog the other day:

http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2010/05/18/build-this-100-mph-sports-car-for-under-500/

But I like the shop teacher's ride MUCH better!

 

Thaks for the cool story!

 

DAMN, Jay, that's it, in November '51, I had just turned 12 and was reading MI. Jeez,,,,,,I must be a geezer. That is not a real pretty thing in retrospect is it ? Thanks for posting

 

I remember seeing the ads for plans to build that car. As I recall, the same guy sold plans for building a minibike out of a piece of driveshaft and old bicycle parts. It's pretty cool to know the original car still survives - it had some kind of weird angles to it, but overall I always liked how it looked.

Besides the small ads in the back of Mechanix Illustrated, I'm pretty sure Hot Rod did a feature story on it once.

 

For the original post: I hunted up the issue of Science and Mechanics. September 1961, and the Wild Hare sports car is indeed the cover car for that issue.

The top of a '38 or '39 Chevy makes up the hood/cowl/front fenders/sidepanels, a similar-year GM trunklid was used for the rear bodywork. It wouldn't be far off to think of this as a cutdown fullsize Chevy body, set on a modified '39-'48 Ford chassis. They cut the wheelbases down to 100 inches, with a 10 inch engine setback, the engined lowered 4 inches and the X-member and wishbones modified to suit.

 

Great job! Only on the hamb could someone turn that up as quick as you did. It looked like a ton of info in the picture of that article I took .Any chance you could scan it and add to the thread?

 

Sorry, no scanner. I really need to get on that...lots of '50s-'60s magazines, but no way to share the content.
It looks like this isn't online either, according to Google anyway.

 

From Hot Rod May 1961.

 

The coolest thing is that the builder still owns and drives it!

Thanks for sharing a great story.

 

Not quite right. I wasn't as clear as I could have been. The shop teacher died . The car in the thread and the car in the Science and Mechanics / Hot Rod mag are all the same car. But the guy who restored it and curently owns it is the guy who built the 3rd car in the photo of the shop class. He still owns that car. IE, he now owns 2 of the 3 that were built in his shop class. Double cool! ...PS,I don't think he knows about the Hot Rod article as he had left the area by then..

 

Nice job on mag scan. This place IS amazing.

 

Hemmings Classic Cars is now asking for current info on the Wild Hare. Guess they thought of it the same time as you, Bob

 

Here's the last part of that article...

 

Wow what a great story - car has a great look to it.
Mart.

 

what a great story!