The Earl Bruce Armored Car

Ryan’s story of the Dutch-flamed 300SL got me thinking a bit more about a pre-war custom that Earl Bruce owned, affectionally known as “The Armored Car”. You quickly get the sense that this guy didn’t mind pissing off the Status Quo one bit. Flash back to late 1939 when a young Mr. Bruce strolled into a Downtown LA Ford dealer, eyeballed the new 1940 Ford DeLuxe, handed the sales guy a $1000 bill, and said “I’ll take it”.

He immediately drove the brand new coupe to Jimmy Summers’ Hollywood shop where the car received a Roy Hagy 4 3/4″ chop, which included filled quarter windows and a chopped down pair of rear window openings. It was typical of this era custom to ditch the running boards and stock bumpers, maybe rounding the door corners, but the weird modifications Summers performed included flaring the bottom edge of the front fenders into the body. Keep in mind all this work was done in metal with almost no lead filler… Mr. Bruce then went on to give the Flathead a full race treatment before he ran the car at the dry lakes. And yes, he was a badass.

(Pictures from Rik Hoving Kustoms, Some photos taken by Stan Baker, from the Mark Murray Collection)