Pat Ganahl’s 1932 Roadster

It was August 4, 1963 and the Yanks had just lost the first game in a doubleheader with Baltimore. To make matters worse, they found themselves down 10-9 in the bottom of the seventh of the night cap. With one out, Steve Hamilton was due up for New York but the Yankee skipper made a surprise move – He pinched hit with Mickey Mantle.

The Mick hadn’t seen the field in months. On June 5, he broke a bone in his foot while fielding a ball in the outfield and folks didn’t expect him back until the end of August. But there he was… warming up in the batter’s box. The fans went wild at the very notion.

Orioles’ left-hander George Brunet shook off his catcher, grit his teeth, and threw strike one. He looked determined. The Mick stepped out of the box, rubbed some dirt on his hands, and dug back in… Brunet delivered, Mickey swung, and the ball rocketed out of the park and into the left field stands. If there was a roof on Yankee Stadium, the fans would have raised it.

Ladies and gentlemen, without further a do and pinch hitting for yours truly… Please welcome, Pat Ganahl:

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You guys at the H.A.M.B. have been asking for a long time what has become of my ’32 Ford roadster, so I figure you should be the first to get a good look at it. My club-member Jack took some spy photos on the car’s first outing, and shared them with you, but this will give you a better look. Since I’ve been working on this car for 13+ years, there’s plenty to tell about its genesis and long gestation, but I’ll keep the stories minimal here, and let you look at some pictures.

You’ve probably heard plenty of the stories by now, anyway, such as how I spent Billy’s college fund to buy the car (yes, he got through college anyway) in the first place. But one thing I want to make clear is that, while I was always inspired by the Joe Nitti roadster, this car was never intended to be a clone or a “Nitti II.” The main reason I wanted to find the real Nitti car was to find out what color purple it was (since all photos of it are B&W). I even took one of the B&W photos of Joe’s car to Stan Betz and said, “Here, match this purple.” And he said, “Yes, I know exactly what it is, Royal Triton.” But we spent half a day trying to mix it in modern lacquer with fine metallic and it just kept turning brown. So I ended up getting 5 years’ worth of color chip books from PPG, for American and Foreign cars, and went through them all, first cutting out 30 deep purples to compare, narrowing that down to two, painting my gas tank half with one, half with the other, clearing it, and letting it sit on the backyard picnic table for a week looking at it in the sun before selecting the one I used. Yes, it’s a factory color from about 10 years ago. The guy who did find the Nitti car never would send me a chip of paint from it. But I painted my hood and grille quite a while ago, Stanley saw it, and I’m pretty sure the re-restored Nitti car is now the same color as mine.

You can see how the stories go. But I want to emphasize that my car was inspired by Nitti’s as well as Bob McGee’s, Hank Negley’s, Bob “Axel” Stewart’s, and Ray Brown’s, not to mention ones like Barry Lobeck’s and Buddy Pepp’s (built by Donn Lowe). Of course I didn’t know I was getting this Deuce until about an hour before I got it (I’m sure you’ve heard that story). So I wasn’t “planning” it. The car I found had belonged to the same guy, as a hiboy hot rod, since at least 1948, when it had a 2-carb flathead. He put the ’51 Cad engine in around ’53-’55. But it was never painted or upholstered and ran a stock windshield, axle, and rear fenders. So it doesn’t have any pedigree.

But what I saw, besides the fact it was all original, pretty straight, unbutchered and unrusty, was that it had the Cad engine, ’40 trans, ’40 column shift and steering wheel, ’50 Pontiac taillights, and a molded-in Auburn dash with the original instrument cluster and 1^st series S-W curved-glass gauges (though not all the right ones). The car also came with tons of extra parts (grilles, hoods, gas tanks, transmissions, another Cad engine, ’50 Pontiac taillights, and so on), which reduced my purchase price appreciably at the first Long Beach swap meet after I got it. Basically I traded a built ’32 Chevy coupe (once I sold it) straight across for an unbuilt ’32 Ford roadster, which I figured was a good deal.

Where to go from here? I did everything on my other cars myself, but I figured I needed to get this ’32 Ford right, so I started by taking the bare frame to Pete Eastwood (good place to start). Besides getting it straight, he replaced the front frame horns (with better originals), installed a Model A front cross member, and boxed the front. Other people who know ’32 Fords who worked on it include Duane McKinney, Larry Braga, Geoff Mitford-Taylor (he reskinned one door, among other things), and especially Derek Bower, who did all sorts of little things like making the trunk latch, the parking brake mechanism, and the cowl vent work with the Auburn dash (after I cut the one out that had been brazed and leaded in, totally warping the cowl). The late Dave Enmark, who knew everything about any early Ford and could machine it, did things like rebuild the roached ’34 rearend (to which we added 3.54 gears), cut and weld the pedals, rework the spindle and Pitman arms…always something.

The engine had been rebuilt, so I put new rings, rod bearings, and a Babe Erson cam in it with refurbished stock lifters. Bob McKray rebuilt the heads with hardened seats. And I traded Doug Robinson the wire wheels off my dragster to custom-build the “W-style” headers.

You always build cars in your head, so I had certain ideas about how I wanted to build this roadster in a true late-’40s/early-’50s style. I wasn’t really into flatheads, so the Cad engine was perfect. The Edmunds intake and carbs came with the car (though never installed), and I told how a reader sent me the Hellings air cleaners (which were a must). I also wanted the Belond-type headers, but more importantly the chromed and capped lakes pipes under the frame. It also had to have the chromed tailpipes under the rear frame horns.

I prefer the Pontiac taillights to ’39s or ’47 Chevys, but I moved them twice before I got them where I wanted. Same with the front frame horns and V-d spreader bar. Even the headlight bar (made from a Model A) took two tries. The slogan in the Ganahl garage is “A job isn’t worth doing unless it’s worth doing twice.” Some take more.

Other things I specifically wanted included the full hood with short and long rows of 4-inch louvers in the sides, the filled grille shell, the chopped windshield, the stock wishbones, and the style of upholstery with the roll at the back. I was going to drill the axle, but decided that would be too much.

There were other things I definitely didn’t want on the car, such as disc brakes, Vega steering, or those aftermarket lower shock mounts everybody uses. So it has early Ford brakes, F-100 (rebuilt) steering, real F-1 upper shock mounts cut and bent, and lower shock mounts I made myself (not to mention the original Cad generator that I took apart and had chromed). I had lots of stuff chromed.

There are a few repro parts on the car, starting with the dropped axle that my wife, Anna, got me for Christmas when I first got the car (a total surprise). The next year she got me the King Bees (to which I added the right tags and lenses). Other parts were pragmatic. Buying new chromed shocks is smarter than chroming old used ones, and I found out that Pete & Jake’s covered rears were the same as uncovered fronts, so I used rears all around. Buying a 2-inched chopped and chromed windshield frame and stanchions was better than cutting and chroming the ones I had. Plus I could sell the originals at the swap meet. But the glass is gennie ’32, cut down. The hood sides are Rootlieb, the top is ’32. That’s how it goes.

As most of you know, I’ve been driving this car in primer for several years to get the bugs out (and do things twice). I have to admit that tearing it back down to a bare frame to paint it was a daunting task. So was the paint job, because I kept trying to make this one perfect. Well, it isn’t. I won’t tell you what’s wrong with it if you don’t notice. But I will tell you that the bottom of the body (floorpan) is the same shiny purple as the top. I’m really happy with the color.

Of course the last thing to finally get done was the interior, and I think it makes the car. Dave Gade (pronounced Gady) has been doing tuck and roll since the ’50s, and he’s done most of my cars. He knows how to upholster a hot rod. In fact, I originally wanted black piping on the seats and white binding on the carpets, but by mutual agreement it ended up the way it is. He did allow me the indulgence of the row of rolls in the trunk lid; having an upholstered trunk is pure indulgence for me, and one of my favorite parts of the car.

Finally, if you’ve looked at the photos, you’ve undoubtedly noticed two different sets of wheels and tires, giving the car two decidedly different looks. The wide whites with baby moons was my first choice, but this isn’t as simple as it might look. First, I wanted 16-inch wheels for the right era, and they’re 4″ front and 4-1/2″ rear. Second, I think the “standard” Coker tire combination most people run are a little too tall, so I did a lot of looking to find them in less common 7.00-16 and 5.50-16 sizes. Third, the hubcaps-which were on so many of the ’50s cars I loved-had to be the correct, pointier “Baldies” from the ’50s, not the rounder or flatter ones you can get today. I scoured the country to find these four, and had to have them straightened and rechromed. And to go with them the beauty rims had to be smooth, not ribbed. But they do look right, don’t they?

The other set of wheels and tires epitomize another era I like just as well, the early ’60s. In fact, some of my favorite cars from the ’70s-Lobeck’s, Jake’s, Tom Prufer’s-used these wheels and tires to excellent effect. Actually, what I wanted were original ET-IIIs with 7.50-14 Firestone dirt trackers for the back but real ET-IIIs are unobtanium these days and nobody would sell me the Firestones at any price. So I found a pair of 10×16 big-window Halibrands on Doug Robinson’s floor that he said were too pitted to use on his car (but not on mine!), and learned that the Adams boys could groove a set of their Hurst cheater slicks to look like the Double Diamonds. I already had the front tires left over from my VW, and Real Rodders Wheels had just started making the skinny kidney beans, so I was set.

I knew that this wheel and tire combo would really change the look of the car, especially with the full hood in place. But it really is amazing the difference it makes. It’s almost like having two different roadsters. I’d settle for either one.

Hope you enjoy this.

Pat Ganahl