History The last Hot Rod, A tribute to Dad

Man, you had a really cool dad. Thanks for sharing his story.

 

Great pictures and story, your dad sounds like he left behind a substantial body of work for people to remember him by. Thanks for taking the time to post.

 

Hi zombiecat.Thanks for starting this thread.What a wonderful window into the past,and a great look at your Fathers work.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

 

wow thank you for sharing,, I'm following this, love the ol photos
Cheers

 

I'm glad everyone is liking this. If you're a car guy, it would be hard not to like it.
Here is a fun one. This car was in process for quite a few years. I remember seeing it in the garage at his house. It was a bunch of parts all stacked neatly up against the wall. I could see the child like excitement in his eyes when he was telling me what he had planned for it. I was living in Albuquerque at the time and came back to visit for vacation. It was 2001. I missed the time between then and 2004 when I finally moved back.
On a side note, this vacation was what made me decide that I needed to move back close to my parents. My dad had done it with his parents. My Grandmother was still alive but in declining health. My kids were pretty much grown and I knew that the time to make the move was close at hand. I figured it would be much better for me to get here and get established while everyone was still healthy, so that I could actually be in a position to help as they needed it rather than doing it as a reaction to issues as they came up. I'm really glad I did it this way. I got to spend some good quality time with my grandmother before she passed and I got to spend a lot of time with dad. His health never really declined. He was working every day and he still walked several miles a day.
Anyway, back to the pictures. I think this was a 29'. While looking at these pictures, look past this car at some of the other things around the shop. This guy was on a mission, every minute of every day. He had fires going all over the place and there were several irons in all of them. He was impossible to keep up with.

 

That's the blue 30-31 model a coupe I always heard about... I believe it's in PA still..

Said he used a truck arm suspension on it.. After dean bought it and had the interior done he came back and and took Bergen a ride in it.. He told me I don't know how many times that it was the best riding model a he ever done..

And after the interior was done he said it was as quiet as a new car..

That's Jeff Burrells black 34 pickup he did.. Jeff still has it but the motor Jeff got for it was bad and hasn't fixed it yet..

He pie cut and made the top of the grill shell deeper at the top to make extra room.. Would be great to see that truck back out and about..


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Man I'm lovin this. Makes me think of my grandpa every time. Thank you!


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When he was building that little coupe, he had two right side doors for it. He was having trouble finding a good door for the left side, so he converted one to a left door. Another thing that isn't really noticeable in the pictures is the fact that he also made the doors flush fit. He did a lot of little things like that to almost everything he built.

 

While scanning pictures, I found a few surprises. My wife went through and separated the pictures, to some extent, after dad had passed. It was done rather quickly as we were looking for pictures for the funeral. I found these first three pictures in an envelope marked, car parts. It finally came to me what they were! This is the very beginning of the Model T pickup!

 

Here's one that was one of dad's favorites. He started out with a firetruck and found an F1 frame and fenders. I brought a bed back from Albuquerque, for it, when I moved back. I turned it upside down and bolted it to the bed of my 56 Chevy Napco truck. I got lots of strange looks along the way. This was one that he was planning on keeping, but then someone showed him the money...........
The first, truck I owned, was a 50' Ford F1 with a flathead V-8.
This was me in 1973-74. I kept a 12 volt battery in the bed in the winter so I could get it started on those clod mornings.
Here are dad's pictures.

Here's an old picture of my 56 Napco.

 

^^^Love the 56 and its o/t period look.^^^
Also noticed you were runnin 54/55 caddy caps on your 50 ford even back in 73/74.

 

Ron so sorry ,I must have been dreaming on my Sx and went right over my head!!! Your Dad did good and will be missed in the Hot Rod World!!! Talk to ya soon ...Ol Deuce

 

Sorry I haven't posted here in a while, better get back at it.
After I moved back here in 2004 I would take a camera over to dad's shop, from time to time, and take pictures of the cars he was working on. It never ceased to amaze me how many old cars he could cram into this small shop. And when I say old, it was rare to see anything in there newer than a 50's model car. I work in the collision repair business and 2005 seems old to us these days. It always felt like I was opening a door to the past when I walked into " the shop". Old cars, old tools, things being done the old way, totally different from the shop I work in today.
I stopped over tonight after work and the shop seemed empty in a way. There are only two vehicles in there now, but the place is still full of memories. I took the camera but didn't take any pictures. I'm trying to figure out how I want to have "the shop" set up for me. I just had some quiet time, looking around, trying to decide how I want to organize things, without changing it too much. Dad knew where everything was in there and what it was and you didn't dare move things around! Every time I go over there, I find something I didn't know was there. I think I just need to get the storage areas in "the shop" organized to where I know where everything is and what it is. Easier said than done.
Since we're on the subject of randomly stopping in and taking pictures, I took these April 15th 2009. I'm missing some of the pictures I took prior to these. I'm still searching for more.

 

I really am enjoying this thread. Thank you for taking the time to show it to all of us.

Ryan.

 

Here are some pictures from five months after that last group. You can see the progress of the red A Roadster. It's coming along pretty well. You also see the very early stages of the Blue 32 Roadster that is in the first post of this thread. I have a stack of pictures that Dad took while he was building it. It's probably 85% Brookville steel. A good friend of his is a distributor for them. Dad built several rollers for him in exchange for the parts he needed to build it and repair few of the other cars that he had recently finished. The first picture is one of the 32' rollers he built for his buddy.

 

I finally sat down and scanned some more pictures.
As I stated earlier in this post, my dad was a man on a mission. I don't know exactly how many cars he built in his life, but in the time he spent in this shop I never saw less than 3 cars in the shop at any one time. Not all of these cars were H.A.M.B. friendly cars, so I will skip those. Here are some cars and trucks that I don't have many pictures of but it will give you an idea of the diversity of vehicles he built there. This is a Matford. A French Ford, that he built for a good friend of his. I couldn't find any pictures of the process, just the 2 of it in the shop. The others are pics I got of it sitting next to dad's roadster at a show.

 

Here is a nice little Ford pickup that he built there. No pictures of it completed.

 

Here's a couple more while I'm at it. A roadster that I could only find these pictures of. You could also see it in the pictures of the truck in the previous post. For good measure I'll throw in a panel, or would it be a sedan delivery?

 

Here is sort of an interesting build he did for a member here. He made this one into a replica of a Panamerican Race Car. The last 2 photos were borrowed from the internet. Maybe John will elaborate on this. There is quite a story to go with this one. The last I heard, it was in a museum.

 

Incredible thread. Thank you for sharing!

 

Great thread. Quite a legacy...thank you for sharing it!

 

Tim,
Thanks for taking me along on the ride of your life with your dad. He was my kind of guy for sure. I think we would have had a lot we could have talked about if I would have ever met him.
I think you will keep his memory alive and well when you walk into that shop everyday. I can't wait to see what you do with his 3 window down the road.

 

This thread proves the importance of taking plenty of photos as
you ride through your life.
Your dad was a special person and you do him proud by sharing his life.
Well done. We should all be so fortunate.

 

Thanks man! It was awesome talking cars with him. He was a treasure trove when it came to knowledge of these old cars. That's one of the things that will always separate him from me. Even with all of the tools and skills I possess, I still only have marginal knowledge of the "old" cars. The 3 window is going to be the biggest challenge I've come up against so far. It's a good thing I enjoy a good challenge.
This probate stuff is starting to wind down. As soon as I have the title in my name, I will get started on "the challenge".

 

I couldn't agree more. Each picture is a memory. A moment in time, frozen, and saved forever.
I am photo buff. I usually take more pictures than necessary.
Or do I?
Like I've heard said before, " you don't realize how important pictures are, until that's all you have left.

 

Wow. This stuff is gold. Thank you so much for posting

 

What a great thread! Thank you for sharing it with us.

 

Dad had a real fascination with airplanes and flying. It was second only to Hot Rods. He joined the Air Force as a teenager with the hopes of becoming a pilot. That didn't work out but he did make it as an aircraft mechanic until he got a medical discharge. I think that played into the next build to some degree. This next one is one he built for himself. It started as a 35 Ford stake bed truck. He wanted to be able to drive it and actually be able to put it to work. He had an old GMC 1ton truck that was rusted out but had a fresh 402 in it. So he swapped the Ford over onto the GMC frame. He swapped all of the niceties into it also, like the power steering, hydro boost brakes and in dash a/c. He managed to do all of this but it took a little doing to make everything fit and work. To start with he had to widen the front fenders and running boards 2 inches to fit over the tires. He had to move the dash back several inches to fit everything behind it. When it was all done, everything fit and worked flawlessly. It wasn't finished a year before he sold it. It guy who bought it lived in Cottonwood, Arizona. Dad delivered the truck to him in September of 08'. Last winter, he told me that he had heard that, that guy sold it to someone in Southern Ca.. Has anyone seen this truck out in that area? Just curious. He drove the 35'Ford pulling a 16' trailer with his 88 Chevy shop truck on the back. He said a few people along the way told him they thought he had it all backward.

 

Here are a few pictures taken the day before he left for Arizona. The three guys standing next to the truck are my son, my dad and me. 3 generations of bodymen.

 

That "roadster" is a '32 cabriolet. That sedan delivery is a '34-'35 Chevy.