Projects 1931 Ford Roadster W/Pontiac Straight 8

Went over to my friends house the other day and took some pictures of his 31 that he has put a Pontiac straight 8 in. The roadster has some history. It's a 1931 shortened Ford roadster sitting on a 1937 Willys frame and running gear. It ran that way at Muroc back in 1947 with the Willys 4 cylinder, Hickey head and a Graham supercharger. It was called "The Singer Sewing Machine" and held the record in its class with 125 mph and some change. Mel, my friend, bought the car back in the 70's after seeing an ad in Hot Rod magazine for it. He took out the 4 cylinder, kept all the original parts, and put in the Pontiac straight 8 and adapted the original Willys 3 speed to it and will eventually be putting on the Graham supercharger. He just got it running a couple of days ago and it is sweet. He ended up splitting the exhaust manifold to be able to run dual exhaust. In the second picture you can see the original front air dam that was on the roadster, which will be going back on, and in the last picture, before the 4x2 motor picture, is the original Graham supercharger that was on the Willys motor.

Mel is a really old time hod rodder with some pretty amazing and different motors that he has put together for his cars. His first hot rod was a 1934 Ford 5 window coupe that he bought when he was 15, he is now 65, and still has it. He drove it to his high school 45th class reunion a couple of years ago. Back in the late 60's he put together a 394 Olds with twin S.Co.T. blowers and 4x2's and put that motor in it along with a mid 50's Corvette 4 speed.

One of his other cars is a 56 Chevrolet that had a body off restoration. He bought it a couple of years ago and ended up putting a Latham supercharger on the 6 cylinder jsut to be a little different.

Anyway here are a few pictures of his roadster, the Chevy and a shot of the motor in his coupe.

 

Very cool project... Love seeing straight 8s in Hot Rods!

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I remember seeing that car in an old Rod & Custom mag, cool car!

 

Very Cool stuff! All those motors are great!

 

I think it was on the cover of Rod & Custom sometime in 1978. He found the car back when you were able to place ads in Hot Rod magazine. He bought it from a guy down in southern California. The car had been restored and then just sat. The old owner had to move and could not take it with him so he had put it up for sale. I think Mel paid $2500 for it and that was back in the late 70's.