Hot Rods Little Pages circa '57-'62; popular rod steering wheels were?

I'll add this here, its yet another relatively famous late fifties hot rod with a '57 Ford steering wheel. Its such a great car, as as far as I'm concerned, totally overlooked. I feel the Soderstrom car is an icon of mid-late fifties hot rod building, and would be well up in my personal top ten hot rods of all time.





Fortunately, this car was found completely intact, but heavily weathered back in the nineties, was properly restored and featured in Street Rodder magazine. This one is safe.

 

If this pic is taken around 55 he was really ahead of time.
I would guessed 58-60 on this one. The oldest 27 coupe i see before is from 57.
And that one was unchopped and full fender.
I really like this coupe and its my main inspiration for my build.
My steering wheel is a Aquabird made for boat use.
Looks great and handy size. (15 inch) My second choise would be T-bird 61-63.

 

It really is from '55, and yes, Heredia really had it going on. He built a T-bucket after he sold this car. The photo was taken by Andy Southard at the Salinas airport drags in 1955, every other car he shot that day was a flatty. I like the Heredia version of the car better than the Buzz Sawyer version. I am really knocked out by it. When I first started thinking about it, my Desoto hemi coupester was actually going to be closely inspired by it, but then I saw Louies "Anderegg Tribute" build thread, and I had always really liked the Anderegg car, and I could see by photos in the build thread what was up with the body mods, and then I scored a VERY cheap coupe body with no doors, and the plan changed. But Heredias car was what I was originally going to copy from.
Nice wheel, a lot of the fifties-era boat and accessory wheels pull pretty big money these days.

 

That Soderstrom coupe is unbelievable!!!

 

Glad to find someone other than Frank that sees what I see. I have referred to or posted pics of that car on here half a dozen times, and the response was silence. Personally, I think that car is PERFECT, its the definitive late fifties deuce. I'm especially knocked out by the rear nerf and taillight treatment.

I will find the article on the restored car in Street Rodder and post that here.

 

FalconGeorge I cant believe that there was not any response to that car, but the Hamb as we know it and seen in the past has changed. There is so much on that cart that is Bitchin QC rear etc We`re lucky there are still guys like you and Frank still here posting great threads,pics,info and passion for the old Nostalgia cars. This street rod crap and other unrelated threads that aremucking up the front page is awful.. Just guys who don't build stuff and sit on the computer all day cause they have nothing better to do..Keep the great post coming cant wait to see the article I may even buy the mag

 

I've been thinking about that car since it was posted...a lot

I honestly don't think it would be possible to build a car today, that would have been competing with that car in the same class at an Autorama. I feel that way because our minds are polluted with 5 decades of styles and details. It would either end up overdone, or underdone IMO

and I was thinking also that they did not have the time saving tools and supplies...mig, plasma, body fillers, angle grinders, high-build primer, etc etc. How they did these rods and customs to that level of quality is beyond me.

the only thing they did have as a big advantage, was the donor car or body, frame was 25-30 years old in near mint condition for pretty cheap,,,,instead of a rotted body found in the woods.

I hope to finish my custom steering wheel tomorrow, in two tone like the dash is. Also, I cut down the half horn ring and found a way to mount it on the back, and wet sanded/buffed the clear plastic dome for the Olds horn button.
.

 

Frank i miss your old build thread, and think about that car a lot. looking forward to a picture of the wheel.

 

I been thinking that you would do a custom wheel and not buy one cant wait to see it. I agree with what you said Frank there are a few cars that just cant be outdone or copied..

IMO they did those type of cars with pure Talent and vision.. They only had what they had for tools but they made do.

There`s some guys that build some great stuff these days (Ive been thinking about this a lot lately) You Frank, Brian Bass, John Cenntrachios truck and his 5w, Bianchis builds, and a bunch more that I just cant think of off the top of my head but you guys get the idea.

 

What I have done in the process of formulating a plan as to how to proceed on my '39 is to pretty much exclude any material that isn't period from my mind. When I look for things to do to the car, I restrict myself to period literature, or requests for period literature on the HAMB. 90% of it is either from the "50 years of Rod & Custom" book, or from Hot Rod and Car Craft circa 1955/62, and I just exclude other influences from my mind. I just sit down with a real big stack of musty old magazines, and start going through them.
I did also discuss stance with Moriarty and Marcus Edell, but everything they did to the suspension on their cars is reasonably consistant with period stuff and period parts. And I am basically just trying to save time with that, so I can get to a "baseline" for the first stance check. I'll start with stuff gleaned from them, push the unfinished car out into the sunlight with the engine in and final tires on, stand back and look at it and photograph it for a few days, then tweak it from there.
In keeping with the period theme, I am looking at a somewhat taller front tire, and a shorter rear tire, but the stock front fender cut-out pretty much limits me to a 6.00-15, so that nails that down.
As I move forward with the build, I wont be doing a "build thread" in the conventional sense, because I don't even want to hear the voices of modern "HAMB speak". I know the very first thing that would happen is a bunch of guys will speak up and say "with the body mods, its not a hot rod its a custom, you should lower the ass-end and add skirts, so you can be like everyone else". Not that that would really influence an arrogant pr*ck like me anyway, but I'm just not even interested in hearing it.
Early on, I asked a few technical questions on the open forum about the best way to resolve issues arising out of things I was doing on my coupester, and I tried to be vague and obscure as to what I was actually doing, but as soon as guys figured it out, they started telling me shit like "welding and filling the doors/decklid is street rod stuff, no one did that back in the day".
Its just a matter of closing your mind to the history revisionist voices, and sticking to the source. Most of even the oldest guys on here shaped their views, no offence, in the early seventies street rod era, when forties cars were old enough to be cool, but fifties era hot rods were considered "dated". Those views are the primary force that shapes the current version of "traditional". I came to the scene at the dawn of the seventies street rod re-birth as well, but my ideas as to what cars looked like from that era were already fully shaped from looking at fifties era magazines and I am not really interested in revising them to suit modern HAMB-speak, just so I can fit in.
Just me, but when I see a black Model A highboy coupe on Model A rails with Guide 682C's, 16" wire wheels, and a post 1955 overhead, my reaction isn't "hey, now that's they way they looked"...

Frank, I can hardly wait to see what you have done with the steering wheel, and I am really looking forward to seeing the '32 moving forward.

 

That truck is killer. That's the gold one with the cad motor, right?

 

Not gold Blue with gold cad motor Columbia rear home built by owner

 

Ah, that one, nice truck. I was thinking of this one.

 

This ones for Anders. I was just scanning some period pics for my screensaver, and thought he'd like this one.
Has anyone ever done a thread on the HAMB about those vintage George Barris photoshoots? He really had an eye for great period architecture. this is another out-take from the same Barris photoshoot Anders posted, with Pitzen standing over the motor.

 

Thanks for the picture George. I wish i could plan my build like you do. But its gonna be registrered
as a brand new car. Thats mean 3 points seatbelts, Third brakelight, defroster, E-aproved lights,
kph speedo and some other things that dont fit the era. All this will move my build to modern
streetrod territory. To get the car to look decent i will have a techinspection kit that i can remove
betwin those inspections. And other stuff will i hide as good as i can.
And some more modern parts thats not disturb the look will be used becouse it wont
be a era correct build anyway.
But when i plan how things are gonna look i read the old magasines to come closer
than i should do if i just look at new built "traditional" builds.

 

My son took cell pics: First pic is the 41-48 Chevy wheel with the newer smaller rim, and the rim now sits higher than the flat spokes. The top of the clear horn button dome is slightly below the face of the outer rim. The horn button is some mid 50s Olds year unknown. I had previously painted the "sky" backround a dark blue, but I just cleaned it back to original brushed stainless.



Pic of horn button closer..



last pic shows 46-48 Plymouth instrument cluster. It was too tall and wide, so I recessed it deeper like a shadow box. Not shown is the speedo needle that glows green, then orange, and then red as speed increases. Also, maybe too much doodad is the Olds dealer installed dash emblem in there. It was in the mid 50s and is says "Rocket Circle" with a rocket making a oval loop. In the oval, were the car owners initials and a number showing how many Oldsmobiles the owner bought so far

 

good looking set up. is the transition of the wheels/spokes under the wire rings?
great job!

 

No, the splice is in the white parts of the spokes. The spokes start to turn upwards right at the paint dividers.

 

Frank that looks great do u fit ok

 

Frank, that is BITCHEN!! man, if I saw that at a car show, I'd be wracking my tiny little brain, trying to figure what year olds that wheel was out of. So cool.

 

I have similar issues here in BC, and will need to do the something similar on my coupester and t bucket. The t-bucket will be especially difficult.

 

The Mad Fabricators video about George Barris is pretty cool I have it. It talks about a lot of the photo shoots and shows the locations.

 

Glad you like my truck falcongeorge. the blue one is killer too. I have seen it in person. NICE!!!

Great thread guys. I have been following along as I am looking for ideas on a wheel to use for my next build.

 

I should check that out. People often overlook Barris photographic contribution. IMO, he really had an eye for locations. daddy-o I'll be watching when you do that tudor. Hell I like it already!

 

Before i found the boatwheel to my build i was thinking to use a stock model-T steeringwheel.
The fashion in late 50:s seem to be dished wheels so i was thinking to mount it reversed.
Not era correct but with some work could look cool.


Another one i was looking at was 61 T-bird.



In the magasines in the late 50 to early 60 Ford 56 and Chevy 59 stands out
as the most popular wheels. Was easy to find and looks good.




Around 59-90 servo starts to be real common and the size of the steering wheelsstart to be smaller.
And some ones are real cool looking.


Olsmobile 60.


Cadillac 60.

Another option that would look good with a handy size is mid 60:s Valiant or Dart.

 

Actually, theres a period precedent for a reversed T wheel. From Pat Ganahls excellent book, "Lost Hot Rods II".

 

Great thread. I was thinking about swapping the wood aftermarket wheel in my coupe for a Comet S22 wheel...something more early '60s, I'm thinking.

 

And i was thingking it would be a bullshitting story that it may have ben done back in the day.