Hot Rods "The Texas Playboy"... '32 Ford Street Roadster...1959 style.

Nice. Love the engine details.

 

awesome work as always!

 

incredible work as always

 

Awesome build... I never cease to be amazed...

 

Brian,
You ARE the man! Right now I'm fightin' the urge to torch my shop, turning my projects into scrap metal ... just so you'll have more raw steel to work with!

Seriously, I'm in awe of your talents and your imagination.
Garry

 

Awesome work Bass. Its good to see such quality and detail in a traditional rod. Good luck at the GNRS show 'em how it should be done.

 

Is it gonna be the same bronze as the engine?

 

It's beautiful now...can't wait to see it painted!

 

Nicely done Brian.

 

i love this roadster Brian Bass,amazing as always,but the thing that pisses me off about this post is unrelated to you.,is that i scrounged and scronged last year for a roadster body,drove all the way up to the NSRA nationals with full cash in my hand with the intentions of buying a 32 brookville roadster and hoping to get a good deal,(hoping they would have one on display,if not hoping to get a good deal if it had to be made)then only told i would have to pay full list price and wait 4-6 weeks.

 

Great stuff, only now im hooked, but have to wait for part two.......

 

Another outstanding effort. Congrats!

 

This car is way over the top. Hands down one of the nicest roadsters I have ever seen.

 

cant wait to see it after paint and chrome...all your builds are top notch

 

FANtastic!!!

 

Absolutely stunning! Truly a work of art.

 

Part 2: Chrome, Paint, Detail.

Once the car was disassembled and in a million pieces, I started getting the pieces that didn't get sent out for paint ready for chrome.

As the project progressed and the car started to reveal its personality, I put more and more parts into my "mental chrome pile." And fortunately, I was able to persuade Steve to let me send quite a bit more out for chrome than we'd originally intended.

Before I could send the axle out, it needed to be polished and drilled. I set it up in my trusty drill press and proceeded to ventilate it with a 7/8" hole saw.



So here's that chrome pile I was talking about...it wasn't just in my head anymore.



If you take a look at the lakes headers, you'll notice that I added mounts and flanges to them so that mufflers and full exhaust can be run to the rear of the car.

You can also see the finished axle here, and the front spring that I reversed the eyes on myself...



After all those parts were picked up and off to be chromed, I still had some detail work that needed to be attended to.

The transmission needed to be painted, and I began stripping it down to bare metal with aircraft stripper. I was surprised to find that the paint color that was under all the grime and rattle can resprays was a really bright red. Now, originally I was thinking I'd just paint the trans case black...but when I saw it had long ago been painted hot rod red...and that it had survived all these years in that color...I took it as a good omen and repainted the trans bright red again. It would have been rude not to!

Besides, it actually went pretty well with the bronze on the engine, and it would bring some color in the mix with all the black and chrome.



The steering wheel I had in mind for the car from the start was a '50 ford wheel. I didn't really realize it at that time, but it is really difficult to find a wheel off of a '50 Ford that's still in decent shape. Almost every one you find is full of cracks, and this one was no exception.

I spent a LOT of time repairing the cracks and carefully priming and block sanding this wheel to get it back in respectable condition. In this photo, the wheel is still in primer, just about ready for a coat of pearl white.



Dennis Carpenter makes an excellent reproduction horn button for these steering wheels now, and it really makes the wheel stand out.



Much to my surprise, a little over a week later the first batch of chrome was back.



Here's a shot of that same TIG weld on the motor mount I posted earlier, but now it has been chromed.



And shortly after the first batch of chrome came back, the frame was painted and ready to pick up.



I couldn't help myself...I had to bolt a few of the chrome pieces onto the freshly painted frame.



When we took the car down to the painters, Steve asked me if there was anything else I would change or add to the car if it were up to me, and I really only had one thing in mind...a quick change.

It took a little more persuasion, but Steve decided to pull the trigger and order a new Halibrand-style quickie from Rodsville down in Brenham, TX. A couple of weeks later, it showed up...and man, Sig really does a great job on these.



More chrome and paint...



The steering box is a '56 F-100 box, and I bent the pitman arm to clear the wishbone.



The wheels came back from paint, and Steve had David Coker (Newstalgia Wheel) send over a fresh set of Firestone whitewall bias-ply tires.



Here's the quick change all assembled with the chromed axle bells, the chromed cut-down torque tube, and chromed wishbones. If you're wondering why I didn't polish the quickie center section, the reason is that I wanted all the aluminum "speed equipment" to match. The quick change, the trans adapter, the Edelbrock intake, and the Mallory distributor are all raw, as-cast aluminum.



Firewall back from paint, frame ready for suspension...



One big detail for the car I had been putting off was the dash. I had an idea for the gauges and panel I wanted to use...something that had been floating around in my mind for awhile...and this seemed like the perfect car for it.

The reason it took me a while to get it scratched off my to-do list was because I simply had to wait until I could find the pieces I needed. Once I got my hands on a panel and a set of gauges, I got to work.

In the photo below, I'm welding the panel into the dash to attempt to make it look like it was stamped this way...



Here's the result...



If you are wondering about the gauges, they are '57 Ford.

 

Here's the 283 ready to bolt back into the chassis for final assembly. You might have noticed that the 'frog-mouth' scoops were changed over to spark arrestor style scoops. I felt that these fit the style of the car a little better, and they also have the added benefit of using a K&N style filter.





As an artist, I feel that it's important to sign my work...and the generator tag seemed like a good place to stamp my signature.



Speaking of stamping signatures, the Edelbrock intake that I bought for the car came from ebay with an interesting feature. Evidently it was once owned by someone named "Tonto", and he stamped his name on the front carb pad. Anyone know Tonto?



Finally starting to go back together...








Rolling chassis.

I ended up having to chase my chromer down to get the front and rear springs back to get the suspension put back together. Once I had them back, I had a rolling chassis together in no time.








I still had to fab the exhaust system from the lakes headers back, and decided to give Porter Mufflers a try. The exhaust is only 2" diameter out the back, so it should be fairly quiet when the headers are capped up.

The exhaust/mufflers and the Hedman headers get coated in polished silver ceramic, which connect to both ends of the chromed lakes headers.



Steve wanted to tuck the exhaust up underneath the car where it was mostly hidden, and that's pretty much what I did. I did however make a pair of belled, scavenger-style tips that just peak out from in front of the quick change.



Two and a half days after I got the springs back from chrome, I went and picked up the freshly painted body. Collision Masters in Mansfield, TX painted the car, and they went way outside their comfort zone to deliver the kind of quality paint job I was looking for.

Here's the body...it's black.



And here's an exciting moment for any hot rodder...the body back on the frame.

 

With the doors and decklid hung, I started installing the Dynamat. I have to say, this stuff really does make a difference in the way the car "sounds".



Now when you shut the door, it sounds like you're shutting the door on a Rolls Royce.



And you can probably see that the floorboards have now been put back into the car as well.

Maybe I should have been a boat builder?



I mounted the voltage regulator to the firewall, and chromed the cover. It just seemed like the right thing to do.

I kept all of the original holes in the firewall, and installed the factory grommet kit. I also ran the speedo cable in the stock location, and spent a pretty good bit of time getting the wiring to look as nice as I could.



So...now it was time to pull the exhaust and headers to send them out for coating, and it was also time to get the car down to Austin for upholstery.

One last look...



OK, well...maybe one more look. Then it's off to upholstery.



I'm really happy with how the car is turning out...so far it's everything I imagined it could be, and more. I definitely have to thank Steve for trusting my judgement and design sense. I think that the finished product is going to be just about as uncompromisingly late-'50s period correct as it can be.

There will be a Part 3 coming up. Stay tuned.

 

Brian, purely sublime. Nice work, you know I dig the early smallblocks. Nice man, nice. Those pipes are pure sex.

 

Wow, just WOW! This is one nicely done car. The proportions are just right; no one detail that stands out above another and the syle really nails the period.

I miss my Roadster when I look at this thread. Oh and let me say that Brain, you are a master craftsman (and not a bad photographer either) Very, very nice.

 

Wow! Beautiful work!

 

man this thing is beautiful and you pretty much answered my question about chrome on a late 50s rod

 

Very Nice Mr Bass!!

 

Damn Brian...incredible roadster!!! Can't wait for part 3 and the GNRS in the flesh.

BTW...you pretty much built a roadster version of the 5w I have been dreaming about.

 

Yes, roll on part three

 

F-in incredible, you put out some great work Brian. Dam I wish I had half of your talent.

 

Your talent is unreal! Workmanship and thoughtfulness is all time. The vision you and the owner came up with is perfect. Can't wait to see it in person. Awesome.

 

Holy crap that thing is amazing. Talk about a perfectly detailed and period roadster! You are a master of your craft. I am in awe of this roadster and any other of your builds. Thanks Sam

 

Love it , beautiful car. My 32 build is pretty close to this but with an ardun