Detroit Autorama Preservation Award
The 2009 recipient is the Neal East 1932 roadster
The Neal East Deuce roadster is this years Preservation Award winner and for many this car has a special place in our hot rod youth. It appeared on the first full-size cover of Rod & Custom on the August, 1961 issue. Little known story but after the shoot on the beach the roadster became stuck in the sand. (It had appeared in Hot Rod in the February 1958 issue, it was Bahama Blue at the time. It appeared one more time on the cover of Rod & Custom in November, 1995.)
But there is more to the story. It was honored as one of the 75 Most Influential hot rods of all time and so honored at the 2007 Grand National Roadster Show within the '32 Ford 75th Anniversary exhibit. It was built by Bill Woodward of Los Angeles. Neal advertised the car for sale in the '61 issue of R&C and Bill Moeller came West, sold his Corvette, and bought the roadster. It was later stolen from Bill while working for the ISCA as a show promoter. According to the story, the car was found in Kentucky in poor shape; it was retrieved by the FBI by watching ads in Hot Rod. Bill wasn't able to rebuild the car and sold it to Pete McManus in 1968 who made it road worthy and drove it to the first Street Rod Nationals in Peoria in 1970. Paul Seivers a Deuce restorer saw the car at the Nats and offered to buy it. McManus sold the car to Seivers in '75 and restored the car to restoration standards. However, after seeing the 60th Anniversary story in R&C Paul opted to put the car back in its hot rod heritage.
Well, that's the short version but you get the idea of a hot rod that has plenty of heritage and well deserving of the Detroit Autorama Preservation Award recipient.