Pipe Dream

From the February, 2009 issue of Street Rodder

If you consider yourself any kind of automotive hobbyist, you're intimately familiar with pipe dreams. We at STREET RODDER certainly are; as our bosses attest, we can while away hours dreaming of rods, customs, and trucks. If it's got wheels, we've already built it in our heads.

Then there are the Joe Alberts in the world; builders with tangible proof that they've got more than just illusions of what's cool.

After creating a vision of his own, he found this '37 Chevy sedan delivery in the Texas area. The car's prior owner had started the project as a Pro Street car, but Albert said he had a different plan in mind. Relying on his fabrication skills from years of pipefitting and prior rods, and the help of Steve Garrett and Bob Watrous, he basically tore the car apart and started from scratch.

They began by widening the rear framerails to undo the Pro Street tubs and re-fabricating the floor since it sat an inch off side to side. He also fabricated a new cargo door structure from steel.

Then came the magic touches. He found a set of coupe doors that were 4-inches longer, reworked the B-pillars, then installed the doors a-la suicide for a truly distinctive look. The doors feature a pronounced angled B-pillar--a feature that makes the delivery appear chopped. He then made a template of the roof crown and hit the junkyards for a sunroof--an inspiration from a prior STREET RODDER tech story.

He found a Mazda 626 donor, cut the roof, and then trimmed it all to fit the '37s roof contour. For the dash, he fabricated a tubing structure then hand-formed a concave sheetmetal "body" over an oxygen bottle to fit. For the nose, he massaged and painted a stainless grille insert and fit it to a Superior Glass Works one-piece fiberglass hood assembly.

For the chassis, he left the prior owner's Mustang II-based suspension install as-is, but concentrated on the rest of the program. At the rear he remounted the four-bar/coilover setup to fit the now wider 9-inch axle assembly.

For an engine/trans combo, Albert outfitted a '92 GM 502 crate with a Comp Cams camshaft and a Carter 750-cfm carb. He backed it with a lightly worked TH350 transmission that feeds a 3.55:1 gear. He capped the corners in BFGoodrich-shod B.Coddington Rodders to showcase the four-wheel disc setup.

With everything in order, he blew it all apart for Concord, California's Toy Works to paint and finish the delivery in maroon DuPont. After assembly, he shipped the near-finished sedan over to Martinez, California's Divine's Custom Interiors for leather and vinyl trim over the Chrysler LeBaron seats.

All said and done, Albert's got the proof in trophies that a standout rod starts with a mere dream. True, it also takes initiative to get things done, but without the daydreams of visionaries out there like Albert, the rod world wouldn't be such a neat place.