A Twist of Lime

Back in early 2000, Ken Rollins was busy working on a '32 Ford pickup at his shop--Surfer's Garage in Plainfield, Illinois--when a kid walked in and told him about a "truck just like this one in a garage just down the road." He also said that it might be for sale and gave Ken the phone number to contact the truck owner. As it turned out it was a '34 Ford truck and the owner did want to sell it--but he wanted $3,500.

The truck was very complete, except for a missing steering box. Someone had long ago channeled it and added a late-model Flathead engine (which had seized). Ken bought the pickup, replaced the Flattie with a small-block Chevy (coupled to an Offy adapter for the '39 box), added a new I-beam with a split wishbone, a radiator, and a set of wheels. Some of the items that Ken found on the truck, such as the very-'60s Maltese Cross taillights, he left on to exemplify the '60s era (about the same time it was last painted!).

He drove it that way for more than a year but, being the owner of a hot rod shop that is supposed to do high-quality work, it wasn't the best advertisement of what his shop was capable of doing. So the truck went into the shop, the fenders and running boards came off, and Ken took 3 inches out of the roof's profile.

And though a '34 truck grille shell and a '32 passenger car shell look similar, Rollins thought the stock version was a bit thick so he replaced it with a slimmer fiberglass '32 shell (the only 'glass item on the vehicle) from Wescott's. After that, Ken noticed that the truck's proportions were starting to gel, but after he lopped 10 inches off the back of the bed, everything began to look just right.

Next, the truck was blown apart for bodywork (handled by Adam Miller of Surfer's Garage) and paint (sprayed by the shop's Tracy Parrotte), which is a special mix of House of Kolors' Lime Pearl. The interior was also redone as Ken gave a pair of MG seats to Boss Upholstery (Plainfield, Illinois) who used a marine grade vinyl (in green and silver metalflake) to cover the buckets.

To get the correct '60s look Ken was aiming for he not only went for chrome reverse wheels with no hubcaps, but also used whitewalls on each corner (slicked down ones out back!). And during the entire two years Ken has been driving his pickup, it has never had license plates on it (he can't find a place on the truck where they'd look "good"). He's been stopped several times, but he carries the plates with him so when the cop asks, he tells them the story about a lack of superior mounting locations. They buy it, and don't even ask him about the 10-inch-wide slicks they walked past to talk to him!

Driving the truck around hasn't been without incident, though. At the Goodguys show at Indy in 2001, a few rodders were out behind the hotel burning the hides off their rides. Rollins got caught up in the moment, stood on his V-8, and promptly blew the back half of his '39 trans apart with an explosion of oil and gear parts. After a round of applause from onlookers, one rodder actually went home to get a spare '39 box and gave it to Ken, refusing to take any money for it. It was, at least, a memorable night.

The 43-year-old Rollins is expanding the concept of his rod shop into chopper motorcycles, too. He just opened a new business, located in his hometown of Downers Grove, Illinois, and plans to build bikes and hopes his Surfer's Garage will ride a wave of success for years. That shouldn't be too tough, though, especially if he keeps building rods and bikes the same way he built his lil' hauler: clean, simple, and with tons of character!