Fred Warren Revisits Muroc

Back in 2001 Fred Warren debuted the very first of a limited production run of 10 Kugel "Muroc" roadsters. The body was hand-fabricated by Marcel's Custom Metal with a Kugel Komponents fully independent chassis and built for Fred to be used as a driver. Now, most people can't imagine a car of this caliber as a driver but rather as a show car.

You have to take a look at Fred's illustrious hot rod career to fully understand the motives that drive the man. Rewind a few more years back to 1994 to Fred's '37 Ford highboy coupe, which took home that year's Ridler Award from the Detroit Autorama, followed up the next year by his America's Most Beautiful Roadster award-winning Smoothster. Four years later, he continued this hot rodding pedigree by winning the AMBR again, this time at the 50th anniversary with his Marcel-built '33 roadster, Shockwave, and competition was tough that year with an entry from Chip Fosse, as well as Steve Moal's sports-car-inspired rod for Tim Allen. Marcel also built a companion coupe to Shockwave, aptly titled Aftershock, that same year which landed Fred in contention for the Ridler Award once more. Continuing in this fashion, Fred's latest hot rod is no exception. Since he had the very first Muroc highboy roadster, it only made sense that when Kugel came out with a full-fendered version, Fred Warren's name would be at the top of the list. An order was put in for a body and Jerry Kugel went to work setting up a chassis per Fred's requests.

Staying true to the Kugel aesthetic, a chassis was put together using an independent Kugel front and rearend, with disc brakes and coilover shocks at the corners. When it came time to decide on what to drop between the 'rails, they decided to keep with the high-tech theme and ordered up an aluminum Chevy LS6 and had Street & Performance work its magic. Backed by a 4L60E transmission, the entire ball of "metal" was then polished and detailed to perfection.

From there, the chassis, body, and drivetrain were sent over to Chuck Lombardo's capable crew at California Street Rods in Huntington Beach, California, where the assembly began. They started by prepping the body and chassis for paint and then applied copious coats of PPG Cobalt Blue and Silver Pearl. Once the paint was dry, it was on to Gabe's Street Rods Custom Interiors for the tan leather interior job. The entire "she-bang" was then placed on Billet Specialties 17x7-inch and 20x10-inch Hole Shot wheels and wrapped in aggressive BFGoodrich tires.

The words handbuilt, custom-fabricated, and one-off are tossed around our industry quite a lot, often times used more liberally than they should be. But when you take into consideration the fact that this body was built from scratch at Marcel's, the chassis was built from scratch at Kugel's, and the interior is custom-made at Gabe's, those terms really begin to mean something. In the world of bellybutton Deuce roadsters, this limited edition, one-off, handbuilt, and custom-fabricated Muroc roadster really pulls away from the pack.