Whenever Steve Moal and Eric Zausner team up, you can be assured the result will be an exceptional car. This time Steve showed Eric a sketch of a '32 Ford coupe, with a Miller race car grille. Eric admired it, but had a suggestion: "That coupe's grille fights the flat windshield, but a DuVall split windshield on a roadster would work very well. Why don't we just build one?"
Eric's vision began with that old Miller race car grille shell hanging on a garage wall in Indy's "Gasoline Alley." He imagined a talented Indy 500 chief mechanic of the late 1940s, with time on his hands and access to some surplus aircraft components, a garage full of race car parts, and the best speed equipment of that era.
It's not such a far-fetched idea when you think about it. In that era, most of the great Indy 500 race cars were done by four Los Angeles-area builders: Frank Kurtis, Lujie Lesovsky, Quin Epperly, and A.J. Watson. They even called their Indy race cars roadsters. So our imaginary chief wrench would know something about classic hot rods, and he'd have the skills to build something remarkable. In that era, race cars had much in common mechanically: details like handbuilt tubular space frames, solid axles front and rear, torsion bar suspension, aircraft-influenced, disc brakes, knock-off Halibrand wheels, quick-release filler caps, and track-style noses. With a few exceptions, most of the era's powerplants were 270-cid Offys.
Offy omitted, what would be the ideal hot rod powerplant from the '40s? It would be a Flathead, of course, because the big overheads from Olds and Cadillac were in their infancy, and the Hemi wouldn't come along until 1951. So why not fit it with the ultimate in then-contemporary go-fast stuff? Like an Ardun overhead valve conversion and a S.Co.T. supercharger.
There weren't a lot of race car-influenced rods early on, but there were a few. You could start with the sleek Frank Mack T, which won Best Hot Rod at the first Detroit Autorama in 1953. And you could consider the tube-framed, Emil Diedt-bodied roadster that Big Bill Edwards built at about the same time for Bob Weinberg. That car ran a gear-driven jackshaft rearward to a chaindriven GMC blower, positioned behind a full-race Flathead. While its blower drive setup was never quite sorted out, the car's shape and the concept were super trick.
Steve and Eric decided to see what could be accomplished today, using styling conceits and engineering elements from WWII aircraft and old Indy Championship racing cars, like riveted panels, handcrafted, plated and polished, suspension pieces, a handsome Miller race car-style grille and leather interior accents, completed with a vintage Indy car's high level of fit and finish.
They began with one of Steve's twin-tube space frame chassis and a new Brookville '32 roadster body that Steve's shop stretched 4 inches for more cockpit room. The hood was also stretched 4 inches for improved proportions, so the resulting wheelbase became 114 inches. This car's piece de resistance is the handmade aluminum Miller-style grille shell. It's flanked by sleek E&J headlights on custom-crafted, faired-in supports, and it rises majestically above an aircraft-style grille covering the oil cooler. The slender directional signals are fabricated from teardrop-shaped, landing recognition lights that were adapted from a WWII bomber.
There's a piano-hinged hood top, and the hood sides have been omitted to better display the gorgeous engine and the brass radiator. In front, torsion bars, tubular hydraulic shocks, handmade batwings, and hairpin wishbones anchor a dropped and drilled beam axle. The brakes are vintage Halibrand magnesium racing disc brake calipers, with Lockheed Airheart actuators. "Those brakes took some special insert machining so they wouldn't leak," Steve reported. "Instead of being press-fitted as originally done, they now have threaded inserts. A lot of vintage racers hate 'em, but we've made them work well."
In the rear, the torsion bars are repeated, so this car's race-influenced suspension, while state-of-the-art 60 years ago, is actually quite sophisticated when compared to most contemporary hot rods with a front I-beam, live rear axle, and old-style leaf springs. "The suspension is loaded to the four corners," Steve explained. "It rides softly, even supple, but under cornering, it firms up nicely. The tall Dunlop racing tires have stiff sidewalls; they are not radials, but Eric says they corner nearly as well and they're good for the triple-digit velocities this car can easily hit. Naturally they're on gennie Halibrand magnesium 16-inch and 18-inch Indy racing wheels, with pin drive knockoffs. Eric is a guy who thinks a great hot rod is built around a great engine."