How The Model T Became The T-Bucket

Racing The Hot Rod
The earliest places to race hot rods were SoCal's dry lakebed dirt ovals. Although Model A and '32 Ford rods (as well as a small number of rods built from other cars) soon joined the Model T on the tracks, T-buckets were the backbone of early speed events. Dry lakes cars emphasized streamlining and power, so stroker cranks, supercharging, and nitro took precedence over other considerations. In order to cut wind resistance, bodies were sometimes narrowed by taking a cut lengthwise down the middle of the body, or "channeled" by dropping the body down over the framerails. The Model T was also active on circle tracks, where a new class was invented for them. Called roadster racing, the bodies were mostly topless Model Ts, although other framerails (like the stronger Essex) were allowed. Roadster racing was extremely popular in the immediate postwar years. These racers were frequently fitted with noses and grilles borrowed from the classic front-engined Champ cars that dominated the Indy 500 at the time. This body style came to be known as a track roadster. Racing on dirt ovals was different back then-way different. But from these dangerous dirt ovals was born a racing sport to which today's organizers, with their super speedways and $7 hot dogs, owe everything. Not a lot of the original race cars still exist (they had been hammered on for years), but a few have luckily managed to survive, some still with their original owners!

You can't go forward without first understanding your past, and the names of the drivers associated with dirt oval racing reads like a who's who of the automotive aftermarket. Many racers, because they had to figure it out themselves, went on to supply the burgeoning racing industry with engine and suspension parts they'd developed at the track.

When drag racing kicked off in the early 1950s, Model T rods were once again the backbone of the sport, displaying every possible engine combination-from near-stock Flatheads to blown Chrysler Hemis under (and through) the hoods.

Acceptance
The most significant event in the history of the hot rod took place in January 1948, when the movement got its own magazine. The first issue of Hot Rod showed that homebrewed performance had arrived big time. Needless to say, the cover car was a Model T-a track roadster driven by Eddie Hulse. Hop Up magazine followed three years later, and a Model T rod once again graced the cover of the premier issue. Model T bodies were soon a popular starting point for show cars, racers, and street machines. Through the late 1950s, there were still plenty of derelict Model Ts lounging in fields and barns across America, just itching for a second life as a rod. But by the early 1960s, the sheetmetal used in these Ts was approaching 40 years old, and a savable chassis was getting harder to find. The first fiberglass T-bucket bodies soon appeared, built by companies like Ford Duplicators, Kellison, La Dawri, and Cal-Automotive.

And though the aforementioned Grabowski/Kookie T was at the forefront of the Model T's popularity, there were others who helped define the style that would become known as a Fad T. "TV" Tommy Ivo was another star of both the small and big screens, but his street 'n' strip-driven T-bucket, with its injected 322 Nailhead up front and famed crescent-shaped rear window, was another vehicle that had a huge impact on those who saw it. The car appeared roughly a year after Norm's Kookie T, but with drag racing in his blood, Ivo took the car another direction (1,320 feet down an asphalt strip) and became a world-famous drag racer in the process.

Another major influence in the world of T-buckets was the discovery of a rat or, more accurately, a Rat Fink. Ed "Big Daddy" Roth became a fixture in the hot rod world with his anti-establishment point of view on everything from artwork and clothing to his style of custom car building. His famous Rat Fink character (an exact opposite to Mickey Mouse's squeaky clean image) adorned T-shirts, posters, and stickers, but the scratch-built cars Roth created (many of which were T based) would not only garner a worldwide audience due to coverage in hot rod magazines, but turn on an even wider audience that was into building scale models of his famous cars. Both kids and adults could recognize cars such as the Outlaw and Tweedy Pie, even though they may have never seen them in person-a testament to the reach of Roth's creativity.

Model car building was very popular in the early '60s, and companies like AMT and Monogram supplied the need. Usually the scale car companies would copy in miniature whatever was being debuted that year (such as with Roth's cars) on the car show circuit, but Monogram reversed that way of thinking when they contacted customizer Darryl Starbird in early 1963 to build a fullsize version of one of their models: the Big T. The finished car was featured on the cover of Car Craft in October 1963.

In 1964, the Dragmaster Company, which had previously built chassis for dragsters, introduced their Streetster T roadster, a kit hot rod with a fiberglass body and a race-derived chassis intended for street use. Eelco, a California speed parts company, later offered this kit as the T Streetster. The chassis was made from round tubes arranged as a perimeter ladder frame mounting 1932-48 Ford suspension at both ends with 1956-57 Ford steering. Engine mounts could be ordered for Ford or Chevy engines. Bird Automotive built another early T-bucket kit, which, in 1966, sold a body, interior pod, and chassis kit for $399.95. In 1967, Speedway Motors paid homage to Grabowski with the KooKie Kar T-bucket kit, a body and chassis combo that sold for an amazing $139. Prolific kit car manufacturer Astra (builder of Kellison-derived coupes) also had a Model T hot rod kit called the Astra Tee that they introduced in the mid-'60s. There were also a number of dune buggies with Model T grilles and noses, including the Barris buggies and the Berry Mini T.

Andy Brizio, whose involvement with T-based rods began in the '60s, discovered folks wanted a single place to go where they could not only find the parts they needed to assemble a T-bucket for themselves, but also a place that would sell an entire car in kit form so they could build one at home in an instant. Soon, Andy's Instant Ts were selling like hotcakes, and Brizio's cross-country drives to street rod events only reinforced the car's reliability while helping spread the Fad T look.

In the ensuing years, dozens of other companies introduced T-bucket kits that were much more sophisticated than the primitive efforts. Speedway Motors still sells a variety of Model T kits, including traditional roadsters and a track roadster called the Track T. Total Performance in Wallingford, Connecticut, launched their Model T rod kits in 1971, offering 1923-27 roadster and roadster pickup truck bodies. They even came out with a Pro Street T kit featuring a 1927 Model T body with Model A fenders and a serious performance-minded chassis. California Custom Roadsters, run by the Keifer family since opening in 1969, is still turning out new T-bucket kits today in Chino, California. Newer companies, such as the Arkansas-based Spirit Industries, offer T-buckets as well as Track Ts and even a C-cab T body.