1933 Ford Roadster - The Promised Land

For a young Dave Gazaway of Bow, New Hampshire, his own personal promised land was filled with the sounds of roaring V-8s strapped to the 'rails of old jalopies as they hurtled themselves around a dirt stock car track at the old Hudson, Bryar, and Star speedways. To be a fan in the stands would have been cool enough, but since the age of 6, Dave was fortunate enough to have spent weekends in the pits with his dad Dave Sr. and his uncle Mark Gazaway, as they wheeled out one of their hot, stripped-down oil burners to chase the checkered flag.

As the years passed, young Dave became immersed in his copies of Hot Rod, often fantasizing about cars for sale in "Hot Rod Mart," and he began helping out his good friends Terry and Kathy Cramer's race team that fielded the Country Girl Funny Car out of New England Dragway in Epping, New Hampshire, while in his teens. It was during this time that he became awestruck with the early coupes and roadsters that would run the quarter-mile, screaming through the lights as the scent of racing fuel hung heavy in the air.

With countless cars under his belt as the years passed-including many musclecars, classics, and hot rods-Dave finally met up with Jim Lowrey of Lowrey's Hot Rods and Restorations in Tilton, New Hampshire, to look into building what he considered one of Ford's finest-a 1933 roadster. Being a fan of Lowrey's late-'40s and early '50s build styles for quite some time, it was only natural that his latest ride would get its pulse there. With Jim's uncanny senses leading the search for a suitable base with which to start, an original roadster was found disassembled and at rest in a barn in Massachusetts long before the East Coast's severe weather could have taken its toll.

Wanting to start with a proper foundation for the roadster to roll on, a call was made to Cornhusker Rod & Custom for one of the company's '33 Ford chassis. The crew at Lowrey's got busy on the chassis by adding custom-fabricated tubular crossmembers for additional strength. The frontend of the car is old-school at its best, starting with a 4-inch dropped Super Bell axle coupled to SO-CAL Speed Shop hairpins with Pete & Jake's tube shocks; a POSIES spring cancels out the bumps along with a SO-CAL finned Buick-style disc brake conversion to call whoa to the horses. More traditionalism makes its mark out back with a Currie 9-inch Ford rearend and drum brakes joined by P&J's ladder bars with Aldan coilovers riding shotgun. Classic rollers in the form of 15-inch steelies all around with wide whites from BFGoodrich out front and Coker out back, combined with just enough dazzle from '46 Ford caps and rings, make everything stand out.

Nothing says "it's time to party" better than Ford Flathead power, and the engine-building talents of Jim Lowrey Sr. were called into action for this soup job. Starting with a '48 Ford base, the block was machined to 276 ci and fitted with a bevy of speed parts, including Jahns pistons, an Isky Max 1 cam, and Offenhauser finned aluminum heads. The crowning touch on the full-race V-8 is definitely the Weiand supercharger topped with two Stromberg 97s wearing chrome helmet-style air cleaners. Bathed in Poppy Red gloss and linked to a Tremec five-speed transmission, you just know there is plenty of go waiting to be tapped once the juice pedal is called into action. With the rolling chassis loaded and waiting for its body, the talented staff at Lowrey's fine-tuned the vintage steel to perfection, chopped the windshield posts 4 inches, and laid them back, converted the rumble seat to a trunk, and laid down a lustrous coating of DuPont Lite Fast Maroon enamel so deep you could reach into it. Wanting to keep the interior as era-perfect as they could, Petter Davidsen of Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, was called in to stitch up a superb rolled 'n' pleated maroon and white leather business office complete with matching wool carpeting complemented by a '39 Ford banjo steering wheel and Haneline gauges. The final touch on any hot rod is the pinstriping, and Larry Hook of Cumberland, Rhode Island, got the nod to lay down some of his fine lines for this East Coast legend. With the car completed, Dave said it's a tribute to his dad, who was born in 1933, and that he plans to drive the hides off of it. With a bitchin' '33 hitting the road like this one, we couldn't agree more!