Creighton Helms' 1936 Ford roadster - Wonderful Cherries From Lowly Pits Grow

Never once has the world celebrated the fruits of ambivalence. Sure, we all retell the story of someone who casually traversed some seemingly impossible path ("Did you hear that Bob built his Deuce for $5,000?"); however, each one of those stories belies another of nearly unspeakable toil ("...Yeah, but it took him 20 years to hammer the body on a hollowed stump"). It's that protestant work ethic and that admiration for hard labor that we secretly revere.

Case in point: Creighton Helms' '36 roadster. On the surface, its story is a simple one: Creighton commissioned its construction. In fact, he had it built to resemble the "cool" cars he remembered roaming the south side of Chicago in the late '40s, a time and place "where cars were always a part of growing up. Kinda like you were what you drove."

And what's not to like about that?

But under that nostalgic faade, there's a story of impassioned persistence, the idea that greatness is the result of intense dedication. Admittedly, Creighton didn't intend it that way. In fact, he admits that it makes him a little uneasy; however, his resolve has everything to do with this car's exquisite presence.

Here's why.

According to anybody who knows it, this is the story of a car that probably shouldn't have been built. Found intact with an alleged history and in need of some finesse, the car looked reasonable. With its high-gloss black lacquer job, tail-dragging stance, and distinctive postwar custom personality, the seller's story that this ostensibly solid car had California roots didn't seem too far out of line. In short, it looked like a real cherry.

It wasn't until well after most of the car disappeared in a chemical stripper's tank that its present builder, Donn Lowe, realized that this car was not in fact a bowl of cherries. If anything, it was the pits. "There was no way we could've known at the time, but later on I started to get the feeling that it might have been a car that I called about a year prior ... and passed," he said. Whatever the case, the commitment was fulfilled, the money spent, and "I felt terrible," Donn bemoaned.

Whereas most builders and almost all owners will invariably bail out of a project when faced with such a letdown, you have to understand something about 1936 Ford roadsters: They're rare. Exceedingly rare, in fact; while Ford produced 930,778 cars in 1936, only 3,862 of those were delivered as roadsters. That's less than one half of a percent of all Ford cars made for that year. Once you factor in World War II scrap drives, rust, heedless owners, and inattentive drivers, it's a wonder any survived. For numbers alone, just about any '36 open car is worth saving.

Then factor in the car's popularity during its time. First there's the cabriolet that Dick Bertolucci built for William Yee, the one with the Olds bumpers and top welded in place. Then there's the roadster that Harry Westergard built for Vern Simons, the one with Packard grille made relatively famous by a photo of it with a banner across its DeSoto bumper advertising roadster races. Though it's actually a coupe, who could deny Jack Calori's Hot Rod magazine cover car? Of them all, it's probably the most famous of the era. OK, so the condition of the body wasn't exactly great, but at least it had the provenance of being a real roadster. And as the Pebble Beach tea-and-crumpet crowd will tell you, provenance is everything.

So put yourself in Creighton Helms' shoes. You're staring at a pretty rough car, but it's a prized '36 roadster. You've got this dream to reconstruct a dream with roots that reach back to your teens. Yeah, it's expensive; however, it's more attainable now than it was when you were a kid.

Reconstructing More Than A Dream To understand what emerged from that chemical soup, consider the tulip panel, rear quarters, and tail section; rust reduced them to the consistency of a lace doily. Have been for some time. In fact, to replicate the missing rear flanks, someone in the car's past approximated their shape with everything from sheet scrap to road signs. Attached to that flotsam with thorny rows of cold welds were two haggard fenders. A veritable sea of fiberglass-reinforced plastic body filler-reportedly as thick as 3 inches in some areas-gave the impression that the car was in fact still a '36. Creatively glued to troughs hollowed out in that mud were sections of rubber vacuum tubing. You know ... like fender welting.

Redefining the term ground-up restoration, the car's body now derives its integrity from a set of subrails extracted from rust-free donors. Between those rails is more rust-free floor material interspersed with virgin sheetmetal, hand-shaped to accommodate a proposed Ford automatic transmission and notched framerails. Draped over the rear section is the better part of a five-window coupe, in this case a five-window coupe. In place of the roadster's rumble seat-a feature that kills luggage space and requires step plates that interrupt the lithe silhouette essential to a custom car-is a proper trunk. Flanking the car's bustle on one side is in fact a roadster fender; the other, a sedan fender artfully manipulated into the shape exclusive to coupe and roadster pieces. More than just parts adapted from another application, the rear skirts are in fact handmade pieces rolled to resemble those found on '39 Lincoln Zephyrs.

Moving forward, the upper two thirds of the doors are actually the ones originally ordained to the car 72 years ago. The lower thirds are a combination of donor '36 material and hand-shaped sheetmetal; inside are restoration-grade wooden lattices. The tin ahead of those doors is worthy of a story in its own right. As that story goes, it is the result of reducing three solid cowls and firewalls to their individual stampings and reassembling one perfect example from the best parts of each.

As they came from Ford, each front fender on a '36 was a two-piece affair consisting of a fender shell and a panel that bordered the grille opening. These, on the other hand, are one piece. Not just each fender, either; both fenders connect at the chin panel below the grille opening. Replacing the headlight pods is a set of housings extracted from '40 Chevrolet passenger car fenders. The horn grilles below are indeed factory-delivered Ford parts; however, they now attach to protrusions shaped to mimic the new headlight shape. Made in the image of an accessory grille cover, the hand-formed sheetmetal insert replaces the grille delivered by Ford. At the prow of that insert is a '39 LaSalle grille, a combination popular probably since the first wrecked example landed in a junkyard.

Those trident-tipped bumpers are from another page pulled straight from the customizer's handbook. Whereas most examples usually came straight from a '40 Olds and landed on a Ford-often within the same day-these didn't. Before the front met this particular car, it lost wedges at the center of its beam, a modification that makes the blade better conform to the Ford's beak. Like the Ford example that preceded it, its brackets pass through the lower edge of the fenders; however, in this case the bosses flare ever so slightly around the bracket.

Many Northern California custom cars of the day wore their taillights in modified bumper guards for sure, but this rear one has the taillights right in its trident-shaped ends. Above that bumper is a windowed license plate inset, probably one of the most consistent markers of a '40s-style custom car.