By all means, 2007 was a precedent-setting year for the hot rod world. Had you not been paying attention, here's why: The '32 Ford celebrated its Diamond Jubilee.
It's 2008 now, and the party's over. Thank God, I say, and I own one of the damned things. But, last year I asked rhetorically-and I certainly wasn't alone-what could this year offer that wouldn't completely pale in comparison? Of course the logical progression dictated that the Diamond Jubilee for the '33 (and by extension, the '34) Ford would usher in a spate of events and commemorations; however, the odds didn't look all that good that they would top those for the Deuce. As striking and developed as the beloved Model 40 is, it's a car lacking in a catchy name. Nobody ever even wrote a song about the poor thing.
But, that never fazed anybody not blinded by the hype. As it turns out, four separate manufacturers from considerably different backgrounds and perspectives tooled up to produce-in steel, mind you-four unique bodies based on the Model 40's.
One, a Northwest builder who introduced a steel variety of the roadster body half a dozen years ago, has a near-carbon-copy version of the three-window. The person who spearheaded the project that ultimately produced a true convertible version of the '32 Ford roadster formed his own company to similarly endow a Model 40. Another shop, well known for its custom-crafted hoods and accessories, hybridized a roadster with a fold-up metal top, and the finished product is so radical that it's available exclusively as a rolling package. Almost halfway around the world in another hemisphere yet, another shop produced a phaeton whose outwardly stock appearance belies a list of hot rod-friendly modifications.
Even though 2008 may not command the same authority that its predecessor did, by all means, don't pity the Model 40. After all, it has something going for it that 2007 never did for the Deuce: four brand-new metal bodies. Things have never looked so good.
'34 Three Window Coupe
Steve's Auto Restorations
If you're a seasoned veteran in this hot rod/street rod industry, you likely recognized Steve's Auto Restorations as one of the shops alluded to in the introduction of this story. It's the one who tooled up the metal Model 40 roadster body we mentioned.
Since that time, and during that body's production run, owner Steve Frisbie has honed his shop's body building abilities by picking up where others can't quite keep up with demand. If you buy a Brookville Roadster Deuce body, for example, the wait for a complete body may take as long as 18 months; if you buy one of Brookville's bodies that SAR assembles, on the other hand, you could get it in a matter of weeks.
More than just popular, that high production rate as a result of making these bodies has made SAR one of the more prolific and experienced body fabrication shops in the industry. Just how that experience translates in the real world is compelling, though. Most recently the company announced two new body projects. One is another roadster, a highly stylized version of its roadster model. At this point, though, the second project takes precedence simply for the fact that it's a rejoinder to Brookville's Deuce coupe body: a Model 40 coupe.
"This is a project that's been in the back of my mind for about three years," Steve told us at the tail end of 2007. For the record, he has every reason to contemplate such an endeavor for such a long time. For starters, what Steve faces when he says he wants to build a coupe is probably even more of an undertaking than it was for Brookville when it created its own. You see, whereas both companies are in the business of building bodies from scratch, only one is in the business of making the panels with which to build the bodies-and it ain't Steve's. Still, "I finally decided to bite the bullet and go for it."
In a nutshell, the SAR coupe body is a largely stock-appearing rendition of a Ford body. It, like its Ford counterpart, has a high roof and an open top. It relies on an inner wooden structure. It not only uses every bit of hardware that a Ford does (door latches, window mechanisms, and so on), it includes it. It sits on a Ford frame, uses Ford mounting points, and will wear every bit of the stock sheetmetal-fenders included-otherwise intended for a Ford.
Still, there are differences.
When Steve said he sent a pristine '34 three-window coupe to Detroit for scanning, it doesn't mean that he intended to copy everything, flaws and all. "We're making the left and right sides mirror images of each other," he noted. "We're going to take any of the factory discrepancies out. The interesting part of it is that it's state-of-the-art scanning technology that Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors haven't even used yet. The scanning information dials in the information fed into the CNC machines for cutting the tools down to a 0.003-millimeter tolerance." If you're metrically challenged, that works out to 0.00012-inch, or a tenth of a single thousandth of an inch. "Y'know, it doesn't need to be this close to rocket science," he chuckled, "but this is what we're doing."
Just as Brookville Roadster did with its coupe, "The side panels are going to be one piece, and then we're going to have center sections that mate the two," Steve observed. However, "Ninety percent of the inner structure is going to be like original; we want to have as many of these pieces available to the original market as possible as we have for our aftermarket purposes." Rather than copying the floors verbatim, "We're really entertaining the street rod industry with a hot rod-style floor with a trans hump."
With that same market in mind, SAR shaved the cowl vent and recessed the firewall; however, the shop offers the vent as an option, and Steve assured us that the firewall, with ribs, is faithful to the original. "It'll be semi-stock looking. Let's put it that way," he said. Finally, with a robust 19-gauge skin and a battleship-tough 16-gauge internal structure, the body will be, by all accounts, up to the task of hot rod use.
Though SAR assembles its roadster bodies in-house, Steve said these coupe bodies, largely due to their complexity, will be assembled by the same Detroit company who stamps the panels. "It's the same company who made the tooling," he mentioned. "Everything's from Detroit, and it doesn't make any sense to have these panels shipped all the way to the Northwest just to have them go back to the Midwest or East Coast as a completed body."
As mentioned earlier, this is a body complete down to the regulators (including the rear window), garnish moldings, and so on, which itself presents an issue since a lot of the hardware-hinges, window regulators, door latches, and so on-don't exist in the aftermarket. "That's true, and we're doing it," he promised us. Also, as mentioned earlier, it's a body that accepts all stock and restoration-quality body components (fenders, running boards, and so on).
As you can surmise, that sort of quality and precision doesn't come cheap. As for the definitive price, "Well, we don't know ..." he said, pensively. Even if they all cost the same as the first six at $28,500, that's ample equity considering the same money buys a somewhat iffy builder. He also said he estimates a production run of 300 to 500 bodies, and due to the present workloads in Detroit, Steve's Auto Restorations will take delivery of the first body in the last week of July. "That's really fast," he affirmed.
Something else coming from SAR we have seen before but should be seeing some final efforts this year is the one-of-a-kind roadster designed by Chris Ito. Initial plans call for 12 fendered and 12 fenderless examples to be available for commission. Each of these 24 roadsters will be completely handformed and fabricated at the SAR facility.
The sleek and refined body was formed by hand over wooden bucks that were translated from a full-scale drawing. The handbuilt chassis with tubular crossmembers appears to consist of a simple dropped solid axle front suspension, but is actually much more complicated. The dropped axle is not a solid tube, but rather a split unit that allows the front wheels to articulate independently of each other. Each half of the axle is mated to a cantilevered push/pull rod that runs inside the framerails to horizontally mounted coilover shocks mounted beneath the passenger compartment. A Mustang Cobra IRS transfers the power, but does so through handmade upper and lower control arms with a cantilevered coilover shock arrangement.