'34 Ford Phaeton
Waddington Street Rod & Restoration Centre
Just about halfway around the world from the U.S., there's another country that looks a lot like this one. Like ours, theirs started as a colony, it's incredibly vast, and it boasts a variation of the same pioneering spirit that forged our country's personality. Australia also has a car culture that, in many ways, mirrors ours. In fact, some would even make the case that Australia's hot rod and custom car movement, with its legally recognized system of rules and governance, is a few steps ahead.
As a result of this legitimacy, Australia's automotive scene is very accessible; as a result of this accessibility, the scene is quite rich and diverse. And, as some would describe it, Castlemaine, in the state of Victoria, is its epicenter. It's the home of several of Australia's car magazine publishers, including its leading hot rod magazine. It's also the home of Kelvin Waddington, owner of Waddington Street Rod & Restoration Centre, one of the country's preeminent shops.
What's particularly interesting about Kelvin's shop is the fact that it entered the body fabrication end of the business at the cusp of the millennium. Like many of his stateside panel manufacturing contemporaries, he developed his company's repair-panel end of his business until it included an entirely new reproduction body. In this case, this was a unit based on a '33/34 Ford hybrid passenger car/pickup.
Called a Ute in Australia, that body's appeal is largely regional; however, the shop's latest endeavor, a body based on the American-spec '33/34 Ford phaeton, is anything but. In fact, due to its namesake's relative rarity and desirability, one could make the case that this is a body long overdue. These bodies are exported directly to America, distributed through several well-known American rod shops, and available for American money ($15,900 as of this writing). With a few alterations to appeal to the hot rod and street rod market, "It's identical to an original '34 Ford," Kelvin explained.
To understand what this body is is to know what this body isn't. Australia's domestic cars, while often named exactly like ours, often aren't exactly like ours. To protect its emerging industrial industry, for example, Australia passed laws that stipulated that a car should contain a percentage of domestically made materials.
As a result, car manufacturers imported into Australia the barest essentials of what constituted a car and made up the rest of it to satisfy these rules. Understandably, they frequently took liberties with designs in the interests of saving money. In the case of the original '33 and '34 Ford phaetons for Australia, "It's an entirely different animal," Kelvin distinguished. "They're all full of wood, and they basically sit on top of the frame ... (it) was basically gleaned from the '32 Ford." Not the Waddington body, though; while presently made in Australia, it isn't what we know an Australian phaeton to be. It is, in fact, a copy of the Dearborn-made Ford known the rest of the world over.
While externally stock appearing, "The body is obviously only intended for a hot rod application," he explained. Above and beyond the 3-inch firewall setback and aftermarket-style floor to accommodate a contemporary automatic transmission, "We went to a lot of trouble designing structure within the body to give it stability." For example, the cowl, a carryover from the roadster Ute project, employs a stamped-steel kick panels in lieu of wood beams.
Rather than a separate panel that bolts in place, this body's dashboard is also part of the body structure. "We got an original open-car dashboard and tooled off it. Obviously, it doesn't have a glovebox in it or the original instruments, but basically it's a 99 percent copy of an original-car dash," Kelvin pointed out. Furthermore, "We actually doubled up on the material along the bottom of it so you can mount the steering column off of it. It's welded into the car-the originals are just bolted into the car-and there's a lot more strength in there as well." As a result, according to Kelvin, "This body doesn't have any cowl shake whatsoever; it's really strong in the front."
Just like in its namesake, the front seat sits on a riser; however, unlike the original, the rear part of the seat riser ties together the body's B-pillars. "We've installed a lot of strength in those pillars," Kelvin indicated. While increased primarily for structural integrity, that strength permitted something entirely elusive to the original design: an adjustable seat back. While not adjustable once trimmed, "You can move the seat closer to the steering wheel or you can move it back during construction. That's a real problem solver."
Like the front one, the rear seat riser constitutes a crossmember of sorts, in this case linking the rear wheelwells. But, it's these wells that really stand apart from the originals. Knowing that a larger wheelwell would give this body greater appeal, Kelvin widened them. "They're basically in level with the 'rail of the chassis, straight up with plenty of wheel clearance," he mentioned. "You've got the maximum wheel clearance with a standard frame."
Like the rest of the body, the doors are externally stock. Conspicuous in its absence, though, is any hint of wood; in its place is more stamped-steel structure. Simple, yes; however, fitting doors to a phaeton body presents issues of its own. "You know, '34 phaeton hinges are very universal," Kelvin noted, ultimately referencing the fact that each hinge serves for both a front and rear door. "We're fortunate enough to have a local '33 phaeton here in Australia, and we took those hinges and obviously had them copied." While Kelvin anticipates equipping most of these bodies with double-action bear-claw latches and external door handles that accommodate stock-style inner handles, he said he's more than willing to simply omit the latches if a customer intends to use a different style latch-stock included.
There's a consistent theme among the open-car bodies illustrated in this article: They all have unique and very advanced top mechanisms. So, too, does Waddington's tub body, only it's an option. It's an all-steel variant based on the same mechanism and ultimately look as the original steel/wood top. Its bows have a profile similar to that of the oaken bows in a vintage top, and it operates in much the same way as the original top, descending on the rear of the body in the same manner as its inspiration.
But, what really distinguishes this top is its universality: Above and beyond fitting the Waddington tub, it bolts straight on a genuine Model 40-or a genuine Model A or B, for that matter. Furthermore, it can be tuned to fit as stock with a full-height windshield or at a lower height for a chopped windshield. "We've manufactured the top along the same lines as our roadster top, with a lot of adjustability with a lot of nice features that work really well," Kelvin noted. To combat the floppy-edge syndrome endemic of most phaeton tops, for example, "This one has special screw-in locks that lock it in so it's nice and firm," he mentioned.
In reference to the body in the article, "That particular top has been chopped," Kelvin noted. "It's 3 inches on that car, and you can adjust the top bows up or down or in or out to get it to fit quite a number of cars. If you want to give the top even more adjustment, you can drill a few extra holes. We manufactured the top as generally a starter kit for someone who wants to put it on their Model A, their '32, their '34-obviously Chevrolet, Dodge, Buick, Chevrolet, and so on. They can tune it in until they get the look they want and then they take it to their upholsterer for finish work."
Modifications aside, this is a body that accepts all stock external body components. To prove the claim, Kelvin assembled the particular body in this article with Funk's fenders, a Rootlieb hood, Bob Drake running boards, and one of the grilles similarly tooled in Australia (no relation to Waddington's shop). While not part of the body package, "They're available through our agents that sell our bodies," Kelvin said. "We leave it up to them to offer packages of their own."
In short, this body represents one of the milestones in the reproduction body market. It was designed with the intentions of the common rodder in mind, it's built exceptionally well, as this bare-metal example illustrates, and it's available right now at a dealer you know.