1932 Ford Highboy Roadster - Riding With The Loner

Not all cloned hot rods are created equal. Take this orange Deuce, for example. Despite Tony Nancy's name and number emblazoned upon its flanks, it'd be a pretty inaccurate one.

To understand why is to know the legend of Tony and 22jr. A trimmer by trade and pioneer drag racer by night, Tony was pretty much in a league of his own in an era when precedence in drag racing hadn't fully been established. For example, whereas most of his peers were still building their own chassis out of boxed Ford frames, an up-and-coming fabricator named Kent Fuller built Nancy's. Tony's attention to detail that made him famous in Tinseltown carried over to the cars, and regardless if they were competitors, no drag racer conscious of a 'rail's appearances considered a car done until Tony pleated it in his hallmark diamond pattern. His fans dubbed him "The Loner" for his ability to field a successful race car by himself, and he dubbed every one of those race cars with the number he acquired as a roadster racer: 22jr.

There's something consistent among all of Tony's four comp roadsters that would make this orange, Chevy-powered Deuce a poor clone: His were red Model As, powered by either Flatheads or Nailheads. Differences aside, there's something eerily familiar about this orange car, if only aesthetically. It's because Steve Dennish didn't copy one of Tony's cars so much as copy his particular style. Rather than a clone of Tony's cars, it's a tribute to the man.

If only the story were that simple. In fact, it wasn't until one of the last pieces fell in place that Steve and the LimeWorks Speed Shop crew realized what the car had in fact become. "Once we got the rollbar bent up, and once we got the seats in it, with the diamond upholstery that was on 'em, it looked like something that Tony Nancy would've done," Steve recalled.

Though incidental, the direction the car suddenly took wasn't entirely coincidental. According to Steve, "I wanted to do a '60s-style drag-and-show car," which is, depending on how you see things, a look that Tony popularized if not perfected. With its alloy wheels, recapped slicks, gently radiused rollbar, and aggressive stance, it certainly fulfills the checklist as far as parts are concerned. But, it's the way those parts are put together that makes the car look as if it were created decades ago rather than just made. It's because, just like Tony did in the day, Steve built the car out of a combination of original parts, a few speed parts, and made the rest by hand.

As ironic as it sounds for a guy who manufactures his own line of parts, "The one thing we didn't do was use any LimeWorks parts," Steve noted. "It was to show what we can do, not what we make. I think the only LimeWorks parts are the Moon tank brackets; everything else is original work."

The chassis, for instance, is standard fare: a pair of stock-style Deuce 'rails that have been boxed and paired with a combination of Model A and tubular crossmembers. It's what's right in front of your face that you can't see that's so different about them. If you're savvy, you've picked up on the car's relatively low stance in spite of the nearly flat V-8/60 axle. To get the car as low as it would've been with a dropped axle, Steve pie-cut the framerails at the body's firewall so they kick up a few inches higher at the crossmember. "They're also pinched just a wee bit," he noted.

That axle also presented another problem, this time with the '32 wishbone destined for the car. To marry the two, Steve severed the wishbone's 2-inch front bosses and replaced them with 2-1/4-inch bosses from a Model A wishbone. Though wishbone-splitting bungs exist in the aftermarket, Steve made his own to use oversize rod ends. He then commissioned a local shop to make a spring to fit the perch boss width unique to a '37-41 axle when used with '34-and-earlier perches.

If the square-tube rear ladder bars look suspiciously handmade, it's because they're old-stock pieces made by Roy Fjastad after he decided to stop building dragster chassis under the SPE brand. "It's a Deuce Factory kit that they used to do in the 1980s," Steve indicated, "but I put Heim joints in the ends because they had solid bushings in the ends of the bars." It looks as if the suspension uses coilovers, but the springs are actually old Corvair coils with separate Pete & Jake's dampers.

Though Steve admits there's nothing really exceptional about the 400 Chevy other than a lumpy cam, dual quads, and a set of weed-burner pipes, its location is emblematic of '60s drag racing. To improve weight transfer, drag racers pushed the engine rearward-Tony, for one, pushed his so far back he practically straddled it. To give this car the look without totally sacrificing cockpit space, Steve pushed this one's back a few inches. He modified the body to fit by dissecting an already cut-up stock firewall surround, set it back a few inches, and bonded it to the fiberglass in the cowl.

If you've picked up on the louvered decklid, you're probably scratching your head after reading the fiberglass reference. While the body is indeed one of the Australian pieces LimeWorks used to import before the dollar went bust, the decklid is in fact a Brookville piece Eric Vaughn louvered and the LimeWorks crew stretched and shrank to fit the opening.

Every part within the cockpit is 1960s-appropriate, and despite the inclusion of a few old-stock parts, every single part to replicate it is still available in the aftermarket. The fiberglass seats that inspired the 22jr personality are available at LimeWorks. Established vendors like Speedway Motors still sell the Stewart Warner Deluxe mechanical gauges. Last we checked, Vern Tardel had a copy of the Ansen swing pedals. Though Superior Industries dropped the line, Mooneyes sells metalflake-vinyl steering wheels.

Upon having the car shot by Bob's Autobody and trim work done by-ironically enough-Tony's Auto Upholstery, the car started to really take shape as a Tony Nancy/22jr tribute. "I was just going to put stickers on it-22jr stickers on it-when Dennis Jones came into the shop," Steve said. "He saw it and immediately fell in love with it, but when I told him what I was going to do with it, I saw the hair stand up on the back of his neck," he added, chuckling. While Steve knew he'd get a charge out of a pinstriper by mentioning vinyl graphics, he had no idea Dennis and Tony had a history. "He actually lettered up the last two or three of Tony's cars," Steve added. "'No, you can't put stickers on this,' he told me, 'I'll letter it for you ... let's put his name on it.' That's where it came from, really. It didn't start off that way, but the more we got into it, the more we had to do it that way. It wasn't the plan from the start-that's the truth, really."

While the car that emerged from the LimeWorks stable isn't a nuts-and-bolts replica of a Tony Nancy car, it's all the better for it. Unlike Tony's cars, which were race cars exclusively, this one's a street car that can make a blast down the 1320 whenever the opportunity presents itself. "You drive it on the freeway as fast as you like, and it doesn't go anywhere but straight," Steve revealed. "I was blown away because I was expecting it to be a nightmare with those ribbed tires," he admitted, "but they're brilliant; it handles beautifully." And, don't take his word for it, either; the car's current stewards, a couple named Mike and Sharon Reid, flog the car regularly. "He drives the piss out of it. He loves it," Steve related. "They brought it up to the Irwindale Reunion. They drove it to Bakersfield from Temecula. I mean, just ballsy-great bloke; great wife, too. Really nice people."

For a clone, LimeWorks' 22jr car isn't accurate. For an original hot rod design that honors our past and the legend of a pioneer, though, it couldn't be any better.