1929 Ford Sports Coupe - The New Tradition

Necessitating that open-drive conversion was an open-drive transmission that not many people recognize anymore: a full-synchromesh Borg-Warner T15. It's a three-speed from a late '50s Ford pickup. Though this is the tranny that will take a Jeep top-shift tower, that would've taken money that Bill said he felt was better spent in other places. Anyway, this one sported an early Hurst shifter, and that's cool in its own right.

The transmission plugs into a Ford Y-block. "I've had the engine for years--it was in Emerald Envy (the green '47 Convertible that Buck Owens bought)," Bill pointed out. "So it was taking up space in the garage for a long time." Bolted to that engine is something of Y-block legend: a McCulloch supercharger. This one's a VS57 from a Kaiser, but it's not too unlike the blowers that turned lowly Thunderbirds and Fairlanes into F-code monsters.

Bill's past cars have been known for their finishes; they capture a philosophy. Emerald Envy, for example, was a true Custom, a car originally built before the word began with a K. So it's a rich green, a color probably in the Westergaard palate. His old ground-dragging '54 Buick wore a pale blue the color of the cashmere sweater that Mamie Van Doren wore in your dreams.

But the '29 wears bible black. Though most people think it's the de-facto finish for a vintage car, it's really not; cars of yesteryear were almost always painted. Look at the pictures and see for yourself. No, the John Deere Blitz Black on Bill's '29 is a color certainly more popular today than it ever was. And that's entirely appropriate; this car is more today than any other time in history. You just have to look beyond all them old parts to see it.