1922 Ford T-Bucket - Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Clone

Grabowski explained to Overbay that Neil Emory hammered the original windshield stanchions from a piece of 1/8-inch plate. "So the following Saturday when no one was around, I took a ball peen hammer and a block and drew out some patterns. It was almost like Neil Emory was above me. It was like 1,000 hammer blows and it just worked and worked, and they turned out just right. We didn't know how they mounted on the dash side, until the day we were getting ready to do that, when we got a magazine with a close-up photo of the corner where the stanchion wraps around. Sometimes it felt like everything was just supposed to work."

It took Chris Gutierrez at Reno Rod & Custom a couple of weeks to figure out and copy Grabowski's exhaust system. With no known photos of the original to work from, he copied a Danbury Mint non-production prototype. It's been suggested that the convoluted setup was designed to hide the transmission and center crossmember. Those framehorn covers were first built by Valley Custom to cover up some unattractive 'rails, which is not the case with Ron's car.

Jason Voth at Resurrection Paint & Body Works did an excellent job reproducing the period-less-than-perfect original paint, and an equally excellent job on the crab flames, which look just like the ones Dean Jeffries painted on the original.

The finned Offy valve covers on Grabowski's car sometimes were and sometimes weren't painted red. The Horne intake is a rare part. According to Ron, Horne was working for Bell Auto Parts while building these manifolds. He produced them for less than a year before Bell bought the pattern. When Bell acquired the Cragar name, they used that brand name on these manifolds.

All plumbing and wiring was done with hard-to-find vintage materials, including the rubber front brake hoses and plastic headlight wiring. Ron got the radiator and fuel lines from Gates Belts old inventory. These, and the vintage thumb-screw clamps, match the original photos. Grabowski originally created this four-bar setup using '40 Ford tie rods.

Young Norm Grabowski's T-bucket in slightly different forms at '50s car shows. Grabowski sold the Kookie Car in 1959. It stayed on the show circuit for several years before disappearing from public view. By that time, it bore no resemblance to the hot rod that continues to inspire so many people.

When no Jackson Roto-Faze distributors could be found, Ron went to the Internet, offering a reward for one on the HAMB message board. This one turned up in New Zealand. Joe Panek, the current owner of Roto-Faze, made it work using parts he just happened to have in stock. Panek informed Ron that possibly less than 50 of these dual coil/dual points distributors were made for 331 Cadillacs. The wires are 7mm N.O.S. with Rajah terminals.

One component of Ron's clone actually comes from the original Kookie Car: the nut behind the wheel. Norm Grabowski himself joined Ron, Overbay, and the Reno Rod & Custom crew at the Detroit Autorama last winter.

This cloth top was finished just before Ron's roadster went to L.A. for the Grand National Roadster Show in January. Johnnie Overbay believes this is the only Kookie Car clone built with a top.