Along with his family, Lamar Lewallen has been involved in the automotive repair business for more than two decades (by selling cars, repairing them, filling them with gas, or towing them) and, though he’s not retiring, he decided to finally take some time to build something for himself—something to recreate the feeling he had with his first car but do it up this time with a more modern build.
After spending a couple of decades doing your job, you’d expect to be able to get some kind of reward for all of the hard work you put in. Way back when, folks used to get gold watches when they retired but, with gold now above $1,400 an ounce and most people carrying cell phones, what can you do for yourself for all the sweat equity you’ve put in?
Under the old Cadillac air...
Under the old Cadillac air cleaner is a pair of Edelbrock 600-cfm carbs that feeds the 421 small-block Chevy (bored 4.155 and stroked 3.875). Patriot heads were used, as was a Howards camshaft. A Tremec TKO 600 was bolted up and the motor can produce 490 horses at 6,200 rpm.
In 2005 Randy Lewallen, Lamar’s nephew, found a good candidate, a ’48 Ford long door coupe at a Goodguys event in Ohio. Lamar found it was an original California car and in excellent shape, and Lamar states it only took him 20 minutes to decide on the $8,500 price tag. The time wasn’t right to start the build, so the Ford was put into storage for four years while he continued to work at the body shop he owns near his home in Douglasville, Georgia.
Lamar guesses he’s built more than 20 cars (a handful of them award winning, too) and, once he decided to begin the project, he ended up talking the car over with Alan Johnson from Johnson’s Hot Rod Shop in Alabama. With the finished concept in his head, he started working on the car from the ground up.
The stock chassis was boxed and braced (with the help of Robert Brannon of Lula, Georgia), and a Heidt’s Superide independent suspension (with sway bar) went in up front. The setup came with 2-inch-drop spindles, Pro Shocks with adjustable 500-pound springs, an antiroll bar, and a Roberts Panhard bar. The rear was dialed in with a limited-slip Ford 9-inch (3.90:1) assembled with 31-spline axles, a NASCAR-type antiroll bar, another set of adjustable Pro Shocks, and a pair of drilled and slotted Wilwood 12-inch disc brakes.
Lamar turned to Alan Johnson’s...
Lamar turned to Alan Johnson’s Hot Rod Shop for the leather interior to his ’48 Ford. They stitched it up, made the bench seat, and created the cool saddle pouches for the door panels. There is a Vintage Air A/C system in the car as well as an ample stereo system. Big Classic Instruments gauges (a speedo/tach on the left, a quad gauge on the right) fill the dash, and a repro ’40 Ford steering wheel was color-matched to the car’s exterior.
Wilwood discs were used up front, too, as was an MBM master cylinder with a 7-inch booster, a Wilwood proportioning valve, rack-and-pinion steering, and a Roberts pedal assembly. Steering was completed with a Flaming River column and a repro ’40 Ford steering wheel. Rounding out the chassis was the addition of the 18-gallon steel gas tank and the Halibrand Sprint wheels (17x8) wrapped in General Altimax HP 215/50-17 front tires and 255/60-17 rears.
Power for the hot rod comes in the form of a ’72 Chevy small-block that now boasts 421 ci of displacement. Matt Bishop (Mableton, GA) did the required machine work and assembly on the motor, which uses a 3.875-inch stroke Eagle crank, 6-inch Eagle rods, 10:1 JE pistons, and a Howards cam in the short-block. Patriot aluminum heads, equipped with Howards 1.6 rockers, was topped with an Edelbrock manifold and a pair of 600-cfm Edelbrock carbs.
The rest of the drivetrain comes in the form of a Tremec TKO 600 transmission that was assembled by Keisler in Knoxville, Tennessee, with a Centerforce flywheel and disc, along with a Lokar shifter and an aluminum driveshaft from Drive Line Services. A ConceptOne front runner belt system was also used, as was an old Cadillac air cleaner that was retrofitted to mate to a pair of four-barrels. Hedman 1-5/8-inch headers, along with 2-1/2-inch stainless steel exhaust tubing, were installed along with MagnaFlow stainless steel mufflers. When all was said and done, the engine produced 490 horses at 6,200 rpm and 534 pounds of torque at 4,200 rpm.
Lamar turned to Alan Johnson’s...
Lamar turned to Alan Johnson’s Hot Rod Shop for the leather interior to his ’48 Ford. They stitched it up, made the bench seat, and created the cool saddle pouches for the door panels. There is a Vintage Air A/C system in the car as well as an ample stereo system. Big Classic Instruments gauges (a speedo/tach on the left, a quad gauge on the right) fill the dash, and a repro ’40 Ford steering wheel was color-matched to the car’s exterior.
As anyone who has really messed with the ’46-48 Fords knows, alignment of the body panels takes time and effort to get right, and every section of this car fits great. Though you couldn’t imagine Ford doing it today, back in the day, they produced two different body styles for the coupes: one, a long door; and the other, a short door version (the long doors are roughly 44 inches wide while the shorts are about 37 inches wide). Short-door ’48s are typically three-passenger cars, such as the Business coupes and four-door sedans, while the long door cars were used nearly everywhere else, including the convertible.
Once the bodywork was complete on Lamar’s ride, Bobby Hartshorn (Douglasville, GA) painted it PPG British Racing Green. With Billet Specialties mirrors and Bob Drake taillights finishing up the exterior, Lamar turned his attention to the interior.
Much of the interior components were hidden from view (such as the Vintage Air system and the wiring from Painless), including much of the stereo system (Panasonic head unit, and Rockford Fosgate amplifiers, speakers, and subwoofer) that was installed by Carlos Robles.
A Ford 9-inch (3.90:1) is...
A Ford 9-inch (3.90:1) is used out back while a Heidt’s Superide IFS went in up front, and Pro Shock coilovers were used at each corner. The wheels are 17-inch Halibrand Sprints, and the paint (sprayed by Bobby Hartshorn) is PPG British Racing Green.
Lamar turned his car over to the aforementioned Alan Johnson for its threads, as Johnson’s now has an in-house upholstery shop to create interiors for their customer’s cars. Johnson’s crew created the bench seat and the saddle pouch door panel design before covering everything in leather. Matching carpet went in, as did a minor amount of chrome trim pieces here and there to accent and break up the appearance of the interior.
Of course most people, when they start a street rod project, just want a driver to cruise around in, but some of the cars Lamar has built in the past might appear to be a little too nice to take down the gravel back roads around his home in Georgia, but he says this car will be a driver, too. And that’s what it is: just a really, really nice driver.