1932 Ford Roadster - An Injected Deuce

Larry Christensen’s ’32 roadster

From the November, 2012 issue of Street Rodder

By Eric Geisert

You have to wonder how many hot rodders who are still around today started off working at a corner gas station. Even better than taking auto shop in school, the corner gas station experience would expose a young man to all sorts of vehicles and, therefore, all sorts of problems that come with them that needed to be figured out.

Larry Christensen was just 14 years old when he started pumping gas in his father’s station and, just a year later, had rebuilt his first V-8 (a small-block Chevy with two-fours, which eventually found its way into a ’55 Chevy post Larry would own). Larry reckons he became a “Chevy guy” back then, and his allegiance to the brand would serve him well later in life.

Through the years Larry taught Vocational Auto Mechanics and then managed a transportation fleet for the local school district. But since the late ’70s, it was an interest in restoring and selling Camaros that gave him a great foundation for the process of car building. He restored Yenkos, ZL1s, Indy pace cars, and Z/28s but sold the business about four years ago. Now he spends some of his time consulting other people on the restoration of Camaros and he’s a nationally recognized judge at high-end car shows.

But his love of GM vehicles didn’t preclude him from owning a Blue Oval product. He bought a 1932 Ford five-window coupe from his brother and, after finishing the project, Larry, who lives in Arvada, Colorado, decided he wanted a Deuce roadster, too.

Larry had seen the high-quality work that was coming out of Pinkee’s Rod Shop—Eric Peratt’s business in Windsor, Colorado. Peratt normally isn’t satisfied with just building belly button hot rods, but rather he reinterprets and occasionally redesigns the iconic body shapes to an even more refined shape. It’s easy to jump in and change every aspect of a car’s personality, but the trick is to do it with a subtle approach and to not go overboard, and Peratt has figured out how to do just that. Over the years, his talents have netted him a Ridler Award and many other awards and accolades, too.

The project started with a chassis that Pinkee’s builds for customers that give the car a sectioned look—achieved by having framerails only 4.5 inches tall as opposed to the factory 6-inch height. Larry’s frame was set up with a custom X-member and on a wheelbase of 108 inches. Front suspension pieces include a single leaf spring, a custom crossmember, a drilled Chassis Engineering I-beam, and original ’32 bones split and modified by Pinkee’s. The rear uses quarter-elliptic springs and a Winters quick-change. Front brakes are a SO-CAL disc system (hidden inside Buick drums) and the rears are 11-inch Ford units that are also covered with finned ’57 Buick drums.

Christensen bought his Brookville Roadsters steel body through SO-CAL’s Pueblo location, and Pinkee’s added a Schroeder cowl steering unit that is mounted transversely below the dash. Also mounted behind the dash is a Wilwood master cylinder unit that operates off a hanging swing pedal assembly custom-made by Pinkee’s.

The car has seen a few different sets of wheels and tires as Larry likes to change its look, but right now a set of 18x4 and 20x6 Curtis Speed true knock-off wheels wrapped in Excelsior 5.50-18 and 6.50-7.00-20 rubber are on the car.

And though most everything about this car is new, the motor is not. It’s a 392 Hemi, which Larry was able to find unassembled in nearby Grand Junction. He took the block to F&M Machine Performance in Arvada to be bored 0.040, and he had the crank turned 0.010. Assembling the engine himself, Larry used an Isky cam, Hot Heads pistons dialed in at 10:1 compression, and a set of Hot Heads aluminum heads. The Parker aluminum valve covers are rare, and the set Larry was able to buy off of eBay had not yet been drilled for mounting screws! Another trick piece is the big-block Chevy water pump, mated via an adapter for the Hemi block.

Injection is handled by a Hilborn mechanical unit that was converted to operate electronically, which was accomplished by Bob Ream of Imagine Injection of Glendale, Arizona, who used a computer module from FAST. Cook Enterprises in Erlanger, Kentucky, made the one-off air cleaners for the motor, while the one-off headers were built by Mike Lupfer from Lupfer Enterprises in Arvada. Other engine goodies include a stock 392 ignition system upgraded with PerTronix components and a timing cover and pulleys from Hot Heads. A TKO 600 Tremec transmission is also used, and it’s equipped with a Center Force clutch package and a Tremec shifter with a Hurst handle. The tranmission’s hydraulic throw-out bearing came from Kesler Transmission.

No major changes were made to the Brookville body, though Pinkee’s did chop the windshield posts 2 inches for a proper profile. And since Larry has decided to hold off painting the car for now, Bill Peratt (Eric’s father) was tapped to supply some fine line pinstripes to the car’s decklid and other areas.

If an all-steel Deuce highboy roadster with an injected Hemi isn’t enough to grab your attention, then the interior to this ride most definitely will. Frank Wallic, working out of the Denver area, has been showing everyone else what it means to build a bomber-style interior. Looking like it might have been stripped out of a B-29, Wallic says there were more than 15,000 rivets used in Larry’s car. The bench seat (with a padded cover by PJ’s Upholstery, of Commerce City, Colorado) is a main focal point, and it’s augmented by lap belts that have ID tags from Bell Aircraft Company sewn into their ends. A LimeWorks four-spoke, leather-wrapped steering wheel mounts to the Schroeder column, and a set of Moal Coachbuilders’ Bomber Series gauges (with a 200-mph speedo and 10,000-rpm tach) mount to a Brookville dash that Wallic also tweaked.

Three years ago the car was presented as an unfinished roller in Pinkee’s booth at the Grand National Roadster Show, and Larry let the car sit for a time while he finished up work on a ’55 Nomad he was building. Once that was done, Larry did up the wiring at home as well as installing the fuel and brake lines. After taking it to the Goodguys show in Scottsdale earlier this year (and receiving a STREET RODDER Top 100 award), Larry was pleasantly surprised on how well received the unpainted roadster went over with the crowd. Now he’s thinking he may not paint it for some time, and instead just enjoy driving it around without fear of paint chips. Either way, his Hemi Deuce roadster will be sure to generate a fair amount of chin wagging no matter what the final exterior finish Larry decides it will be.