The Elvis Roadster

Elvis Presley's roadster...really? Well...not exactly, but Elvis did once drive the heck out of it during the '57 filming of Loving You. It seems that at one time, if a famous person used a car in a movie or TV show, it immediately took on their name--the Ricky Nelson roadster and James Dean Merc being a couple that come to mind. But enough on legendary personalities who are no longer around to entertain us--the roadster still is, so let's check it out, and a bit of hot rod history, as well.

It all started in Southern California with a young man's putting together a hop-up, gow job, etc. (there was no such term as hot rod at the time). Indeed, the history of John Athan's roadster is the history of hot rodding itself. It seems that 19-year-old John hung around with an enviable crowd--if you ran with the roadster boys, that is. Would mentioning people who were there at the beginnings of our hobby, like Ed Iskenderian, Louie Senter, and Kong Jackson, be considered name dropping? It was early in 1937 when John started on his roadster, and even though the components chosen are now considered standard fare, he didn't start with much. His first purchases were a $7 '29 Model A roadster body (with Bell Telephone Company logos on the doors) from one Gardenia, California, junkyard, and a $6 Deuce frame from another, which he bartered down to $5.50 (50 cents was a whole chunk of change back then). It must be pointed out that the switch from four-cylinder to V-8 power for lakes racing had only really started in earnest the previous year. The first person credited with going V-8 was Johnny Junkin, who dropped one into his Model T. No one seems to remember the exact date, but we can pretty much pinpoint it around mid-decade. Stripped Model A roadsters were already popular as street and lakes cars, but who built the first A V-8 isn't known for sure. What is known is that there were several A V-8s built in 1936 by Ernie McAffe; the Baldwin brothers, Kinney and Bob; Bob Stelling; and the Spalding brothers. This handful of cars started a trend toward the classic '29 highboy A V-8 roadster form (with or without a Deuce frame foundation) that continues to this day, some 66 years later.

The reason most roadsters still ran four-cylinder motors after Ford's introduction of the V-8 in 1932 (besides the obvious cost of a new motor) was the availability of speed equipment for fours. By 1937, however, when our Milestone car was built, it's been said that approximately 30 percent of rodders had switched over to the Ford Flathead V-8 engine. This was even though adding a V-8 didn't necessarily mean faster times, as the availability of speed equipment was minimal. The hop-up boys, however, were busy experimenting to go faster, and possibly even make a few bucks in the process (this was the actual birth of the speed equipment industry as we know it today, for the used four-cylinder equipment previously run by rodders had come the from the board and dirt track racing side of motorsports--yet another branch of the hot rod tree). Witness our subject car's slingshot manifold by Vic Edelbrock, Sr.

As Don Montgomery tells it in his book, Authentic Hot Rods: The Real Good Old Days, "The conversion to the V-8 engine moved quickly, so that by 1941, more than two-thirds of lakes entrants were using V-8 engines. And most of the top performances were accomplished by V-8-powered hot rods." Also, John's use of a '32 Ford chassis, which was already set up for a V-8, was quite a pioneering effort in itself, as he was among the first to do so (again, just like building the first A V-8, the name of the first to perform such a chassis swap remains a mystery). It must be pointed out, as mentioned by Mike Bishop and Vern Tardel in their book, How To Build a Traditional Ford Hot Rod (a must for anyone contemplating building such a car) an A on Deuce rails "is not a true A V-8 in the strictest sense, although it's often referred to as such; the designation originally referred to the chassis and body, not just the body." When building a pure A V-8, the Model A frame is retained, utilizing either a fabricated transmission crossmember, a modified '32 K-member, or a modified '33-34 X-member (as is explained in California Bill's Ford Speed Manual, 1952 edition), the latter allowing the transmission to be dropped without pulling the engine. Just to show what a pioneering effort it was to mount a '29 Ford roadster body on a '32 chassis in the pre-war America, there's a photo in Albert Drake's book, Flat Out, showing such a setup at the lakes in 1939, of which he says, "Really trick roadster for 1939: '29 A body on '32 frame, one of the first to use this combination."

Even John's lowered front suspension was quite unconventional, especially at a time when many roadsters didn't even run dropped axles as yet. John chose a '36 Ford spring and split wishbone assembly, which mounts the spring in front of the axle, effectively lowering it a bit from the pre-'35 spring-on-top mounting location. And he used a 4-inch dropped '32 axle as well. The roadster literally oozes well-thought-out modifications, like the '35 Dodge center-control steering used to clear handmade headers and the curved windshield that started as a rear window on a late-'30s Chrysler (it's interesting to note that the handmade windshield frame wasn't completely finished until Tom Leonardo, Jr. restored the car for John in 1996).

John had driven the car for some four decades before retiring it to a leaky shed for another 20 years. Then, as mentioned, friend Tom Leonardo, Jr. took on a full, authentic restoration of the car. And if you'd like to check out this innovative roadster that ran 108.50 mph at Muroc dry lake on May 3, 1948, drop by the NHRA Museum in Pomona, California; they'll be glad to let you look as long as you want.