Road Tour 3:

The '39 Ford convertible for the STREET RODDER Road Tour 2002 is on the road and racking up the miles. In fact, it's likely you've already skipped through this month's issue of STREET RODDER and seen the final feature. But that's okay, 'cause we still have this installment to show you how the car arrived at its current appearance.

This month we are going to concentrate on the interior, with its carpeting, seating, door panels, trunk, top, and several exterior appointments. We will touch upon the carpet and top kit from Time Machine Unlimited, the leather covered seats from Tea's Design, the interior trim pieces such as the door handles from Lokar, the air conditioning/heater combo from Vintage Air, and the wiring from Haywire. Outside, we'll take a look at the Alumicraft horizontal bar grille, the LED taillights from Lambert, and the last of the major mechanical components, such as the exhaust system from Magnaflow, the Walker radiator, and the gas tank from Coast to Coast.

At the time the photos for this story were taken the eleventh hour was upon us (what did you expect?) and Road Tour chauffeur Jerry Dixey was ready, with co-pilot Joshua Shaw waiting in the wings. This is the second time Joshua has been enlisted for the Road Tour and his mechanical savvy is just what Jerry needs as he ushers the '39 'vert down the highway.

Experience has taught us that having an on-board mechanic is a good idea, not to protect Jerry from the car, but to protect the car from Jerry (Sorry Jerry, but that's straight from the STREET RODDER Road Tour raw files). Our Road Tour rod literally has no miles on it. Make sure to check out Jerry's Road Tour story next month to get the "rest of the story," as we like to say. In fact, you can check our Web site at www.streetrodderweb.com for weekly updates on Jerry as he guides our Road Tour ride around the country.

Our wrap-up begins at California Street Rods with everyone working frantically to get Jerry and Josh on the road to Bakersfield and the NSRA Western Nationals. I will give you a clue: all is well, the crew made it to Bakersfield and onward to Knoxville and other NSRA compass points. It should be noted that Joshua jumped right in and helped the CSR staff beat the countdown to the bewitching hour while Jerry gave his best impression as a supervising overlord--or something like that. Since we are handing out "attaboys," let's not forget to thank the CSR crew, Pete Morrell (overall project supervisor), Roy Ortega (fabrication and assembly), Greg Morrell (body and paint guru), Lary Wagner (fabrication and exhaust system), Nick Perich (upholstery), and last, but not least, Chuck Lombardo. (We noted, as impartial observers, that it didn't take Lary long to correct Chuck's efforts!)

The Coast to Coast '39 Ford convertible was originally designed to help the moderately experienced street rodder to attempt a build of his own. Little fabrication is required when screwing one of these cars together. This was apparent when it came time to work on the interior and top combo. Now, don't expect the interior or top to be a drop and go, but with some fitting and effort the carpeting kit and door panels were easily fitted.

This is an ideal way to go for someone not wanting to "absorb" the cost associated with a full custom interior. To this, we added the door panel kit and used Lokar interior handles with power window controls from Specialty Power Window. In our case, we opted to go with bucket seats, which enhance driver/passenger comfort levels. To this end we rounded up a pair of leather stitched Tea's Designs buckets.