For something that’s everywhere, but can’t normally be seen, electricity is pretty amazing. It can produce light, heat, and something that’s important to most of us: it can jump an air gap in a pressurized cylinder and ignite a combination of air and fuel.

OK, let’s be real here. A ’62 Chevrolet Impala is not exactly a prime candidate for a great-handling car. After all, these things rolled off the production line weighing in at 3,455 pounds, are right at 17-1/2 feet long, and stand almost 16 inches taller than a GT-40. And they are suspended on all four corners with nice soft coil springs attached to an X-frame that is, well, less than rigid. It’s not exactly a combination that begs to go road racing, but then some people’s definition of hot rodding is making a car do things it was never intended to do.

In the final installment of our “paint your car at home” series, we finally come to laying on the color. Body and paint prep is a long process when done correctly, and cutting corners will show in the final results. While by no means a fully inclusive series, hopefully you’ll have an idea of what goes into such a job, and feel encouraged to tackle painting your next project yourself.

When the time comes for most Street Rodders to consider the suspension that will go under their car, and the impact it will have on the way it steers, rides, and handles, consideration is given to the front of the chassis. However, when it comes to what goes under the rear of the car the main concern is often ride quality. However, the rear suspension is critical to the car’s handling as well.

One of the great things about being around the Street Rodder office is the chance to gather at our editor’s feet while he regales us with tales of the “good old days.” Evidently back when Editor Brennan was a young’un braving the harsh SoCal winters and walking up hill both ways to magazine school, most people referred to ’28-29 Model A closed cab pickups as “phone booths” due to their tall, skinny profile. Of course that was back before an enterprising Australian, by the name of Kelvin Waddington, introduced the 6-inch stretched version manufactured by his company, Roadster Ute.

For a number of years rumors have swirled around about a new ’40 Ford coupe body that was going to be produced. Some industry “experts” just knew it was coming out of an old MIG factory in the former Czech Republic, others were sure it was being built in South America, or maybe it was South Africa. In any case it wasn’t long before all the smart money was betting that Bob Drake was the man behind the project, even though no official statement had been made. The more savvy insiders concluded Drake was not about to announce the project until he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt it could be delivered. Well the word’s officially out, the announcement has been made, and Drake is delivering. In fact he’s delivering a new steel ’40 Ford to Street Rodder magazine to be built by Hollywood Hot Rods as the 2012 Road Tour car.

Electronic power steering; no pumps, hoses, fluids, or leaks

If you’ve built a car before, or even had paintwork done on your daily, you’ll appreciate just how expensive the paint process can be. Long gone are the days when you could paint a car at home using nitro cellulose lacquer. Or are they? Lacquer paint may be a thing of the past in most states, but you can still paint a car in your home garage, thanks to Summit Racing’s two-stage urethane paint system.

For longer than we’d like to admit there’s been little or no progress on our Project RamRodder. And while we’d like to claim extenuating circumstances (or even better, find a way to blame Editor Brennan), the truth is things came to a stop because we know our limitations—what needed to be done exceeded our abilities. It was time to get the body ready for paint, our least-favorite part of building a car. From here on out we needed a real bodyman so we called on Jake Brazille, of Jake’s Place in Florence, Oregon, to get us back on track.

After decades of building cars for other people and teaching metalworking skills to hundreds of people through my workshops, I’m finally building a roadster for myself. This will be a track roadster with a ’27 Ford-style body, but instead of using an original body, or a steel or fiberglass reproduction, I’m making my own aluminum body.

For as long as hot rodders have stomped on the throttle, the resulting readout on the speedometer is a hit or miss proposition. Not anymore. Classic Instruments offers their Sky Drive based on current GPS satellite technology. This offers rodders a foolproof answer to having both an accurate speedometer and odometer—without the hassle normally associated with installation and calibration.

Every hot rod has a battery and with few exceptions these aren’t our daily drivers. Because of this type of use, or lack thereof, there’s always the possibility of having “dead” battery problems. There are preventative measures that all of us are aware of and employ. In order to dodge the occasional dead battery we install kill switches, disconnect or remove a battery from the car, or even the tried-and-true method of one form or another of battery minder.

Building a street rod is not unlike trying to fit 10 pounds of stuff into a 2-pound bag; there are lots of parts to put in a vehicle that doesn’t have room for many of them. When faced with such a dilemma there are but two logical choices: make the stuff smaller or the bag bigger. We’ve applied that thought process to a Model A pickup.

Unless you just crawled out from under a rock or have been doing the “Rip Van Winkle” thing for the past 10 years you know that hot rodding has gone full circle back to the roots of rodding with traditional hot rods dominating the scene. It seems street rodders understand hot rodding is as much about a time period as it is about cars and so hot rod styles from the ’40s through the early ’70s are coming on strong. Those of us who were cruising local hometowns in the ’60s were treated to a barrage of hot rod options. In the early ’60s there were still a healthy number of vintage hot rods, ’28-48 hot rods were still plentiful, but drag racing was coming on strong with most locations having several active tracks. This brought a whole new genre of cars, drag race cars, some dual-purpose cars that managed to get the owner to work all week and race on weekends, while others were dedicated race cars. Professional drag racing was growing with great rivalries in the top fuel, altered, and gasser ranks. Then, by the mid-’60s the muscle car movement was in full swing and suddenly factory hot rods were thrown into the mix and onto the strip. A day in the pits in 1965 would see plenty of Tri-Five Chevrolet gassers, along with some Willys, Anglias, and Austin gassers, next to a ’62 409 and a new GTO. Yeah, it was one very cool time period, seemingly with everything going on at once, a time period that many traditional hot rods love to revisit.

In the evolution of many mild customs, a taillight change is necessary in order to improve the flow and lines of the car. Some ’50s cars, such as the ’51 Oldsmobile, came with some rather unattractive taillights, while others featured classic designs that were frequently swapped onto other custom cars. When Highway 99 Hot Rods started building Jared Roethlisberger’s ’51 Oldsmobile, a pair of ’54 Mercury taillights were found in a box of parts that came with the car and he decided to use them. Since every car and every taillight is different, making a swap like this always requires a bit of ingenuity and fabrication. Follow along as we show you how we cleaned up the rear quarters of Jared’s Olds by swapping the stock taillights for these ’54 Merc taillights.

Channeling creativity when working on your hot rod is one of the main ways to infuse newfound personality into its design and construction, separating it from the rest. Over several issues, the team at the Rolling Bones Hot Rod Shop in Greenfield Center, New York, completed major fabrication elements on Dick DeLuna’s ’34 Ford coupe. They did so by lowering its cowl line, eliminating its lower frame point, and updating its front subrail assembly, thus adding plenty of exciting attitude to its overall appearance.

With the abundance of reproduction and aftermarket parts available today why would anyone even attempt to make their own? Oh, let us count the ways. Better yet, we’ll let Frank Wallic count them.

One of the unique design components of STREET RODDER’s 2010 Road Tour car is how the hood is secured without hood sides. Dual hood straps, usually found on vintage European cars, is the answer, and not only do they give the Road Tour roadster a unique look, but it’s quite functional too.

Powerful Relay

Paint is likely one of the most intimidating things consistent among all corners of the automotive world. It requires heaps of laborious preparation and the materials cost a ton, and that’s nothing to say of the mysterious device required to apply the stuff. I’ve yet to see a paint gun that so much as indicates the functions of its various knobs. There’s a sort of medieval appeal to the whole process; just as the ability to draw the sword from the stone confirmed the true king of England, somehow the ability to make sense of a gun’s knobs is innate to only those ordained to be painters.

There’s an intimidation factor that prevents many street rodders from tackling certain projects on their cars. This factor is particularly strong when it comes to chassis and suspension work—especially if that work involves welding and fabrication. Anytime you can alleviate some of that intimidation, you succeed in making many rodders more self-sufficient.

I started the project by making a paper pattern (arrow) of each of the original sills. After comparing similarities and differences, and figuring out rough dimensions, I traced the patterns onto a sheet of 0.048-inch 304 stainless steel and cut them out using a vertical bandsaw.

Hot rodders prefer coupes. (Editor’s note: I knew it wouldn’t take long for Pat and I to disagree. Hot Rodders prefer highboy roadsters!) They’re smaller, lighter, quicker, more intimate, and sportier than sedans. Well, yes, earlier sedans like A’s, Deuces, and ’34s—especially with chopped tops—do make good rod material, but it’s the later, fatter, and especially boxier sedans that rodders and customizers tend to eschew. Such sedans too often have the word “family” tacked in front.

It’s a great feeling to bolt a fresh engine and trans into your project car. Well, we suppose it is since we’re happy to see a used small-block sitting in the front of our ’51 for $15,000 project. It’s not fresh by any means, but when we traded the shell of a ’74 Duster for a used small-block and Turbo 350 trans, the thought of this project wasn’t even on our wish list. We’re not really even sure why we bought a non-running ’74 Duster in the first place. Could be it was rust-free and was only $250, but when we lost our storage, it was traded for a small-block that was easy to stash under a rack of parts.

When it comes to applying the latest technology to street rods some of us are more enthusiastic than others. If nuclear powerplants suddenly became available you can be sure Brennan would shoehorn a reactor under the hood of his highboy. Then there are those of us who are skeptics. Not to name names (editor’s note: this from a man whose calendar ended in 1967!), we all know guys who held back on the newest whatchamacallit until it was proven, who chose to stick with eight-tracks because cassettes would never catch on, and who believed points were superior to electronic ignition because you could always adjust those simple breakers out in the middle of nowhere, but if a module died you’d be stuck (editor’s note: Ron is unaware that you can purchase extra modules to place under the seat—where he keeps his Cheetos!).