The final period of assembly of a custom vehicle, when it's almost done and the open road is so close you can taste it, is just as exciting after an intense six-month build as it is for a rodder who has spent that many years building his dream car. You're past the making sparks and sneezing sanding dust phase and on to the fun of mounting parts, using the "good" fasteners instead of the temporary, cleaning chromed and powdercoated parts for final installation, and taking snapshots for the album.
Our readers may imagine that the STREET RODDER staff is exposed to so many fine examples of street rodding that everyone is jaded to the point of boredom. This is an understandable misconception. Truth is, our daily work couldn't be done unless all the folks on the magazine's masthead shared the same deep passion for street rods as you do. Thus, even though 2006 marks the 11th year for the annual Road Tour rod build, it's still exciting for the staff to see this '34 Chevy three-window project come down to the wire and start its summer of some 25,000 miles attending NSRA and other events all over the country.
The concept of the Road Tour car, to show what can be done with today's quality aftermarket components, is as valid as it was 11 years ago. Prices go up in our hobby, just as they do for housing, groceries, and new cars, but the ease of assembling a fine street rod has advanced right along with the improvement of the components.
Time was when installing an aftermarket speed part required an electric drill and several sizes of rat-tail files, and there were never any instructions. We're decades past that now, and our marketplace has demanded and received a quantum leap in quality and customer service. No one's going to tell you a street rod can be "assembled in your garage with a few hand tools in a few months of weekends," but the selection of parts available, the level of instructions and phone support, the stocking and fast delivery, and the installation -ready condition of components have certainly sped up the process of putting a car like ours together.
When we left our car last month, Boyd Coddington Hot Rods had assembled a show-worthy rolling chassis with a silver powdercoated chassis from the Roadster Shop and pussy-footin' independent suspension from Heidt's, with 15- and 17-inch rubber mounted on Wheel Vintiques Lakester Series rims. The powertrain and driveshaft slipped in snugly, and the now fully finessed bronze Outlaw Performance '34 body could be bolted down for the last time.
The rest of the car's completion seemed to go by in a blur, as event deadlines loomed not so far ahead and the pressure was on. Often various aspects of the car's progress were handled at the same time, with a glass installer working inside the body, others prepping fenders and other body parts for installation, and someone else installing the Tanks fuel tank or plumbing the refrigerant lines for our Vintage Air Gen II Supercooler heat-and-air unit. Despite the image projected by their television show, the busy crew at Boyd's seems to buzz around meeting deadlines without stinging each other too often. They've learned how to get things done when the pressure is on.