Deuce

(This picture ran in the magazine. I can’t run the whole pik, because it’s across the fold.)

My April 2008 issue of Car & Driver magazine has an interesting proposition, a 1932 Ford hot-rod built with so-called “modern” components.
Well, “modern” is a relative term, since it’s still a body on a ladder-frame with a frame-spanning rear tractor axle.
You only see that construction-method on trucks any more. Cars are more normally unit-construction (frameless), and rear-suspensions fully independent.
The hot-rod is of course rear-wheel-drive. Cars are more normally front-wheel-drive or all-wheel-drive. Rear-wheel-drive is usually trucks, although a few RWD cars are being made.
But various components are new.
The motor is a new Hemi over-the-counter crate-motor; a 392 cubic-inch version of the Hemi V8 Chrysler now puts in so many vehicles.
As such it’s fuel-injected. Carburetors are old news; too sloppy to meet emission requirements.
392 cubic-inches was the final displacement of the original Hemi in 1958. It was in the fabulous Chrysler 300-series, precursor to all future muscle-cars.
The car also uses the new Chrysler four-speed auto-tranny. Sacrilege! A proper hot-rod had standard transmission; preferably four-on-the-floor.
The author even says something about right foot for go-pedal, left foot for stop-pedal. —I still drive with my right foot operating both accelerator and brake. My left foot was for the clutch-pedal, which none of our current cars have (they’re all auto-tranny).
The body isn’t Ford either, although probably better. It’s a Dearborn Deuce reproduction of the ‘32 Ford roadster body, in steel, but with longer doors and more cockpit room.
It’s also a convertible; i.e. the canvas top folds into a well behind the seat covered by a metal tonneau.
So it looks like a ‘32 Ford, but ain’t. And bar none the 1932 Ford roadster was one of the most appealing hot-rods of all time (although I prefer the three-window coupe).

(This picture also ran in the magazine — a very small pik.)

But unfortunately there’s no getting around the ancient underpinnings — that ladder-frame and tractor-axle.
The car also uses a beam front-axle on a buggy-spring: standard fare at that time, but now ancient.
The author admits the steering is “wooly;” steering is much better now.
Years ago, all through high-school and college, I looked forward to owning a 1955 Chevrolet two-door hardtop like some of the customs I knew in high-school: Corvette motor and four-on-the-floor.
The ‘55 Chevy was revolutionary for its time, but looked at since then, it suffers from too many styling gimcracks — like the wraparound windshield, and lines better suited to a Buick.
But it was light, and had the fabulous Small-Block V8 motor, introduced by Chevrolet in that model-year.
More-than-likely, the ‘55 Chevy customs I saw in high-school were just the stock 265 cubic-inch Small-Block warmed over, not the ‘Vette.
But in college my break was to draw a ‘55 Chevy with the new 327 cubic-inch Small-Block motor.
Then too my parents had a ‘57 wagon with the 283 Power-Pak Small-Block (four-barrel carb, dual exhausts). I was smitten.
About 15 years ago a ‘55 Chevy Belair two-door hardtop appeared in the want-ads — the car of my dreams. I had to go look; afraid I might spill.
The owners (actually inheritors, since the guy who built it had died) took me for a spin.
My reaction was “What in the wide-wide world did I ever see in this thing?” It’s frame was like an aluminum-ladder; goose the motor, and it twisted like a pretzel.
It sorely needed a complete frame-off restoration, but even then “throw $35,000 at it and it would still be an antique!”
I got back into our Faithful Hunda, and although it was slower and less intimidating (and quieter), it was much more my style. Cars have gotten much better since 1955.
The new Deuce looks great, but it would be more a toy for profiling than transportation. —And I’m sure it would be a bear to drive.

“RWD” is rear-wheel-drive.

“Four-on-the-floor” is four-speed standard transmission, floor-shifted (as opposed to column-shift [“on the tree”]). Floor-shift was more precise, and quicker, than steering-column shift.

A roadster didn’t have a fold-down retractable convertible top. It usually ran with no top at all.

The Chevrolet “Small-Block” V8 was introduced at 265 cubic-inches displacement in the 1955 model-year. It continued production for years, first at 283 cubic inches, then 327, then 350. Other displacements were also manufactured. The Chevrolet “Big-Block” was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches, and was unrelated to the Small-Block.

“The Faithful Hunda” is our 1989 Honda Civic All-Wheel-Drive station-wagon, by far the BEST car we ever owned, now departed (replaced by our 2003 Honda CR-V). (Called a “Hunda” because that was how a fellow bus-driver at Transit [Regional-Transit-Service in Rochester, where I once worked] pronounced it.)