Hey, folks... Here goes; I've been a lifelong gearhead and tinkerer. I've had some cl***ics('68 Fury, '72 Fury, '74 Datsun Z) and I've dabbled in the commonplace(Mazda Miata - don't laugh, it's fun and the handling is ridiculously good). I'm a KC-10 crew chief at Travis AFB in CA and aspiring civil aircraft mechanic hoping to someday retire into a cushy job playing with old planes. I'm jonesing after a '37 Studebaker or Nash Lafayette coupe restomod. Someday. Have to get the career squared away first. In the meantime, I've got a very close friend by the name of Joe that lets me borrow / upgrade / play with / break this beastie: It's a '37 Olds F37 Sport Coupe, jokingly called the Brown Cloud. It's spent most of its life in Oregon. It's astoundingly clean - the mechanicals and sheet metal look as if they belong to a car 1/3rd its age. It underwent a restoration in recent history, and then was purchased by an owner that wanted a hot rod. He handed it off to rod builder Bill Blizzard, who dropped in a crate 350 and 700R4, keeping the stock rear end(enter the highly-sought after Olds rear end). It's on lowering blocks in the rear and I believe the front has had the springs trimmed. It's down about two inches, which isn't all that obvious. I had to crawl under the car and see the blocks in the rear before I realized it was riding lower than stock. Joe and I brought the car down from Oregon last year, a 900 mile trip from Portland to Oakland. She ran great, only shedding a windshield wiper and running out of fuel once in the process. I fixed the wiper and we had a good laugh about not keeping an eye on the fuel gauge in our excitement. Joe bought the car for a second car; he wants a '30s cl***ic that he can drive daily. Prior to that, he had a '36 DeSoto Airflow S2, bought sight unseen off of eBay. It was a disappointment, looking much better in photos than in person. The Olds replaced it. Since then, Rick at Promotive Performance in Walnut Creek dropped in a Vintage Air AC setup. I've added Unity driving lights, hooked the horn up to the stock horn ****on, and done small upgrades and fixes as needed. The goal is to get the car to a point that it runs and drives like a modern car, with comparable reliability and comfort. The next step is a front disc brake setup. I've been able to find limited information on conversions for the '37 Olds platform. Evidently Chevies are a simple swap, but B-O-P ch***is require considerably more work. I could really use help getting pointed in the right direction on the conversion. The goal is to change over to discs without any major modification to the car; a simple parts swap for upgraded components. There are a number of companies selling conversions, but nothing direct for a '37 Olds. Cheers!
The Jalopy Journal
