There is a bit of a story that goes with this car, that hits super close to my heart. i will make this the short version. When i was fresh out of high school i wanted to build a Model A sedan hot rod something fierce. the problem was i didnt really know anyone or anything about them. My supervisor at work had been telling me about his cars and a friend of him that had been building hot rods since the 50's. So finally after a few weeks he took me up to meet him. His name was Bob Keethler aka "The Tin Man", he had been building cars and going west bringing back good western sheet metal his entire life. he was a typical bare bones hot rodder that worked with minimal tools. A lot of people said all his work was crude, so he called his shop Crude Automotive. Needless to say we hit it off and i was at his house constantly trying to **** up as much knowledge as i could. Shortly after i started coming around he was diagnosed with lung cancer, so we never really got to build a lot or work on his projects due his treatments and being ill. but i still came around and talked shop and just soaked up as much as he would tell me. At this time i was doing work on newer cars as a hobby and had a small shop to work in. One day out of no where Bob says " you know what? you are pretty good at building things and really seem to have an eye for how a hot rod should look and function. I think you should quit your job and start building hot rods for a living. So that is exactly what i did! So a few years went by and i was building hot rods and still hanging out with Bob while he was battling lung cancer, but never getting to really work on a car with him since he was so ill. Eventually he lost his fight with cancer, which was rough to loose your mentor that had helped so much. he had left me a couple of things that we had always talked about building together, which are still waiting their turn. But after his p***ing i had the opportunity to purchase on of his projects that he had started and I had always liked. It was a 25 Dodge boat tail speedster. It was rough and still needed a lot of work. So i got it and took it home to wait until i had time and money to finish it. Well that was 6 years ago........ The time has come and i am finally finishing the car he started. Like i said he was known for doing things a little on the crude side, but he had really good ideas. so i will be re doing some of the work and leaving a lot of the work alone. I dont want to change everything he did or else it loses that connection. So here is where i am, it is a 25 Dodge roadster body, the cowl was stretched 4 inches. Sits on a modified A ch***is, with an A banger, model T grill shell, and a Banjo rear end. This is what it looked like after i pulled it out of his barn and got it home after the 6 years of neglect, a new banger, and everything being sand blasted and primed. my biggest problem was with the front sheet metal being overlapped and tacked to stretch the cowl. so i decided to make a new firewall, new cowl, new door bottoms, new door skins, aluminum hood and sides, and an aluminum grill shell. worked on the door bottoms as well. made new lower bottoms and put them on. not perfect but good enough for my personal car, that i will never sell That is all the progress for my first week on this build. I have decided to work on this car after 5pm, and Sundays. So I hope to keep the progress moving
a little more progress on this one from tonight. got the driver side door skin made and installed. i decided the make the skins out of 3003-14 aluminum since it is a speedster old door skin removed used the skin to make a paper pattern used the E wheel to put the shape in the skin, bead roller to the tip the hem edge, then plannished the skin to remove any imperfections from the tipping. then hammered and dollied the hem to attach the skin to the inner door frame
Wow, this is great. Can we please see the boat tail please? I've brought a 39 Terraplane hood to use for mine, trying to use as much Hudson stuff as I can.
Great start! Is the wheel base still stock Model A? It looks like its been kicked up in the rear? Great work!!!
The Jalopy Journal
