Hot Rods I want a California Kid driver

IIRC the coupe had a small block Ford from his T-bucket. The Chevy engine pics are from the American Grafitti coupe.

 

You don't remember correctly

 

Congratulations Bob!

 

It’s been very well established that the engine scenes in the movie are the American graffiti coupe. Jake’s coupe has a Chevy in it for the moment but the kid has always had a ford.

 

I did some more research and you are correct. The Kid had the SBF. The engine shots in the movie are of the AG cars engine. The sound of a BBC was dubbed in because the SBF didn't sound aggressive enough.

I stand corrected

 

Car is looking good in paint

 

To plagiarize Anthony Myrick, " I'd drive it". HRP

 

That's the plan

 

Eddy, there have been articles about the condition the car was in after filming. It got beat on pretty good and had stuff welded here and there for camera mounts and that back push bar. I didn't go looking for them due to a lot of things didn't get digitized and shared, but it might be out there online, not just print.

 

Well, here are a couple.
https://fuelcurve.com/the-california-kid/
https://digital.modernrodding.com/i...the-california-kid-the-hot-rod-and-the-movie/
which references this
https://patganahl.com/2021/02/22/trailing-the-california-kid/

 

Excellent!

 

I would imagine there are many others out there, not just those. The car has been a star that has interviews and articles about it since the 70s. That's a lot of attention over a lot of time.
I prefer straight from the source or vetted authors.
https://www.motortopia.com/wheels-in-motion-2/
https://www.motortopia.com/the-california-kid-the-back-story-part-2/
https://www.hotrod.com/features/the-california-kid-october-1974-982-1026-106-1

 

Another little random factoid about the kid, Jake’s coupe as well, is that while they were used for test beds for all sorts of new ideas and products the old brackets were never removed. If you crawl under the cars you can see brackets from the previous versions still in place. Kind of a cool little detail and nod to the whole test bed road warrior thing.

I love that the cars still get driven a pretty fair amount and are kept in tune. Not sitting under s layer of dust with bad gas in the tank.

 

I know that this got cleared up in subsequent posts, but I’ll add a little visual aid here.
2 Engines for a scene & a little Hollywood Foolery.
If one is an open to interpretation, well Pete’s 34 was/is powered by a Windsor based FoMoCo 302 which wasn’t available in 1958. The Small Block Chevrolet whether it was a 265ci, 283 or a 327 which is what was in the AG 32 Coupe at the time of this film’s production doesn’t exactly fit the timeline either but the SBC family dates itself back to September 1954 for the 55 model year production for Chevrolet so the exterior architecture does.
In the script, it’s stated to character Lyle Stafford by Michael McCord, “Do you know how to drive a stick shift Lyle?”. Which he replies “Yes, He does”.
Pete’s car again is an Automatic, the Graffiti Coupe used a T-10 4spd. The soundtrack itself uses a Big Block Corvette’s exhaust note so that again is movie magic. The actual movie car can be built to the script. An exact duplicate of Pete’s pre-California Kid Coupe would be a different car than what is the present day car.
That’s the great thing about Hot Rods-Plenty of options.