Yeah, and despite EVERYONE telling him not to screw with that car he gave it the full smoothie treatment and then regretted and sold it. Spent a ton and made the car worth less than if he had left it alone.
Thanks guys for ALL the info. I feel better informed now. Would never give up my sedan but, after the 50 Olds--------maybe like to try a 32 roadster pickup. Thanks , again HAMBERS. _________________________________________________________ Like I told the kid, "your music not too loud, it just*****s!"
Hemifarris, Looks like you have a really nice start on a awesome ride. Keep posting your progress. _________________________________________________ Like I told the kid,"Your music not too loud, it just*****s!"
There's no denying roadster P/U's make******in rods(!!!), but what was their original intended market in the 20's/30's? Back then, a pickup truck was strictly business. Ford produced only several hundred roadster p/u's per year vs. tens of thousands of regular cabs. The roadster p/u offered zero passenger protection from a shifting heavy load during a quick stop. As practical as Henry was, it seems odd that they continued to produce them as they sold very few, though I guess the same could be said for Vicky's and Phaeton's. Possibly the roadster pickup buyer was the businessman, farmer or childless young couple that required a pickup for their light business needs, but really wanted to have a roadster. They got both on a one car budget.
FAKE - not even close. And the pic from Throttle Merchants is also of a fake - thats a '31 Model A cab. '32 RPUs had an almost flat cab back with three indented rectangular panels. They also had a sharply kicked up beltline moulding behind the door. I am very familiar with these as I had two real ones back in the 1990s and turned down the opportunity to buy a very low mileage third one. I sold one in 1999 and the other at the 2004 LARS. 593 is the correct production figure and I believe that only the factory prototype had the passenger grille and chrome headlight buckets - that one also had the 1930/31 Model A type hood with the stamped reveal around the louvers. Not one single body (cab) panel interchanges with any other Ford (except the RPUs from 1933 - Production 337 and 1934 Production 18, are the figures I have always heard). Doors are 2 inches longer than '32 roadster doors - cowl is 2" shorter. Windshield posts are one piece and specific to this model only - they are nothing like the deuce open car windshield posts, nor are they like the Model A. The windshield****embly has a curved metal clad wood filler beneath the windshield frame. The windshield frame is a 1928/9 Model A, but the filler panel is used below it to give additional height due to the taller windshield posts. Dash looks like '32 roadster but has much smaller opening and different dimensions. Most of the 1932-34 RPUs were sold to fruit farmers and wine growers in CA. Rumor has it that the first thing they would do is remove the non folding top and the doors and run them around the orchards like that. I have heard that there is a stash of take off doors somewhere in CA. What a find that would be. Valley Ford Parts also made 6 'glass bodies pulled off a '32 RPU original cab sometime in the 1960s, and I know that a couple of these are out there - one was in Portland, OR and belonged to Roger Brinkley who bought it from Dale Poore. The molds were lost in a fire back in the 1970s as I recall. I imported a 1932 Roadster ute from Australia (Type 304) in 2003 and this is being built in a traditional style, in PA. May be finished this year and is going to be one sweet ride.
of course it isnt real. its an aftermarket body (32 roadster pickup from brookville) with a handmade bed. obviously the repops arent the same shape as a real..anyone can spot that.
Heres my interpretation .....not particularly accurate , my own created fibreglass version using a Model A bed , but I like it !!
Yep Tommy, that's a real one. That is the one I sold to George Thomas in upstate NY in 1999. It was originally owned by the Sacramento Fire Department and was sold in 1958 to a guy who hot rodded it with a 283/4 speed. I bought it out of Montana and repatriated it to CA. The guy who had bought it from Sacramento FD called me a week after I had sold it to George, wanting to know if it was his old truck and wanting to buy it back - he was bummed when I told him it was going East. We discussed certain aspects which only somebody who had worked on the cab would have found and confirmed that this was indeed it - it had been painted orange and drag raced with a BBC being fitted at some stage. George put a 302 Windsor with a tripower in it - beautiful job he did with it, although I am not wild about the color.
There was a glass one at The Bunny Run in Jackson TN. a couple of years ago. It was an accurate copy and I thought the owner told me it was a Gibbons body. Either way, cowl, dash, windshield and doors are different from passenger.
I saw this truck probably when you had it at the LARS. There were 2 of them there that year. I had never seen one before that. The new owner said indeed it was the same one that I saw 3 years earlier and 3000 miles away. These were taken at the Nats East in York Pa. in2002
"Not one single body (cab) panel interchanges with any other Ford (except the RPUs from 1933 - Production 337 and 1934 Production 18, are the figures I have always heard). Doors are 2 inches longer than '32 roadster doors - cowl is 2" shorter. Windshield posts are one piece and specific to this model only - they are nothing like the deuce open car windshield posts, nor are they like the Model A. The windshield****embly has a curved metal clad wood filler beneath the windshield frame. The windshield frame is a 1928/9 Model A, but the filler panel is used below it to give additional height due to the taller windshield posts. Dash looks like '32 roadster but has much smaller opening and different dimensions". To my previous post, re. this being an odd production run in limited numbers; With no panel interchanges with other models, that makes it an expensive run. With only several hundred made, did Ford even make a return on their tooling investment for the specialized panels? Wonder if the roadster p/u run was done in one fell swoop (assy line shift) vs. a single one popped together evry once in a while during the production year (serial #'s would tell)??? "Most of the 1932-34 RPUs were sold to fruit farmers and wine growers in CA. Rumor has it that the first thing they would do is remove the non folding top and the doors and run them around the orchards like that. I have heard that there is a stash of take off doors somewhere in CA. What a find that would be". That answers my question re. intended buyers market. Wonder if any of those take-off "2" longer than roadster doors" were actually already picked up by rodders/restorers decades ago and sit in a garage rafter or hang on a shed wall? Someone w/o a 32 roadster or a non roadster expert (such as myself) would never notice the 2" door difference. In fact, I bet most of us wouldn't notice the difference if we casually saw one laying on the deck at an auto swap meet. I guess central and Norcal rodders should be hitting any sort of farm or vineyard reduction or closing sale looking for roadster doors!!!
I lived in Fresno for years and I doubt that there are any more avid duece hunters anywhere. Between the old "hard toppers" and the farmers kids plus the city boys, most of those barns have been turned inside out. Sure there's still struff out there but did you ever try to deal with a rich guy that doesn't want to sell?
Thanks to all you guys for the wealth of information. __________________________________________________________ Like I told the kid, "Your music not too loud, it just*****s!"
Roadster Ute - yeh, I guess, but this one, like I mentioned was made here in Canada. It says so on the tag. and it's definitely a deuce. I've seen the 33/34s too. This one definitely has regular Deuce roadster doors. Not cut down truck doors and same length as a regular roadster door.
A type 302 Standard Utility Car or "Ute". Using passenger (roadster) sheet metal, the bed sides were made in Australia and were for the Aussie market only!. This model carried the Australian body type designation `VL` and less than 100 were made. There was also a type 304 Welltype Utility car that had shelved pickup bed sides, possibly the type shown in `Jimmy Bs` earlier posting. This car was possibly a modified type B35 Phaeton...
In Orange County, CA, roadster pick ups were quite popular in the '30's with citrus growers who used them to drive around in their lemon and orange groves. The lack of a top enabled them to look up into the trees to check their fruit. Back then, they were commonly known as "orchard trucks."
hey brizey,,,that orange one above is the one i posted on the nsra uk site and you said it was fake,,you now owe me a nite of free beer,!!!!!!!!!,i saw it at york also,,bob
Affter talking to my friend I have to revise what I said. The '32 Ute chassis were built in Canada. There were 99 4 cylinder trucks built and 12 V8s. The 4 banger engines were built in England and since the serial number is stamped in the bellhousing these vehicles have English serial numbers. The V8 engines were built in Canada and so those have Canadian serial numbers. The bodies were built in Australia, These 302 and 304 body styles were built from late '32 to mid '34. The Cowl and doors are standard Australian roadster pieces. The lower windshield stantions are standard '32 but the upper posts are standard moel A (painted) and the top****y is Standard Model A. Since the top is taller than a roadster the top is also Model A. Here's a pic of my friend's car and some interestin brochures.
You're wound pretty tight. I don't think these fellows are trying to pass them off as REAL. I also think these pickups are very well executed AND took more work and creativity to build than a super rare stock bodied RPU. Do you like hot rods?
I always see this one at the SoCal Open House during the Roadster Show and it looked original to me. I took this one at SoCal's Deuce Week Open House in February 2007. This is the same one that 3WLarry posted. I wish I could say I own one of these but I'm glad that I don't have to say I did and sold it.
Damn, I WANT one of these!! But then I say that about every Deuce I see! Very cool looking body style. I think I actually like it better than the roadster pickup.
Just setting the record straight and I get a little tired of the guys who try to********* you and tell you their fake/phantom whatever is the real deal. I have no problem if the guy is straight up about it and doesn't try the 'authentic'***** routine. Yep I guess buying a ready made Brookville 1-800 phantom cab, bed and repro fenders on a finished repro '32 chassis takes a lot more work and creativity than dragging a real one back home, fighting years of rust, dents, neglect, abuse, where you have to torch off almost every single bolt because either the heads are rounded off, they are frozen or the slots on the screw heads roach out. Then there is all the grease filth and pile of crud left on the garage floor, the hacked, butchered frame and years of frightmares to undo. Follow this by rebuilding and re-engineering the chassis, pounding out dents fixing holes and metal finishing the body etc. and then replacing rotted cracked and dried body wood trying to reproduce it from the sad remnants, because Brookville doesn't creatively make it for a real '32 RPU and nor does anybody else. But then again I guess I probably do not like hot rods so it doesn't really matter eh? I just like to donate blood to a worthy cause and see if I can get tetanus, or gangrene. Wound tight - not really - kinda tongue in cheek. Sold the '32 RPU's because I decided that rare though they may be, they are also IMO***** ugly trucks - 1930/31 Model A RPUs are much better looking.
I don't EVEN think these guys are passing their vehicles off as REAL 32's. If these are Brookeville* bodies, I apologize about the "work involved" as I believed these to be crafted into phantom style RPUs which includes YOUR endless hours of torching and hammering of original parts, IN ADDITION, putting them back together in a good looking albeit, never existed, body style. *not that there is anything wrong with 'em.... Anyway, no harm, no foul!! XXXXXOOOOOO
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