"Gowjobs": Depresion Era Performance and Early day hop-up tech

Go right ahead! That is after all, what this thread is about.

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looks like a lot of Buick radiator surrounds hanging on the wall - were they the gowjob job before whippets or is my eye site mis-interpreting the pixels?

 

Bob, that's one of my favorite T pics- and probably the one that sparked the desire to build a 20's gow/speedster/etc!

 

Yes, It sure does have the look. Maybe that T rear is lowered by poping the rivets and rolling the outter housings forward to allow the spring mounts to be at 3 o'clock and not 12, that was a poor mans way of lowering things back then. The rear is well behind the stock location. The driveshaft may be shortened with an overdrive trans as well. Bob

 

I just want the point out that the stripped-down car in the speed shop / junkyard pic is not the same car as in the catalog pic. I believe the car in the speed-shop pic is Chapel's earlier effort pictured head-on in the Batchelor book. Notice the difference in the cowl and radiator shell.

 

Somewhere, I have pics of a full-fendered T with a wood speedster body that showed up on Ebay some years back that was really well-done and sat nice and low like the T above. If I can find them, I'll post them.

 

That is not my old friend Gabby's T in the picture of Lee's speed shop.

 

I'm sure the roadster in front of Lee's shop was lowered the way everyone else lowered their Fords back then, dropped axles, 26-7 spindles and raised rear cross members. That's what Gabby did in '33 and again in the 90s.

Gabby's T, the only 2 photos of the car.





The second picture was on a display board that he use to set next to his 2nd "recreation" T. The story goes that it was taken on top of Mount Baldy which is a mountain high above L.A. where the transmitters are now for radio and TV stations. In truth the picture was take on the back side of Signal Hill in Long Beach, Ca where Gabby lived. His car wouldn't make it past the city of Bellflower which is about 5 miles from Gabby's old house. It sure as hell would not have make it to Lees speed shop. Plus Gabby's car has a chopped windshield. The one at Lees doesn't.

These shots are also 2 of the earliest examples of a hot rod having flames that I've ever seen, such as they are. He was in high school when he built the car. And it's worth noting that this was his 2nd T. The first one he lost in the earth quake of '33. It was in the Poly High School shop building for an axle dropping (they had a jig and a forge) and the building fell on it. Total loss. Said he had 3 bucks tied up in the car.


I've posted this picture before, maybe even in this thread? It's the earliest one I've found of a T's having 'the look'. Mid 1920's almost new T. Dropped axles and raised rear cross members, So Cal.
The lady who's photo this was said they were called 'cut downs' back then.

 

I gotta disagree on the wheelbase thing. It may have been rolled forward as far as the rear spring goes as you suggest to drop, but then the rear crossmember moved forward as well to compensate for the wheelbase. I'm pretty sure the wheel base on that car is stock. Stock on these cars the rear axle is pretty close to centered on the tail end of the turtle deck. Now, where you might be getting tripped up a bit, In my research into full fendered "T" roadsters I have noticed that when they were built in the fifties through seventies as stock bodied cars with V8s in 'em it was pretty common to slide the whole body back 2-4" to avoid sinking the firewall. It's taken me damn near a lifetime to notice this. I had always thought that the turtle deck being more centered on the rear axle WAS the stock body lines, but no. The more I have been looking at stock restored cars the last few years, the clearer this has become.

 

I said yesterday that I would post some pictures of Gabby's latest "T". Some of these I'm sure I grabbed from here, some I took at LARS, and some I'm pretty sure came from Hop Up mag. Might be some others in the mix too, we'll see what I find... I guess the ones I took at LARS are deeper in my rat tangle of pictures!

'37 KID, I added a couple of these pictures to illustrate what I'm talking about with wheelbases... If you look at a the fenderless roadster with the chopped and raked windshield you'll see the natural axle/body locations of an early "T"... Now look at the more modern full fendered car below. That's the profile I grew up seeing when guys were building these cars with V8s in the sixties and seventies. See how much longer the hood line is? See where the rear wheels relate to the "bun" of the body? That body is pushed back a good 3"...

 

Need Louvers, all the pics of Gabby and his T that you posted are ones I took. The first 8 out of 9 shots. Most were taken in his driveway.

I like that fenderless roadster too. Cool car.

 

Ya, I caught that and edited it right after posting to reflect that fact. Sorry, my pictures must be farther down in my gallery and I'll find and post them later.

Now, since you knew the man, (lucky you!) did he ever comment on the car in the Lee Chapel speed shop photo? My thinking is, that town was a much smaller place back then, someone who had a similar car would have had to know about that one if it wasn't indeed his car in the photo. Any other ideas?

 

Yup. I know that one does blur the line for a Gow Jobs thread, but damn it's cool! And ya, I did notice that the rear wheels were very carefully centered on that car. Someone took their time and got as crazy ****-retentive as I have a tendancy to be on that one...

 

As far as I know Gabby never knew Lee, but he did say that at least in Long Beach in the early 1930's you couldn't throw a stick towards the street without hitting a cut down, gow, hop up, (pick a term) Ford. That's what the kids did. Built old Fords.

Dan Iandolla told me to that the flying skull on the radiator was to identify what school you went to as well. One school would cast them up with a certain look and the others had their own separate look. It was like their colors back in the day. He has a collection of them and is the one who gave me the one on my old T. I added the cigarette when I was polishing it out. It was a pretty rough casting.

 

I really need to get another T. This thread is like a freaking sickness.

 

And your back will thank you for it.


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I will venture to say that the car in question is or could be the same, just rebodied. The engine, exhaust, front axle setup all look the same. The radiator shell does have different proportions, but may have simply been cut down....the top half looks remarkably similar. The ch***is and drivetrain were the important parts....bodies were replaceably. Perhaps a nicer and narrower early roadster body came along?

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Jesus H Christ! you sound like my wife.

 

Thanks for the schooling I felt there were quite a few similarities between the roadster in question and Gabby's car. Since you knew the man (and a few others from that period) you have a far better "insiders view" then most. Perhaps the "Mystery Roadster" is Bob Eates's car in an earlier form? ...or "Multi's" before the fenders came off?

...and yes, you do need another T

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Just don't kiss me when you see me tomorrow at breakfast.

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The doors one the one at the shop and the one on page 90 in Batchelor's book look the same and it looks like it still has the '24 Chevy frame and front suspension. The narrowed one has a transverse spring as well as a totally different body. The S&G roadster went through that spring change. Who knows, maybe Lee drove every fenderless car he owned 111.11 mph.

 

Great thread, just spent over 1hr going from start to end... (waiting at LAX for a flight to Tokyo!)

Makes me want to get a T now as well!

 

No, Flyin' T, just to be clear I was speaking of early "T"s when I was explaining "pushing a body back". '26 and '27s that trick wouldn't work of course because of the fenders attached to the body and not the frame. I could post some other examples of this deal with '23-'25 cars, but they would border on "wildly O/T" for this thread.

I have enough stuff gathered for my full fendered '24 roadster, and a client has just bought a full fendered '24 touring body to clone Grabowski's tub that I'll have to build a ch***is for later this year, so I'm going into a "T" phase again.. I'm going to start a seperate thread for the more modern '50s and '60s full fendered cars and see where that goes. My car will get the body shoved back about 2" and an equal stretch in the hood mostly to help with a spring behind rear axle (again not appropriate for this thread), but otherwise it's outside detailing will be VERY similar to Gabby's car or the mystery "T" in the Chapel's speed shop photo.

 

I got ya, you're building a different era T, but there's no way you can push the body back on any full fendered T and have the wheels centered. I think we're talking about 2 different things, maybe?

stock '23 T

 

Well, there goes my appe***e.

Actually I wasn't even thinking about my back. I was thinking of the stupid skin cancer. If I get another T it would have to be a coupe and there were no hop-ed up coupes in the era of gow so if I got one and built it like the one in my head, all the kids would make fun of me and point and laugh.

 

...unless you push the axle back too like I did. My T is stretch a total 6 to 8 inches. When I built my rear axle lowering brackets...it pushed the rear axle back 2 or 3 inches....so I had to shove the body back the same to keep the wheels centered in the curve for the fenders.

If your not changing the wheel base and Z'ing the rear crossmember then you are correct...they wouldn't be centered.
My $.02

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I wouldn't.

 

I agree it appears to be the same engine and exhaust, but I also think that Six Ball is correct and that the car at the speed shop has Chevy 490 front suspension (quarter elliptical).

I think the Chevy engine was likely transferred to the newer / better T ch***is and body at some point. The 490s are not known for their high-speed stability.

 

Not sure how you did that pic from multis roadster but I like it. Pretty close to what's in mt head

 

Mid 1920's Mercury Body Co.