Yes it's a Hot Rod mag article... I'm not usually a big fan of magazine cars , but this is a pretty cool story. Article: http://www.hotrod.com/cars/featured...BB50F86848DB08127318D25B35F6089AE9B44A1E82B0F And forgive me if this is a duplicate post.
Okay, so what's chances of this unknown coupe built by Earl Pape of Ventura, California, being the same car as the one in the Hot Rod article before Lew Thompson got his hands on it? The photo below appears on page 15 of Tony Baker's book Hot Rodding In Ventura County (California). This quote from the Hot Rod article is interesting: "Before (Lew) Thompson got this '32 in 1947, somebody made a "poor man's three-window" out of a five-window coupe by covering the quarter windows with sheetmetal and then leading them in." And, although the amount of channel is obviously different, both are claimed to have a 3" chop. Hmmmm. Another quote from the Hot Rod article is even more interesting as it sets the timeline and makes the likelihood even more plausible: "Thompson wrote letters to Arnette about the car's history, how "about 1946 or 1947" after his freshman year in high school, he got the car in a trade for a '36 Ford phaeton he had purchased for $600." The Whistlers club, of which Pape was a member, had been founded in 1947 by a group of Ventura High students, so the Tony Baker photo could easily predate all the photos in the Hot Rod story. I wonder if Thompson lived in Ventura at the time? But then, Ventura and Turlock are not that far apart... So...is the Pape coupe the car Thompson got in the trade and then went on to upgrade? Hmmmm. What say you?
If you read both stories, I don't see how they can be the same car...Lew traded a 36 ford for an unchannelled, full fendered 32 coupe. Lew removed the fenders himself and channeled the coupe.... Pape's coupe was already chopped, unfendered, and channeled when Pape owned it.
Yes, there are some differences in the stories but the cars themselves look su****iously alike, don't you think...?
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