Hot Rods The 60 year history of a little California Hot Rod

ZeroWLarry

 

Me too. Hell I am not using anything like a '32 frame in my coupester, but I saw your toeboards years ago, and thought " I can use that." Bet theres lots of other good ideas there as well.

 

Harold stopped by with his wife today to see the car and he remembered that the guy who traded him this car said that this car was first built with a metal track nose and a full hood that went around the headers in the 1940's, and was in Hot Rod magazine at one time!
Any of you guys have any early Hot Rod magazines to verify this?
He also said he found the original business card of the man who upholstered this car back in 1963. He was from a town called Otai?...sounds like oh tie. He's bringing me the card later and I'll show pics of it.

 

Drawing a blank here. The first one that sprung to mind was the one on the cover with Grabowskis car, but that was a '23/'25. '27 RP with a track nose? Did it have the fenders on it then?

 

Close, you sure it wasn't "oh hi".
There is a small town near Santa Barbara spelled Ojai.

 

Maybe Otay Mesa since it was in San Diego when this story starts.

 

O-tay with me.

 

That is logical and makes sense.

 

Andy southard Jr.
Had a sweet 27rpu in his book hot rods of the 1950's

 

same truck as middle one above, later incarnation.

 

Yes correct
This was my favorite incarnation of it

 

Is it finished yet? A very exciting story.

 

Update...

My buddy Mark came over today and helped me strip the upholstery out of the T. There weren't any staples holding it in...it was all little brad nails. The brown furry shit you see is horse hair insulation...remember this was done back in 1963. The yellow foam had 'Airfoam' ink-stamped on it.
When we got it all stripped and vacumed out, I couldn't believe the condition of the metal. Someone had brush- applied tar to the entire inside of the body in the '50's. There wasn't any rust except a little surface rust on the top back panel. The original wood was still in the car for cripes sake... and look at the condition of the doors...the metal looked new. I found one little area that had some cancer about the size of a book of matches (remember those?) on the drivers lower back quarter...I'm going to leave it there 'just because'.
Mark is a large burly truck driver that's 6 foot something and weighs in about 250lbs. He and I both sat in the car after everything was stripped...and we fit! Sitting on the floor, my shoulders were below the body, and with my legs stretched out, my feet were still about 6" from the firewall!...I'm gonna fit in this puppy just fine at 5'6"...here's a few pics of the carnage...

 

Larry
Lucky for you the upholstery wasn't done in TJ.
No personal experience on this but have you heard the old joke (may not be a joke)
about south of the border stitchers, apparently they would use WLA (whatever was laying around) for padding. Something about donkeys...........oh nevermind.
Just in case you haven't picked up on it yet; you have a bunch of us that are as giddy about this project as we hope you are.
P.S .......did you find that clutch pedal yet?

 

you....and your clutch pedal can bite me

 

I have door envy. Yours are VIRGIN!

 

Larry, that tar stuff on the inside looks just like the stuff my dad had on the inside of the coupe. he said it was something they sold back then to protect the inside of the car. it worked well at preserving it. i used a heat gun to get it off and the metal looked like new underneath..........if i knew that i would have left it.

 

Everybody on the HAMB is happy you will not use this pretzel piece of shit for a jig. I wouldn't want to meet you coming down the street with a frame you built from this shit. Losing interest AIN't A BAD THING.

 

These are just so badass. They are in third place, closely behind a '29 on Deuce rails and the KING(the Deuce). I don't discriminate. I just KNOW what is numero uno. Love your project.

 

You have the late door latches and the ring around the side curtain hole in the door, safe to say it is a 1927. Bob

 

I think it just might be possible he was yankin' our chains.... "high back buckets for my camero"??Get it?

 

Damn jokesters.

 

Several of those pesky critters in our neighborhood were victims of lead poisoning. Must have been something in the air.

 

It's settled then.... "5anahalffoot" Larry it is!!

 

I was thinking of ''Free of windows Larry''.
Larry, good luck with finding you car in the magazine. JW

 

Sidecurten Larry?

 

What happened to the 32 pick up project?....that was a 3W!

 

guy changed his mind and kept it...also tried to buy his '32 sedan, but after having it 20 years he said no

 

Epic thread in the making, good stuff here.

Larry, excuse me, 3wLarry, could you make some posters of you sitting in the tub, one of those in the shop would be great. When I slack off or get distracted I could glance up at the poster and your ( catch phrase) would help me/us focus and get back to the task at hand, building bitchen traditional hotrods.

 

Wow Larry, this RPU that you found was pretty cool, continued as a Hot Rod when taken apart then changed around a couple of times, even peaked your interest 40 yrs ago. Amazing, but most rods that evolved were like Harold's and saw a lot of road miles under it's chassis. To know that the guy who swapped and brought to the midwest is still around to see something that he made so many memories in is awe-inspiring.
The 27 T-Ster that I have was found under a porch off the Russian River in Santa Rosa,CA. I don't think I paid 4 bills for it with a frame. Since my brother turned me on to it, he has the frame as I had the roller that's under it since the late 90's. It was owned by a Korean War Vet who had both the turtle deck and the bed. I bought it with the turtle deck which was how the guy drove it around in the 50's.
When he needed to haul something home he'd swap out the deck for the bed. Hence I bought a bed for $175.00 with tail gate bullet holes and all. When it was 1st built with the banger, it went to Muroc, El Mirage just to cruise the pits. It was pretty fun as I had a very gear friendly QC in it then (Gotta put that back under it). I used to lend it to this 17 yr old whippersnapper who was building a T-Ster similar to it as well. It was a car project that he later sold, but he drove the wheels off of this one.
He's now built a Cad powered A-bone Coupe, It's low brow w/tons of tude!!!! I thought I lost him there for a while, but was pleasantly surprised when I saw the coupe.
Build your T-ster as you'd like, (I kinda prefer the way it looked w/the CA Plates) it's gotta be a fun project and provide you with miles of smiles .