This 1932 Ford Roadster Is The Last True Blood Hot Rod
Every Rodder has his or her favourite. Whether it’s a car from the Art Deco-era thirties, the dumpy forties, the flamboyant fifties or the sleek and angular sixties. It’s that car that makes you go Wow, I’d like that! (The fact that most of us have a favourite in each decade only multiplies the frustration!)
They got talkingand an idea for the ultimate 1932 Ford Roadster Deuce Hi-Boy started to takeshape.
Dries Joker was like that. He’s been lusting after a Deuce Roadster (The Holy Grail of Rods, if you believe the Yanks!) since boyhood. Oh sure, he’d scratch the itch by building 1:24 scale dioramas. They featured his favourite car and hes even owned a few classics like two ’67 Mustangs, two Camaros (84 and 95) and two Corvettes (73 and 96) in his time. Unfortunately, never that elusive ’32…until now. In Dries eyes, nothing says ‘Hot Rod’ better than a red ’32 Deuce Hi-Boy’
Dries met car builder extraordinaire Jacques Mouton by chance at a Custom Classics’ 2007 open house party. They got talking and an idea for the ultimate 32 started to take shape. West Coast Rod & Custom would source a body and frame and do the build. Furthermore, a fibreglass body was available and Mouton got his hands on a Stepped-box frame that came from Port Elizabeth.
Dries went out to Langebaan to see Jacques and the two sat online for most of the day ordering whatever else they needed for the Hi-Boy. Then the parts started arriving and Jacques Mouton got ready for the build. Most of the suspension was sourced from Speedway in the States but the complete drive train was found locally; being made up of a 350 Chevy, Turbo 350 Box and a Borg-Warner diff off a Chevy Nomad. Also, the diff was fitted with a 2,92:1 ratio and the engine and box freshened up internally before a couple of weeks spent deburring, smoothing and painting the running gear.
Suddenly fate intervened and Don Pretorius at U.S Parts located a new all-steel 1932 Ford roadster body. It was unfinished but would halve the build time. It was duly bought and the complete drive train and suspension were transferred into the new car. Also, ladder bars with Carrera Coil-overs locate the diff, which was fitted with BMW discs and Honda callipers (to retain the handbrake facility) and the Superbell front axle is located with chrome hairpins and posies super slide spring. Wilwood front brakes put the squeeze on things if it all starts to move too quickly, and steering is taken care of by a Vega box with cross-steering.
The 350 was kept in stock internally because the car weighs next to nothing. However, on top, an Edelbrock Tunnel Ram was fitted with two 500 CFM carters before being topped by a shotgun scoop. A Billet Specialities’ Front-runner Serpentine kit locates a G.M one-wire alternator, an Mallory distributor and MSD coil lights the fire and stainless headers escort it out of the engine. A Griffin radiator backed by a Spal electric fan keeps things cruising cool.
A skull knob on a Nostalgia Lokar shifter selects gears and stainless & rubber lines circulate the fluid through the radiator. A custom driveshaft connects the gearbox to the diff.
The interior of the ’32 is a pleasant place to be, as the bench seat and door panels are upholstered in classic brown leather. You face a ’40 Ford dash fitted with Stewart-Warner wings gauges and the steering wheel is also a cut-down ’40 Ford item on a tilt column.
Night-time driving is taken care of by Repop stainless steel lights in original size (10), while the rear is brought up by the Rodders favourite – ’50 Pontiac. After looking at dozens of wheel options, Dries finally settled on 18 and 20-inch Foose wheels wrapped in 235/35 x18 and 295/45 x 20 B.F Goodrich g-Force T/A tyres. The set of rear tyres is actually the third set, as the first pair didn’t give the right visual rake and the second pair was too big!
“Nothing says ‘Hot Rod’ better than a red ’32 Deuce Hi-Boy”
The car turned out to be a visual delight and after Dries mounted his personalised number plate, hes been enjoying his dream even if it took forty years to realise!It has since twice won the Concours for pre-49 American cars at the Cape Town Street Rod Club.
Dries is a petrol head of note. He sums up the experience of owning a true blood Hot Rod in a quote by Royal Ford, a writer for the ??Globalists??: Sometimes you see a solitary Hot Rod, rumbling and low slung as it pulls up beside you, its motor exposed, its paint glistening. The boyish eyes of the driver peering out beneath a cap that covers a head of thin, grey hair.
