'32 Ford Chopped Lakes-style Coupe - TROG Beach Racer No.2

Chopped Dry Lakes ’32 For 3-Window Coupe – Early 50’s Style for TROG Theme at NNL West 2018

The Race of Gentlemen (aka TROG) has taken the hot rod world by storm. Held every year on the beach at Wildwood, New Jersey, it was established in 2012 by the Oilers Car Club as a race for vintage motorcycles and hot rods. and immediate post-war funky stripped down performance machines. These come in a wide variety of styles, everything from bare-bones 1920’s gow-jobs to fairly slick and well-turned out early 50’s street rods. One of this year’s theme tables at the NNL West in Santa Clara, California on February 3rd will be dedicated to TROG.

A popular style of car seen on the beach in Wildwood might be termed a “Preservation” rod, where a true vintage machine is lovingly restored to full safe and sound running condition while leaving the original patina of the car untouched from the day it was found. This ’32 Ford Coupe is done in that style for the NNL West theme table.

I started with a Jimmy Flintstone resin body; a ’32 Ford 3-window with a vintage dry-lakes style chop job featuring the characteristic angled A pillar. This was done to cheat the rules and make a car with as sever a chop as possible to minimize frontal area, while leaving the windshield large enough to pass inspection. It was perfect for what I hoped would be a simple project that would allow me to concentrate on the overall look and keep the technical challenges under control.

Because the Flintstone body is a one piece unit comprising the grill, hood, main body and sides of what would be the bellypan, I determined that I would build it as a curbside. If the tinted windows I was planning on using were dark enough I would even build it as a slammer, with no interior detail at all.

I started by painting and weathering the body. The base coats were two coats of primer, the first red oxide and the second white. Then came the color coats of Krylon Blue Ocean Breeze enamel. Once the paint was thoroughly dried and cured I sanded various areas to the appropriate degree to simulate worn paint and the beginnings of light rust.

Then I followed up by designing decals for the sponsorship and race numbers using Photoshop. The decal designs were further processed in Photoshop to make them look weathered and worn before printing them

Once the decals were applied I finished the weathering off with application of various shades of Bragdon weathering powders, simulating rust with reds and browns, and ground in dirt with blacks and grays. The final step was to seal the whole thing under Testors Dullcote and give it a very light buffing to look like the natural patina of well-worn paint.

The other main design element would be the wheels and tires. Narrow bias ply tires were the order of the day in 1951, which was the target date of this car. My current favorite rear tires for early 50’s street rods and dry lakes cares are aftermarket 1/24th scale truck tires made by Herb Deeks. You can buy them from him on eBay but I put in a year’s supply each year from Herb at the NNL West. Paired up with a set of the skinny ribbed tires found in various Revellogram ’37 Ford delivery vans and pickup truck kits, they make for an ideal period set of big ‘n’ littles.

A period detail I wanted to include were the very basic flat steel or aluminum wheel cover discs often seen on immediate post WWII dry lakes cars. They were the inspiration for Dean Moon’s iconic domed spun aluminum discs which would be his namesake on hot rods to this very day. As I said they are dead flat and cover the entire wheel. For this reason any wheel would do since it would be totally hidden. It just has to be the right width and size for the tires. Frankly, the less likely I would ever use them for any other purpose the better! The perfect wheels turned out to be a set of billet-style mags I found in a Monogram ’37 Ford Sedan street rod kit. Stripped of their chrome they disappeared under a set of scratch-built discs I cut from .020 styrene, using a craft store circle cutter made to cut paper and thin plastic. I then painted them in silver lacquer and metalized them using Kosutte Gin Sang powder and weathered them using the same powders as on the body.

The final touch was the red plastic windows. As I had hoped, they were dark enough, and the windows small enough, so that no interior detail of any kind was necessary. A slammer it is! The rear suspension is non-existent, too, since it is entirely hidden inside the body, leaving only the front suspension cobbled together from my parts box, and a bellypan cut from .020 styrene sheet and finished in weathered steel in the same matter as the wheel discs.

So here it is, my vintage early 50’s “Preservation Style” TROG beach racin’ slammer.

Thanx for lookin’
B.

A lot of great work in this , well done .

Thanks to you both. I'm pleased I was able to make it come across.