John Goschke's '32 Ford Hot Rod Roadster Circa 1950
(Photos by John Goschke and Tony Wootson)
This model is a rebuild of a vintage 1959 kit I originally built “out-of-the-box” around 1985.
Inspired by several things, including Tommy Kortman’s “Black Widow” ‘32 and models by John Cunningham, cars shown in the book, “Birth of Hot Rodding” by Robert Genat and various issues of Rodder’s Journal, I decided the Deuce was ready for an (ahem..) a “quick” rebuild as a late ‘40s-early ‘50s flathead-powered, channeled roadster with a chopped, blind-quarter top,
trying to use only scratch or kit parts tooled before 1965.
Close to a year later, here it is. Paint is Duplicolor Chrysler “Deep
Cranberry Pearl” (actually a dark purple).
The basic engine is from AMT’s ‘40 Ford, with two of the carbs from the Deuce
kit on the modified ’40 manifold. Pretty much everything else on the engine,
including the pulleys, belt, generator, headers and exhaust, is scratch.
The engine-turned firewall is from a piece of aluminum printing plate.
The turning was done with a cut-down rubber eraser in a Dremel tool on low speed.
The only post-‘65 kit part is the oil filter-from Monogram¹s recent ‘55 Chevy!
The top is the original stock ‘32 top, heavily modified. By making saw cuts
on the sides at the bowlines I was able to bend the top to the rough profile
desired, then fix it to that shape with cyano. At some point I decided the
windshield needed a chop to work with the new top profile. After that, the
top looked like it needed to be shorter in length so about 1/8” was taken
out in front of the middle bow. Patterns for the new side window profiles
and quarters and were made with masking tape, then cut from Plastruct sheet
and fixed in place with cyano. The rear panel was also replaced, with the
new window cut out using an ellipse template as a guide. The shape of the
top was refined with files, knife and sandpaper, with seams scribed in with
a trusty #11. Snaps were added by drilling a series of holes, filling them
with lengths of styrene rod and cutting and sanding them down to the proper
relief. The rear bow tack strip is a bit of Evergreen strip. Paint is Testors
Radome Tan with a little pastel weathering. The rear window was
outlined with some styrene strip, covered in BMF. The snaps were detailed
with little circles of foil.
Wheels and front tires are from AMT’s ‘49 Merc with the bigger rear tires
from Monogram’s ‘58 T-Bird. Headlight buckets are from the front half of
the drop tanks from an Airfix 1/72 P-51D Mustang (tooled in 1959!) On
brackets were made from bits of aluminum Xmas ornament hooks. Head and taillights are MV Lenses made for model trains.
The steering wheel is from the AMT ‘40 Ford on a scratch column of styrene
rod and aluminum tube. Steering box is carved from Plastruct.
The kit’s front axle was not dropped and I couldn’t find a dropped axle that I
knew was tooled before ’65. So, a new one was made to accept the kit spring
and backing plates from the AMT ‘29 Roadster, along with the original
straight-through metal axle. The ‘32 kit wishbone was split and new ends
were made to mate up with new brackets on the frame rails.
The instrument cluster, pedals, shift lever, and door handles are all
scratch built.
The upholstery was painted using a modified “pre-shading” technique. As
originally built, the interior was flat white. So I airbrushed flat black
into the crevices between the back and bottom cushion and the door panels.
Then I scribed through the white paint between the pleats to the black
plastic with a #11 blade and softened that black line by scumbling in a
little black pastel. Then the whole black and white mess was oversprayed
with Testors Dark Red gloss enamel, built up in coats, to give the toned
appearance of old leather. Testors Dull and Semigloss Clear were mixed 50/50 to give a nice sheen. The effect is more subtle than shown in the pix.
