Brakes
If you own a Ford or Chevy, most of the parts you will need to build a street rod are readily available, and from a variety of suppliers. We have written numerous stories about kits for these cars in our family of rodding magazines, and some of them were a direct replacement for the original. By and large, they worked perfectly and bolted right in, as designed. These types of kits are convenient for many street rod builders, as well as street rod shops, and they are part of what has helped grow our hobby into such a broad special-interest group. But in addition to the “normal” and most popular rods, there were many other great cars made in the pre-war era, and some of them can be a real challenge to street rodders because there are no pre-manufactured parts, and no kits that make them easy to build. Sounds like the old days, right? Well, that’s the modern world for you–even our hobbies have become targets of convenience.
Jack Fuller has been at this hot rod game for a long time, and while he builds hot rods for a living, make no mistake—this is a man who loves his work. As a matter of fact, the mantra of the garage is, “When the fun stops, the doors close for good.” It’s pretty simple stuff, and oddly enough, that seems to be the specialty of the house—basic hot rods that look cool and work well. Jump in a Jack Fuller hot rod, and you’ll know it was designed to be driven. Jack’s own ’32 cabriolet has seen untold miles over the years, as have most of the other hot rods he has built.
Always hard at work in the never-ending pursuit to do something just a little different, Darryl Nance and the crew at D&P Classic Chevrolet in Huntington Beach, California, recently added a pair of Chevy Cobalt taillights to one of the mid-’50s pickups that they have been working on. The Chevy is a frame-off project that was completed to exhibit all of the tricks that the D&P team can throw at it, and we were on hand when they installed the late-model lights to the old-time treasure.
The showroom is what every auto parts store dreams of being: diced in checkerboard black and yellow tile with a heap of pegboard. Up front, the sales counter is the hub of business, fueled by eager customers that keep the phone ringing off the hook. Bob, Sam and Robin deal one-on-one with customers, keeping all 50 states Moon-equipped.
There are many reasons why the icon cars have achieved the lofty status they now enjoy, but one of the more obvious reasons is the simple fact that they were finished. Their existence and subsequent high-level exposure have inspired many a young lad to undertake similar projects, and for every famous car built in the early years, probably two others were started in an attempt to either copy or outdo it, but they never saw the light of day.
For every hot rod shop that has a show on TV, there are countless smaller shops that will never get mainstream TV exposure or clothing lines sold at Wal-Mart. But all across the country, it’s these smaller shops that turn out the majority of the street and super rods that you and I enjoy, and that we see at shows. And even though these little guys may not have big reputations yet, they churn out consistent and excellent work—and, that is precisely how some of these smaller shops will eventually become bigger shops with even more prestige.
Have you ever noticed how some people can take their car to the strip and look as if they’ve raced all their lives, while others look totally out of control in the bleach box and during staging? More often than not, the driver with the calm, cool and collected approach seems to regularly trigger the win light. The reason for this smoothness isn’t completely initiated by the driver; in most instances, it is the correlation between man and machine.