1935 Ford Hot Rod

There were very few hot rods in those days in north central Wisconsin. Rather looked down upon by older folks because of movies like The Wild One and Rebel Without a Cause. When Roger spotted ours in the spring of 1962 derelict at a gas station along the highway at Cornell, he wanted it. Roger didn't have the money, so I offered $50 for a half share in it. The car was about 80 miles from our farm house. We didn't know it, but one brake line to a rear wheel was cut with a nail jammed in as a temporary fix. The brakes were hydraulic, a conversion from the original mechanical, and working. The early 50s Cadillac overhead valve engine was running, but the car had been sitting for a long time over winter and we didn't trust the fluids. We were told that the block was cracked. Why it was so cheap.

I elected to steer in the hot rod with Roger in our 1954 Buick Special stick shift (rare… most were automatics) pulling me with about a 20 foot chain we brought. I cautioned him to come to stops slowly so that I could have time to stop smoothly without jerking. We traveled the back roads and traffic was so light we hardly saw a car. Things actually went quite well. But, just as we were nearing home, all the brake fluid finally leaked out and when Roger stopped at one of the rare stop signs, I braked and my foot went to the floor. The hot rod continued rolling and hit the back of the Buick's substantial bumper. Caved in the ugly Packard grille that was on the beast--good riddance.

I decided to try to drive it home without brakes. I started up and drove slow, using the gears to keep it under control. All went well despite the steering being bad and we arrived home. I forgot about this, but Roger relates that he tried driving the hot rod up into the yard from the driveway. He must've missed a gear, because the car started rolling backward, across the drive, and down into the field below to the west until it leveled a bit and thankfully stopped. We chained the Buick to it again, towed the reluctant beast up into the yard again, and pushed it into the shed so that we could begin work on it. The mechanicals needed a lot of work and we wanted to do some minor bodywork. First to go were the ugly front fenders and grille. We left the front bumper supports as a kind of makeshift bumper. The original bumpers were gone. Those springlike supports all traveled under the Buick bumper during the collision and didn't help.

I did most of the mechanical work for the next two summers when we worked full-time in factories and I spent many nights out in the shed under the car. Roger did engine, bodywork and a little paint work. We got motorcycle fenders for the front wheels and lined up a $15 paint job for the gray primered car but never got it done. The hot rod, supposedly from Montana (Roger says, North Dakota), had painted behind the side windows at the roof line, "Can't Dance," in bright red brushstrokes. And in the rear window there were red dinkle berries hanging. A real redneck touch we didn't want any part of. We wanted the car to look cool. But there was nothing that could be done with the long, boat tail back end with a low tire mount so that the tire served as a bumper and two chrome bumper uprights mounted in the holes where the bumper supports were gone. Above the tire mount was a trunk that could have been a rumble seat. The running boards were gone--good riddance.

A nearby farm had a 42 Ford that we salvaged the steering from and a driveshaft that needed replacing along with a new universal joint. When we found the nail in the brake line to the right rear wheel, I replaced it with a rubber hose clamped on. But the first time we took the car out to show off to a classmate, Tom Wing, he tried the brakes and the hose broke. We got a replacement metal brake line that fixed the problem for good. We had to use a wheel puller to change the steering. The wheel puller damaged the threaded end of the steering shaft so we couldn't put a bolt on it holding the steering wheel to the column. That was all right as long as no one pulled on the steering wheel while pushing the heavy hydraulic brake pedal and the equally heavy hydraulic clutch on the 39 Ford three speed transmission to shift.

North of town, a farmer had some old car parts along a path that cows took to get to pasture. We spotted a 32 Ford grille shell and a stainless or chromed Model A shell. We asked the farmer, what it cost and he replied, pointing to the Model A one, "That one will cost you $25. You can have the other one for free. We wanted the 32 Ford one anyway. We had bought other parts, so he was happy.

We used a sway bar from the 42 Ford to remount the front headlights that looked much better than when we bought it. We reversed the rear wheels by Roger using the drill press to drill out the rivets and the hydraulic press at work to put the centers back in place. I pounded in replacement iron rivets by hand with a ball peen hammer while Roger held the rim steady and the and of intranet conversion. the rivet balanced on the end of a wood 2 x 4. Those rivets were so airtight we didn't even lose any air in tubeless tires. Dad told me that the first time we would hit the accelerator those rivets would strip. He proved wrong.

In retrospect, we had a real gem. The chop job and steel cloth roof replacement was so good and expertly welded, along with the rest of the hot rod conversion, including the dropped front axle with crossover spring, the Zed frame, channeled body and bodywork, that I think the conversion was done in Southern California and not Montana. The heavy gauge metal body had no rust. The seams where the rear fenders mounted to the body were all leaded. All of the 1930s cars in northern Wisconsin had either rusted out, were already in old car collections, or had been raced in the many stock-car races held around the state in those days ending up in junkyards.

Please click on the links for pictures to show you what the car was like. A lot of love went into that car and very little money--less than $400 total. I really miss it. Especially now in the 2020s when a car like that becomes very valuable to have.

Like James Dean's role in Rebel Without a Cause, young men of our era were all driving dangerously and so many died needlessly. Drag racing was part of the local scene, but fortunately, I don't recall any of my high school classmates dying in wrecks. I recall my father going to see three races one day at our half-mile dirt track during the Central Wisconsin State Fair in 1961 where four drivers, including an IndyCar driver (open car with no roll bar) died in all three races. He stopped watching car racing in the middle of the last race and after that. Roger and I were working in the carnival, otherwise we would have gone and seen the carnage, too. I do recall being in the stands when one of our coworkers driving a stock-car somehow flew out the front window about 50 feet and landed on a car in the infield. The next day we saw him on the midway with a beer in his hand.

We drove the hot rod in the field behind the shed until we got it licensed and insured. Cheap in those days. County Road BB to the main highway was well paved and served as a place we could test out our modifications and slight tuning of the engine. The car would do 80 mph with ease and we never wore any seat belts. There was a handbrake with the car, but we never got it installed. The front seats were Model A folding seats that we had reupholstered from the original mohair to Naugahyde buckets. Very nice. The rear seat was made out of plywood covered with carpeting. That worked well, too, for its purpose. The car rumbled a lot but everything was solid and felt good going down the road. You had to hold the long handled gearshift up into second gear or it would pop out until you dropped it into third. The front end would come off the ground if you popped the clutch in third gear and there was no top end that I ever tried.

My younger twin brothers, Tim and Tom, were four at the time. They were interested in the Beatles and sang a mean version of I Want to Hold Your Hand. They also were interested in, "pretty womans, with lipstick and high heels." And of course our hot rod. They often rode with me when I would take the rod out after doing something mechanical. They would stand the front passenger seat and every time I would shift or break, they would fall forward and grabbed the dash, giggling the whole time.

One time I took them down to the local Boy Scout park by the river. A not sure what we did there, maybe just walked around. But when we came back to the car it was surrounded by about 10 of the 15 Martin kids that lived up the river road nearby. When I went to start the car, it wouldn't. I recall we did have trouble with the solenoid that kicked the starter into the flywheel to start the engine. Anyway, we asked the kids to give us a push. I dropped it in gear and we were off.

I invited my girlfriend out one day and we took a drive. Returning home, I let her drive. As we approached home there was a steep downhill run with a couple of level spots in between. When she came down the first slope we picked up speed and I wanted her slow down, so I told her to push on the clutch and the brake so we would. She was short, so she pulled on the steering wheel while pushing on the two foot pedals pulling the steering wheel off into her lap and her feet off the pedals!

Helpless in the passenger seat, I watched the wheel in front of me turn to the left sharply and we left the road at about 30 miles an hour across the ditch and into the bank on the other side with the rear end of the car lifting up upon collision with those springlike bumper supports. While we jerked forward, and then back into our seats. After the dust settled, we weren't hurt. My sister's boyfriend lived on a farm about 50 yards down the road. I walked down and got him. And he pulled the car out of the ditch with his tractor. While he got my girlfriend back to our house, I got in the car and drove it down past our house and around the curve at about 60 mph. Everything was working fine with no damage. I was relieved.

When I got back to the house and backed the hot rod into its berth in the shed, Dad came out to greet me and told me that I should have, "Never have let that girl drive that car!," and "Don't you ever drive it again until it's fixed." Of course, I did, and when the fair came again on Labor Day, Roger and I drove to town and picked up some bodies. We drove around in our little town showing off the car before going to the show at the fair that night.

We soon were back in college and I had lined up a couple of shop courses, first quarter a mechanical one, and then the second quarter, a bodywork class. Dad agreed that I could take the car 100 miles to school, but he wouldn't let me drive it. We got a towbar and with the 1957 Buick Century station wagon, took the hot rod to school. On the way, there was an old highway overpass for a train crossing. It was narrow, only two car lanes wide. As I approached the overpass, the Buick blew a rear tire. I watched the hot rod swinging back and forth wildly as I pulled over on the shoulder not more than 10 feet from the narrow passage. Just lucky that it didn't happen while going through. We changed the tire. The of the journey went smoothly except when we got to town and the Buick overheated.

At the shop, I started working on the engine, and finally got the ignition working so that it was running on all eight cylinders. My girlfriend came to school for the first weekend with a friend of hers who was the fiancé of another guy at school. Before that Roger and I had taken the hot rod for a drive out west of town and down a beautiful curvy road back into town. It was running great. The girls arrived Friday afternoon. That night was the street dance. So after we ate we went over there to check it out. We were early and no one was there. The hot rod was only a half block away in the shop parking lot, so I suggested that we take a ride. Decided to take the same scenic route that I had a couple of days before.

While doing about 80 mph uphill, a 16-year-old driving a panel van pulled out in front of me. I hit the brakes and the rear of the car came off the ground, and then, we were sideways across the other lane in front of an oncoming car. And then, sideways off the shoulder to a steep slope until the tires caught and we began to roll. About 10 times, mostly on the open doors, hood and trunk of the three window coupe. With no seat belts, we flew around inside. I found myself grabbing the roof above my head on the outside until I realized that the door could slam shut and cut off my arm, so I pulled my arm back in just as I was thrust out of the car into the grass in my mouth with the car flying close over the top of me. 

We were lucky. My girlfriend was thrown from the car and received stitches on a fingertip and the top of her head from deep small cuts. She was bruised everywhere, but back to work after a few days. I got eight stitches in my knee where it caught under the dash as I was thrown out of the car. My male passenger jammed his foot and ankle under my seat and it was badly bruised but he could walk okay. His girlfriend and future wife had a cut above her eyelid that required one stitch. It was the third time that I had been in a car that rolled over without injury of any consequence. But all of those cars had a top. Open cars were different… Much more dangerous. 

Unlike James Dean's Porsche, my $100 plus $350 of upgrades hot rod was totally destroyed. A big loss to me and my twin brother. Roger traded the still operational engine and chassis for a 1948 Ford two-door sedan. We found out later that the guy who traded Roger for it put a 1940 Ford coupe on the chassis. In 1971, when I was back at the university teaching, I thought I saw the coupe parked out in a rural farmyard. 

DeSoto Rescued by Cherry Black Chevy

It was Easter 1965. We spent it with our parents and Roger had his fiancée and future wife, Lin, with him for the weekend. He had his 1958 Austin Healey Sprite, yellow with black racing stripes with a cool fiberglass hardtop that kept him warm through the winter. He had traded his dark blue 57 Buick sedan for it. After the hot rod, Roger wanted a sports car. The guy who had it got the Sprite in California where there was no rust, but got married and was having a child, so was willing to give it up for a larger car. I must've come home riding in someone else's car because there was only room for two and luggage in that little bugeye ride.

That Saturday, Dad took me to a local car dealer and we found this rusted 57 DeSoto sitting in the lot with a flat tire, badly faded paint, and relatively low mileage 50,000 miles or so. We took it for a spin, and amazingly, even with my paralyzed hands and the pushbutton transmission, I drove it easily and everything seemed to work on the car. It was bought new by a barber who had a barbershop on the corner halfway to our farmhouse on 13. It sat out in the parking lot every day in all kinds of weather and that's why the body and paint were in that kind of condition. It was a great buy at $100, so I drove it home.

Typical of Wisconsin, the nice spring weather changed, and sometime on Easter Sunday it started to snow heavy. By late afternoon, we decided to head for school because Roger's fiancé had to be back to the dormitory by 10 pm. Roger was afraid that sometimes the carburetors on the Sprite acted up, so he drove ahead and had me follow in case he had car trouble. I would be there to help out and even take them if he had to leave the car. At least that's what we planned.

When I got on 10 there were almost no cars and snow was building up on the road. I lost sight of Roger up ahead so speeded up to catch up with him. About 10 miles out, I came down a hill with a curve to the left on the end. The tires were worn and I was going too fast, so the car continued straight off the road into a deep ditch and snow up to the hood ornament. It was getting dark.

I no more had stepped out of the car, when this beautiful black 57 Chevy pulled up and the guy asked me if I needed any help. I hopped in and we drove to a little town about 5 miles away. At a soda fountain, I had coffee while he called a friend from the payphone (no cell phones in those days) with a milk truck. Less than a half-hour later, we were back at my car and the milk truck arrived.

He hooked a chain onto the back of my car. Even though he had chains on the rear truck duals, the milk truck couldn't pull me out. Just then, a wrecker came along. He looked onto the front of the milk truck and with a mighty sucking sound, the front of my DeSoto came out of the snow, water and mud like pulling a boot up from stuck in mud in a swamp. The guys who helped me wouldn't take any money, but I believe I paid the wrecker driver five bucks and was on my way.

I arrived at school and my room I was renting very late, after midnight. Found out that, even though the traffic for me was light, Roger was stuck in traffic on Interstate 94 most of the way and didn't get his fiancée to the dorm until about 10:30 pm. But they had a good excuse. Others were probably late, too.

The saga of two DeSotos… Continues next.

Copyright © Ronald W. Hull

4/21/20