'38 Hudson Terraplane
1938 Terraplane Project
Project Original Gangster
So…. Train is forcing me to write a bio on my car. It’s hard to put to words the drive that makes me want to do something as silly as build a late 30’s hotrod. So i’ll start with an idea, I love the old Art Deco feel of cars from 30’s era movies, think Dick Tracy, the Rocketeer, or the Aviator. Now coming from that idea I started researching the actual cars. Here’s what I knew I wanted from the start.
1. It had to be a sedan, either a two door or a four door, but i liked the interior space they give and the overall shape of the cars better.
2. Suicide doors; nothing screams 30’s era cars more than a set of doors that open backwards.
3. Running boards for much the same reason as the doors, I like the old gangster appeal of being able to ride on the running boards (with a fedora on and a tommy gun in one hand)
4. The big front fenders with the sideways mounted headlights, it’s another hallmark of the time for me and if I’m going to go to the trouble of getting a car from this era then that’s what I wanted.
So with all that criteria in mind I started my research (this was about June 2013), and found that all those features were found in a very limited window of automobiles, approximately 1935 to 1938, with a few exceptions either way. A few models jumped out at me from the start, the 1935 through ‘37 Studebaker Dictator 4 door sedan, a 1936 though ‘38 Hudson Terraplane sedan, and the 1939 Packard 1701, which was part of the One-Twenty series of Packards. Now armed with a list I was able to start searching in earnest. But life had other plans (as it usually does) and I ended up moving across the country to start a new life with my wife and two wonderful stepchildren, that but the brakes on the car search for nearly two years, until I mentioned it to my wife one day and she said it sounded like a great idea, then almost immediately we found a 1938 Hudson Terraplane not 60 miles from our house, thus ended the search and began a new adventure.
-Lefty
'68 Ford Mustang
1968 Ford Mustang
Project Phoenasus
There came a point in my life where I looked at what I've done and everything I am doing and I realized that far too much of what I am doing is very dry, very serious, and most of it has life and death consequences. It was time for me to get a hobby that had nothing to do with all that seriousness. A getaway, a release, a fortress of solitude…well a 68 Mustang.
When my wife showed some interest in “Eleanor” from Nicolas Cage’s Gone in 60 seconds and I half joking, half seriously remarked that we could do that, she said sure(that kinda stunned me). I explained that my lovely wife of an accountant It’d be a few hundred dollars for a starter car and we could do it little by little. Well after I found out that everyone else watching that movie also thought they’d do that too, I some explaining to do. That couple hundred dollar starter car was spelled with 5 figures…without an engine, interior or maybe even wheels.
After the budget was reworked we picked up a donor car and decided to build it from almost the ground up. It wasn’t a fastback like in the movies, but it was real cheap and it did actually have an engine and transmission. (Not much of an interior to speak of) So began the quest from a nearly worthless 68 mustang coupe with an inline six cylinder engine on a salvage title to the goal of a mustang named "Denice" capable of the feats seen in the movies.
-Woodchuck