D ave Lupella of White Lake, Wisconsin, had to sell his drag car when he got married to his wife Sue and they were getting ready to build a life together. A good friend of his said, “buy a street rod.” Dave dug on the idea of something he could share with his new family, cruise around Wisconsin, and ultimately found his ‘38 Ford Deluxe coupe in an ad from the April 1965 issue of Hot Rod Magazine. Who would have guessed Dave would still be cruising the rod 60 years later. Over the years Dave has both held onto the rod’s unique look and modernized things to keep it ready to cruise not only Wisconsin, but all the modern world. The Ford was bitchin’, but not reliable or totally safe right out of the ad in Hot Rod Magazine. After a lot of
fixes and adjustments the Lupella family enjoyed cruis- ing the ride. Sadly, like many ‘60s rods, the ’38 fell into increasing state of disrepair in the ‘70s due to family and work pressures. Eventually the ’38 slowly became a garage decoration until Dave decided to get some help from Heinzman Street Rods in 2004. Heinzman builds rod to be driven, and they started Dave with one of their exchange chassis. Dave’s front suspension of choice is a Heidt’s SuperRide IFS with big GM power brakes, tubular control arms, a beefy anti-roll bar, and rack and pinion steering. The rear suspension is a Ford 8-inch with factory drum brakes riding on Chassis Engineering (CE) parallel-leaf springs, controlled by CE shocks, and a CE anti-roll bar. The original Pontiac engine and iron case Hydromatic were replaced with a
66 MAY 2025
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