rower, its wheelbase is shorter, the running boards are higher, and it uses splash pans to fill in most of that space). Despite the extra efforts, the idea made so much sense and looked so good I thought somebody must have done this before. Turns out a few people have done it over the last 75 years and a lot of people have discussed it in various Internet forums, so apparently this may be the next new thing. The story of this little A-bone comes in two parts, highboy and fendered, but luckily/surprisingly the chassis didn’t change. The basic ’32 chassis came pinched, narrowed, decked for the flat Model A floor- pan, and a front crossmember from JW Rod Shop. Dave built the center crossmember and kicked the rear up into the trunk area. The front suspension is a 4-inch dropped I-beam, split ’39 ‘bones, a cross-steered Vega box, Bilstein shocks, and ’56 Ford F100 drum brakes. The rear is a 3.50 geared Ford 9-inch on a ’40 Ford transverse leaf with Shadow Rods wishbones, Bilstein
shocks, Ford drum brakes, and SoCal spring mounts. A ’65 Ford 289 powers the rod using 10:1 Keith Black pistons, a mild Elgin cam, stainless block-hugger head- ers feeding Porter mufflers (new for the fendered rod), a Pertronix ignition, and an Edelbrock aluminum intake topped with two 500cfm Edelbrock four-barrels (also new on the fendered version). The power is delivered through a Tom Marklevitz-built C4, a Neal’s Truck Parts driveshaft, and it’s delivered to the pavement by 16- inch ’46 Ford steelies wearing Coker/Firestone rubber. The front wheels had to be changed to 15-inchers from Wheelsmith to fit the fenders and I was shocked to realize the front tire is a Firestone radial. I may love the ’32 fenders on a Model A, but like the front tires I made some assumptions that were wrong until I looked closely. The body has been chopped 4 inches front, 3 1/2 inches out back, the old gas filler was filled, a Crafty B gas cap was set up to feed a trunk-mounted tank, ’50 Pontiac taillights were JANUARY 2026 27
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