Pre-WWII motor racing is a passion of mine, and it’s a passion shared by many. There’s something approachable about the engineering that went into the cars of the pre-1939 era – many of them can be repaired with little more than a large hammer and an empty Brylcreem tin.
This particular car is a custom racer built on a drilled and lightened Ford Model A frame with an original 1932 Ford front axle. I’ve always been a little skeptical about frames that have been drilled like this, I understand that it removes weight and that it’s all done to within certain engineering tolerances – but it does resemble Swiss cheese a little more than I like for any load bearing structure.
The car is fitted with a 308 cubic inch (5 litre) inline-6 engine from a Hudson Hornet bolted to an early in-out transmission common with midget racers, the engine has an external sump oil pump that holds four gallons of oil in the pan and sump combined, the body is hand-beaten from alloy, the wheels are alloy with knock-off hubs.
Original period-racers like this make excellent weekend racing cars and hill climbers, and this one is borderline affordable (in race car terms) with an estimated value of between $30,000 and $40,000 USD – it’s in full working order and just needs a new tires before it hits the dirt track.
Photo Credits: Teddy Pieper © 2015 Auctions America
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
