| Race-car
looking street rods has had an extreme
impact on street rod styling. A stripped-down
Henry Ford model T spawned a new generation
of clones. Norm Brabowski's "Kookie
Kar," which was nothing more
than a likes modified in street trim,
led to the T-bucket phase. The early
'30s road races at Mines Field (now
LAX) featured '32-'34 fender-free
roadsters driven by circle track greats
wilbur shaw, Rex Mays, Ted Horn, and
Ralph Hepburn and spawned similar
highboys throughout Southern California.
And the appearance of the late '40s
and early '50s '23-'27 T-bodied track
roadsters has also been a viable part
of the street scene for 50 years. |
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One
of the most prominent examples of
the genre occupied a portion of the
cover as well as four pages in HRM's
August '58 "roto" section.
Of the "Roadster Classic."
the editor wrote, "the body that
made roadsters famous: never more
handsome, never more inspiring than
Jack Thompson's '27 T."
Unfortunately, like so many rods of
that era, Thompson's T was eventually
deemed expendable and soon regulated
to the used rod lot. For 30 years
his trackster went from owner to owner,
rising occasionally for a movie part,
but essentially let out-doors to gather
funk of the elements. Five years ago
a chance meeting between striper Tom
Otis, Champion Spark Plug representative
Randy Scoville, chassis builder (Tri-C
Engineering) Rick Creese, and race
car component manufacturer Gary Schroeder
led to the purchase of Thompson's
T and its ensuing restoration. According
to Creese, its former owner commissioned
street rod builder Dick "Magoo"
Megugorac to upgrade it but retain
the original hardware. Creese and
Schroeder returned the roadster to
its 1958 condition by selling off
the new stuff while refurbishing its
old parts. They even contracted builder
Claude Hampson, and had Ron Fletcher
finish its ancient body panels. As
indicated by the imposing collections
of Bruce Meyer, Don Orosco, and Reggie
Jackson, a significant new trend in
hot-rodding is preserving the past.
One only has to look at the "
never more inspiring" Jack Thompson
'27 T to understand why retro rodding
is attracting allot of attention. |
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We
here at Tri-C Engineering Hot Rod
magazine for this product profile. |
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