I'm looking for hot rods from the 1940's to the 1960's - T-buckets, rat-rods, deuce coupes. The type of rods that were typically made from Model T or Model A Fords by cutting the fenders off and removing the hood from the engine. Anyone out there make anything like this?
Theres allot of resin Model As and similar cars, but cant remember the manufacture, but I do believe there are several. The ones I have a bunch that are cast white metal, and require assembly and the fenders and chassis is separate from the body, as is the hood. I was looking at them the other day, and it would be very easy to make those into low boy fenderless, and/or hoodless hot rods.. I do think there are several manufactures that make em though.. Mine are several body styles of Model A's, (Sedans, Coupes, Roadsters, and Trucks). I will see if I can find out the manufacture. If I remember, they are a pretty popluar brand..
Richard Plantz offers Hot Rods in his "Lineside Models". Currently the 1930s are unavailable. But I think he has short production runs, so they might come back soon. http://www.rphobbies.com/1930-ford-v-8-hot-rod.html http://www.rphobbies.com/1932-ford-coupe-chopped-custom-streetrod.html Cheers Dirk
Dirk - Thanks! That's the idea - that's a good start to what I'm looking for. I guess I'm kind of surprised that with California being the basic home of the hot rod era that there aren't more models out there. I think it would be great to see a scene of the Southern Pacific Daylight with a GS-4 being paced by a T-rod or rat-rod. I just want to have a couple rods placed around the layout because ever since I was about twelve I always wanted to own one. My 1980 Pontiac Lemans, while being jacked up a little and able to burn rubber from the stop light, just isn't quite what I thought I would eventually would end up with as a "hot rod". I did see an add for a T-rod about 50 miles away from home, but can I really justify the $12,000 price tag???
Tim, I would love to show you this and say it's N, but it's not. BOOO! HO has quite a few RTR hotrods available. Athearn did some flamed panel wagons and Busch has a 57 Chevy with chrome mags and paint.
Like here..... N scale Orange '32 Ford Truck Hotrod -Vehicle Auto Car - eBay (item 320539185242 end time Jun-25-10 21:17:23 PDT) N scale Flat Black '32 Ford Truck Hotrod -Vehicle Auto - eBay (item 320539185537 end time Jun-25-10 21:18:54 PDT) 1955 CHEVY NOMAD HOT ROD~1:160th/N SCALE~RESIN/PLASTIC - eBay (item 300403130093 end time Jul-01-10 19:18:29 PDT) Not mine, but fit your bill.
I am not only a model rail roader, but also a retired hot rodder, and have built several (real ones) over the years. And if you can find a decent built running rod for 12K$, thats a steal, because I can tell ya first hand, the money and blood sweat and tears that goes into building one, it WAY more than that, lol.. Ya never really build one for the money anyway, ya build em for the love of it. I built a 400+ HP 49 GMC pick up street rod many years ago, that I had over $39k in building, and not even counting the two years it took me to build it. Everyone loved that truck, and was in awe at the craftsmanship. But, when I sold it several years later, only could get about $12k for it. So, yeah, they are fun, but are a loss for money,
Tim, If you don't mind doing a little kitbashing/scratch building, these two GHQ models would be good starting points: 1930 Model A GHQ Stock # 57004 1930 Model A Phaeton GHQ Stock # 57005 Finding a suitable N scale engine may be a bit difficult. The Alloy Forms/Period Miniatures 1957 Chevy Bel Air came with a small V-8, and some of those kits are still floating around. (One vendor had 4 or 5 of the 1957 Chevy kits at the start of the National N Scale Convention in Portland last summer, but he left with none.) The body, hood, fenders, headlights, bumpers, wheels and top in the case of the Phaeton are all separate castings, so with a little cutting and some new frames and wheels, you could have yourself a couple of hot rods. Carter
Thats it. GHQ. I have a bunch of those I got in a large lot on Ebay awhile back. Still not done building them, but they are nice kits. They would be easy to convert into hot rods, which I may do with some of these, because their fenders/chassis, hoods, and all are separate peices, and you can build them without fenders, and/or hoods to make high boy roadsters, etc. Here are a few of mine I am not finished with yet.. But shows ya a various body styles of the Model As they have.
Great suggestions, everyone! OC Engineer JD: I have one of the '32 Fords on order. I need to find the Lineside kits - so far haven't found anyone that has them in stock. Looks like a quick way to get a basic rod is to cut the fenders off an existing model - slap on some flat black paint, and ready to go.
