Rides — Ford coupe rebuilt to drive

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/11/2017 (3064 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A metal fabricator by trade, Rob Rose has been tinkering away in his garage for decades.

Rebuilding rusted-out classic vehicles is painstaking work, with Rose spending countless hours bending and welding metal components using a small collection of metal fabricating tools.

Despite the hard work he puts into these vehicles, he said that he doesn’t mind redoing this work when necessary — in some cases, several times over —as long as it means he can hit the road.

“There’s no fun in the garage,” he said, adding that his vehicles are “built to drive.”

With stone chips and wear and tear requiring constant work, he said, “I’m not saving my car for the next guy.”

Rose’s love of anything automotive began when he was approximately 10 years of age.

His father was a travelling salesman who would occasionally return home from his travels with a stack of magazines with their covers ripped off that he got from store owners he came across.

“One day, a Rod & Custom magazine showed up and I thought, ‘Wow, this is it,’” Rose said, adding that there was something about big old cars with big old engines that resonated with him.

“I was building models at the time, and I blew up all my models with firecrackers and built nothing but cars after that,” he said, adding that when he got a little older and got some cash he bought a 1939 Chevy.

A string of vehicles has followed, but his pièce de résistance has been his bright yellow 1934 Ford three-window coupe.

It wasn’t much to look at when he first saw it in 1980. It was just a body, doors, trunk lid and dash.

“There was nothing left of it,” Rose said. “It was what we call a basket case.”

A childhood friend of his offered him the vehicle —or, what was left of the vehicle —free of charge. Rose countered with $50 and they ended up settling at $37.50.

In rebuilding the vehicle, Rose took a “smoothie” approach, wherein the vehicle’s exterior is as smooth as possible, including near-invisible handles he fabricated from pieces he cut off an old lawnmower.

It took him 10 years of fabricating pieces and friends assisting him with various other components, but when it finally hit the road in 1991, Rose said that it was all made worthwhile and that he now feels like a “rock star” driving it.

A similar car is featured on the cover of blues rock band ZZ Top’s 1983 album, “Eliminator,” albeit, the ZZ Top car is one year older and red.

Rose has put 180,000 miles on his prized vehicle with his wife, Barb. The car is on engine No. 3, transmission No. 3, front suspension No. 2 and paint job No. 3.

“Whenever it needs something, it gets it,” he said, adding that this winter will find the car receive a new compact heater and cruise control alongside “little tweaks and touch-ups here and there.”

He’s also midway through another project; a 1926 Model T Roadster, which is another “basket case” that few people would have taken on.

“I basically just bought a body shell and some other pieces have come along, and I’ve built the frame for it,” Rose said. “There’s nothing to it, it’s just a tin can, but they have really cool lines … It’s like a big model kit, but I have to make all of the pieces.”

He doesn’t enjoy these rides alone, and is an active member of a handful of automobile enthusiast groups, including the local Strokers Social Club, whose membership routinely help each other out with their vehicle projects.

“It’s hanging out with like-minded weirdos,” he said, adding that there’s a whole network of car nuts across North America.

Ross tapped into this network during a drive back from Chicago in 2009, when a rear axel broke on his 1934 Ford.

He consulted the National Street Rod Association’s Fellow Pages, which linked him with fellow classic automobile fanatics who helped get him back on the road in short order.

The same friendly comradeship is also available in spades at car shows, which he travels to as frequently as possible, including both local shows and those that require a bit of a road trip, such as the annual Back to the 50s show that takes place every summer in Minnesota.

It has been a fulfilling pastime, Rose said, adding that the friends he’s made along the way have been worth it, with the fun of driving a rumbling beast down the highway serving as icing on the cake.

» tclarke@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @TylerClarkeMB