HOLLYWOOD SALT – IAN SAMPSON 1932 FORD TUDOR
Unmissable by its Kool Aid colour palette and potent power plant accomplished with a high level of attention to detail, one would be surprised to learn that this delicious Deuce is the first hot rod pieced together by its owner, Ian Sampson. Yes he’s had a trial run, wrenching on a 1926 Chrysler tourer many years ago with three of his mates pitching in, but it was never finished. Fast-forward to present day and Ian is cool as a cucumber cruising in his completed tudor that consumed more than six years of hard labour and a deflated wallet.
So let’s step back to the beginning, as we can see that the end result was worth the journey.
“From the start of the build I knew what I wanted.” Ian explains, “not a slick swoopy creation or a down in the weeds rat rod, but somewhere in the middle. A car you might see at Bonneville, something I loosely call ‘Hollywood Salt’. Cars that are art, innovative, creative and yet still look traditional…that was the aim anyway. It had to be a hiboy and it had to have three pedals.”
Other key points of Ian’s visual concept were the traditional big and little tyre combination, lakes style pipes and an engine that would feature prominently without compromising drivability. While he’s never been totally removed from cars with character, owning an assortment of Mopars and notable Fords over the years, it was hot rods that stirred his teenage automotive soul.
“When I was about 13 years old, my mates and I would be on our pushbikes and wait to see this maroon 1940 Coupe Ute cruise by every Friday afternoon. I think he only took it out once a week after work and one day we followed him until he stopped. We talked to the owner and he told us that the local South Australian TAC would conduct inspections once a month in the centre of Adelaide, so we found out when they were on and ride our bikes into the city and watch. That’s what really started my fascination with hot rods.”
While the ’26 tub never panned out, Ian was directly involved with old cars by establishing the XM-XP Hardtop Owners Club of South Australia, where he participated with one of his three Falcon coupes. Relocating to Queensland and general life commitments changed recreational importance, whilst an honest living was made through his jewelry business, family life claimed priority. Once normality was sustained the family business helped subsidise Ian to tinker with a 1964 Studebaker Cruiser that he upgraded with a 307 Chevy engine, 9” diff, four wheels discs and a complete re-trim. Unfinished in grey primer and his only means of transport, he hesitated on committing to a gleaming paintjob in fear of it falling victim to unwanted carpark rash outside the jewelry store.
“I thought that rather than worry about what might happen, I would sell it and buy a dungy car to commute and build a weekend cruiser. I sold the Stude and that money when into the chassis for the ‘32.”
As a married man with kids, a coupe or roadster was out of the question, so Ian focused his sights on a netting a Tudor body to suit his needs. After researching the market for reproduction options he decided on a Kevin McDermott repop ’32, for its affordability and point of difference.
“Ann and I had two kids and my daughter is car oriented and my son not so much, but the Tudor suited our family and at the time there weren’t many other Tudors around either.”
With the body secured he then called Elvis at Rodbods Downunder for an appropriate chassis that was tailored to his liking.
“Elvis was willing to modify it (the chassis) to suit my engine combination,” Ian explains. “He raised the front crossmember one inch and kicked up the rear two. The four-bar mounts were also repositioned as high as possible to hide them from view as much as possible.”
Ian further enhanced the repro frame by removing the forward boxing plate from the front horns to expose the outer rails, akin to an original chassis. Leigh Adams was responsible for fabricating the old school hairpins which were engineered before being powder coated and attached to a 4” dropped Super Bell front axle with stainless bat wings and Commodore calipers. Leigh also made the rear four-bars that locate the disc brake 9” which carries a 4.11 TruTrack centre built by Aussie Diffs.
With the chassis in a rolling state, Ian could position the Tudor shell and tweak it to his own taste dictated by his choice of accompanying components. The most major modification is the firewall to accommodate his motor of choice; that hulking Hemi!
“It’s funny,” Ian laughs as he explains his connection with Peter Gratz, “I live three doors down from the World’s Fastest Door Slammer, but we didn’t meet over cars. We got talking one day and we just got along. Eventually we did talk cars and it was he who said; ‘what about a Hemi?’ I was thinking of an injected Ford or big block Chev and I knew that Hemi’s they were harder to come by.”
Also keep in mind that Ian was budget conscious throughout the entire project, but even he knew that he had to spend a good dollar on the right stuff to stand out in a crowd. After a lot of searching he located a potential mill back in South Australia.
“Peter ‘Yahoo’ Gratz, was my neighbor so I was defiled early in the build; it had to be a Hemi or I had to move,” Ian jokes. “The engine was cheap, for a Hemi, but it was quickly pointed out that all these engines are 50+ years old and need work… and it did. I handed the bits over to Casey Mortenson at White Lightening Speed and he and Jack Bros ‘polished a turd’ as they say.”
Although the original repro bodyshell was ordered with a two inch full firewall set back to preserve its authentic appearance, an additional recess was necessary to clear the massive heads on the 354 Chrysler.
“I contacted Ron Bridgement at RB Fiberglass, a well-known shop that specializes in one off parts for cars, race cars and world championship jet skis. He did the second recess.”
Moving to the business end of the body, it became clear that the rear tub treatment of the Tudor was well suited to a fendered hot rod with big meats, but once exposed with thin Firestones planting the power, it was proportionally wrong.
Ron had already modified the firewall and made a new tunnel to fit the steel floor perfectly, so he got the nod to rework the rear inner wheel arches as well. Working from owner supplied photos of original 1932 Ford equivalents, Ron removed the wheel tubs and fabricated roadster style inserts technically ‘De-tubbing’ the car 1 ½” each side. Impressed with his skills, Ian commissioned Ron to also narrow the door window openings by 1” to hide the bailey channel, hand craft the cowl vent and construct the faux roof insert complete with a vinyl pattern that he shaped out of black fiberglass avoiding additional paint.
“I wasn’t trying to make it look like a steel car… just to make you take a second look,” he expounds.
Forward of the Pentastar rotating assembly, a repro ’32 grill shell has been lowered between the rails for alignment correction and Ian insisted on an insert sporting a crank hole. During one of his many stand-back-and-look sessions with a cold beverage… he transposed the crank hole aperture into the grill rear splash apron… just because. Attention to detail… that’s one word for it!
Inside we discover similar surprises like the ’32 Deluxe dash denoted by its glove compartment, climate control and three pedals. Completed in a colour palette to make any Stones fan proud, the black on black vinyl interior turned out far more illustrious than Ian had envisaged.
“The whole interior was meant to be basic-as-hell-black, specifically designed to direct attention to the pedals and gauges,” Ian expresses, “but the pedals dictated the bling and things just grew from there.”
Ironically, that unique pedal arrangement first spied during an American visit dictated many appointments throughout the interior and underside with Brad from Siggz Street Rods replicating Ian’s two dimensional design into a three dimensional performance work of art, articulated by a combination of concealed cables and hydraulic linkages.
“To keep the focus on the pedals and not to be distracted by how it operates, everything had to go straight down through the floor,” Ian digresses. “Oddly it was the throttle that was the trickiest to get right. The Limeworks column was chosen as it is the cleanest nostalgia item available, I made my own column drop and hid a motorbike indicator switch between the seats, which is unexpectedly easy to use.”
To avoid any unpleasant surprises come rego time, Ian wisely sent a drawing of the proposed pedal arrangement to the TAC prior to construction, where it was all cleared before commencement with the only amendment to include slip arresters in the design. With an appropriate alteration fashionably devised, it was then carried over to the gauge panel and horn button. Don’t let the hand stitched door pulls and map pockets fool you, everything compiled to complete this distinctive hot rod is judiciously premeditated.
While the seats are no frills affordable items that harmonize perfectly within the ensemble, that handbrake lever was painstakingly hunted down and netted through a global search.
“I went to the Pomona swap back in 2010 to specifically find the vintage handbrake along with some other parts for the car and unfortunately I came home empty handed. Just after we got back Shane Ho, one of the guys I went to the US with, found one on Ebay…in bloody Victoria!”
Willem and the team at Platinum Trim on the Gold Coast gets the kudos for picking up the interior fit-out after Ian’s first upholsterer became ill and unable to commit to the task. With fresh glass carved from Ian’s templates and a quality Red Fox windscreen installed, the choice of exterior colour was weighing heavy on its owners mind.
“I looked at loads of traditional colours and I didn’t want drab. I really liked the VE utes when they came out and thought how they popped every time I saw them. Then guys started to put black wheels on them similar to the direction that I wanted to go. I started to think whether I was unique in my overly scrutineered decision making, but then considered that everyone must go through the same dilemmas. I also mulled over cream and orange wheels.”
Ultimately Ian chose his favored combination after some wise words from a club member.
“I went through a gamut of colours for over a year,” Ian rationalises, “then Chad Lackey quizzed me about how the car was going and I told him about my colour commitment indecision. He relayed the story of his brother, who changed his mind at the 11th hour on his own car and regretted it ever since. ‘If you fell in love with a colour stick with it!’ he told me… it was the smack about the head that I needed and we got on with it.”
Ian’s version of nostalgia-traditional with a modern twist exterior was prepped and painted by Alan Gadd at his home and finished in Alan’s spray booth to make the Atomic Mica Green radiate in all lighting conditions. Ian is quick to stress that it was never meant to be “show quality finish”, as he would be too worried about driving it, but viewing the finished Tudor first hand it’s no slouch thanks to Alan’s educated execution. To complement the black accents, Ian painted black fenders on one side of the car and green on the other, and just kept walking past it for days.
“I pushed it out into the sun one day and just knew they had to be black. I sent the tyre dimensions to Shane Dale in SA who fabbed the fenders and they turned up a week later spot on to what I wanted.”
Perfecting the Tudor’s rolling stock was also just as problematical with Ian purchasing several V8 embossed hub caps to adorn the black powder coated 15 x 5 and 16 x 6 Wheel Vintique wires.
“The wheel tyre combo was taken from magazine features that I liked. I tried the wires without caps and liked the look, but it didn’t look finished. I tried chrome and it didn’t work. Then I tried the black with the V8 emblem pinstriped and liked it for a bit but went back to just black. I loved them, but they just didn’t suit on the car.”
Completing the final zesty package, Ian positioned ’32 commercial headlights as low as legally possible and backed up the forward illumination with an outstanding solution to an expensive and almost unobtainable taillight choice.
“I saw some taillights which I had to have for the car, they were ‘36-‘37 Chrysler but at $600 for shitty ones on Ebay I couldn’t justify them. So I did the hot rodder thing and used some 1937 Ford units, which were about the same size and shape, and had Rick Werner make up some stainless trim pieces. I added blue dots and presto, identical Chrysler taillights!”
Ian also crafted the tapered front and indicator equipped rear spreader bars before he wired the car nose to tail using a Rebel wire kit. It’s a job that he confesses was as easy as 1, 2, 3 after almost six years of designing, head scratching, problem solving and plain hard work that is associated with building a hot rod from scratch.
“I’m really looking forward to just enjoying the car for a while, especially now that it’s properly tuned. I enjoyed designing the car that turned out how I envisaged it from the beginning six years ago. Would I do it again? Yes, but for now I haven’t enjoyed this one enough yet.”
“Many people had input into the car and supplied encouragement for me along the way, so thanks to Ann, members of Gold Coast Street Rodders in particular Leigh, Brad, Bill, Rick and Steve B and also Michael Carpenter. But special thanks to Peter Gratz, a guy who always had time for me whenever I needed advice or a physical hand; YAHOO it’s been a great ride!”
