Thread: Rise and fall of a great American hotrod

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Well, I don't know how GREAT it was, but let's just say it was "great enough" to make the cover of a known hotrod magazine back in the early 70's.

I HAVE BEEN TRACKING DOWN MY HOTROD'S HISTORY

I am not going to get into too much details here, as I am not done yet. What seemed to be a project that would entail a few phone calls has turned out to be the search for the Holy Grail! It has been the most exciting and fun thing I have done this year, I feel like Sherlock Holmes on a serial murder case .

Each new phone call unveils a new owner, new stories, and additional hotrod modifications for my little guy (and color). Mr. Hiboy has had quite a life! And no, it was not built in the 80's like many of its later owners had thought. And no, it was not created from scratch and made of misc odd balls parts like many others had thought.

I have so far tracked the story back to the late seventies. Yesterday I hit the jackpot when talking to an owner (TERRY) who actually LOVED the car and knew quite a bit about its past.

MY ROADSTER STARTED ITS LIFE AS A 1932 CABRIOLET. It had the original steel HF body on it all the way until 1979. As far back as terry can remember, the car was a hiboy. Terry had noticed the car when it made the cover of a known hotrod magazine back in the late 60's or early seventies (by a miracle of God he saved the magazine all these years and will mail me a copy of it ). At the time the owner of the cabriolet Hiboy went through a divorce & parted the car out, and the body shell was sold to one person )for $10,000), while the rest of the car (complete with even the original steel firewall) was sold to Terry. Terry could not afford to spend the extra $10,000 for the original body, plus maybe he prefered to have a roadster body rather than a cabriolet. So he then bought a crated Wescott body (the one I now have) and get this:

MY WESCOTT BODY IS BODY NUMBER SEVEN!! Basically, an antique

I furthermore found that Terry finished the roadster (complete with paint and interior) and painted it green and raced the roadster and showed it. He said that no one could beat him as far as racing went. At the time the roadster still had the original HF hood on it. It had a corvette engine and would "give you a whiplash" (I quote).

I was happy to find my roadster had at some point been "Glorious", but at the same time I was sad. Sad because I wondered why so many of the subsequent owners did not care for it and respect it like they should have. Why they dismentelled it, ran it into the ground, and how it went from the glory of a hotrod magazine cover, to losing it hood, interior, seat, steering wheel, engine, and ended up sitting in a garage for 12 years, looking like not much more than a rolling chassis.



Ironically, Mr. Hiboy's body is out there, somewhere, it would be interesting to track it down...

Now I am of course curious as to when the cabriolet was initially hotrodded... 70's? 60's? Earlier? But that's yet, another story for another post for another day.

FAITH

When you get that original hot rod magazine, post a picture of the cover. I probably have it, and would like to read the article and see if there is anything more that can be determined about the car.


It must have been a nice body to command that kind of money back then.

Don

Originally Posted by Itoldyouso

It must have been a nice body to command that kind of money back then.

Don

Booohooohoooo... Don't torture me Although as Terry pointed out he said: "don't feel bad, if it still had the cabriolet original body on it, you would not have been able to afford buying your roadster... "

And he's right, I would not own Mr. Hiboy today.

(drying up my tears)

Originally Posted by Itoldyouso

When you get that original hot rod magazine, post a picture of the cover. I probably have it

Do you keep them sorted by issue date? If so maybe I can call him today and ask him to tell me the name of mag and issue date... In case he flakes and never get sme the copy

I really appreciate the offer to help find out more... THANKS!

No, my collection is a mess. It is scattered between my bedroom, my bathroom, and the bulk of them are at our shop, filling 5 of those 6 foot high metal shelf units, so it will be a little bit of digging. But I pretty much can recognize a magazine and tell if I have it or not, as I have read them so many times.

BTW, what are you doing up at this unGodly hour? Isn't it like 4:30 AM in California??

Don

".....Sad because I wondered why so many of the subsequent owners did not care for it and respect it like they should have. Why they dismantled it, ran it into the ground, and how it went from the glory of a hotrod magazine cover, to losing it hood, interior, seat, steering wheel, engine, and ended up sitting in a garage for 12 years, looking like not much more than a rolling chassis......"

Cars go through a lot of different stages as they go through their life cycle(s)...especially cars that are destine to eventually become hot rods.

Normally they start out as mundane mass produced passenger cars and are worn out and discarded (usually after passing though numerous hands). Those that have managed to elude the crusher eventually reach an age where due to their age actually become desirable again (if they haven't been stripped to the point of being a parts car).

Each owner of the car usually adds a little personality to the car, be it in the form of modification or more scars.

In a lot of cases many first time hot rodders buy a car with their own vision of what it will eventually be......and in many cases will get a start on the car before admitting they are in over their heads either financially and or ability wise.

Almost every car I have built and sold over the years has eventually been further modified by follow on owners (just as I usually do when I buy a new project).

The 3rd owner of my 65 Biscayne after me bought it for the dual quad motor/4 speed and a few of the options I had on it for his 65 Impala 2dr hard top. The rolling chassis was sold to some other aspiring Hot Rodder.

My 37 Dodge pick-up (pending project) was a nice old stock pick-up until around 90 or so when it underwent an attempt at being turned into a ???(well I won't really say hot rod). It had a Mustang II style front suspension professionally installed and then the butchery began with a chopped up fire wall, a 2.8 V6,C3 and 4 bolt Mustang II rear end installed, then left outside with the front end sheetmetal in the bed until around 2003 when I came along. I went through mock-up with a Hemi and torqueflight, sold it to help step daughter pay for a custody battle for my grandson and eventually bought it back where I hopefully get back to putting it together next year.

The 57 Plymouth I'm just finishing up (should move under it's own power sometime this weekend for the first time in 30 years) had a repaint and quarter panel repair and aftermarket "Belvedere" some time when it was fairly new. At some point someone rebuilt the motor (flat head 6) and it didn't even warn enough to burn the overspray paint off the exhaust manifold before it threw a rod out the side of the block. It then went to a wrecking yard for a while was bought by someone intending on build a 426 wedge/crossram hot rod out of it.....was bought by my friend who had to take the car in a package deal to buy the crossrams for another project who sold it to me......on a side note he tried to buy it back from me to use as a parts cars for a rusty 57 rag top he latter picked up.

MY original plan was to built it as a nostalgia drag car, but that eventually changed direction and is now going to be my hiway cruiser/vacation car.

The old saying "the constant in life is change" also applies to a cars life.

Originally Posted by Itoldyouso

When you get that original hot rod magazine, post a picture of the cover. I probably have it, and would like to read the article and see if there is anything more that can be determined about the car.

Don

Rod and Custom February 1973... Has the shot of 3 cars on cover, one of which a cabriolet (my car) - DO YOU HAVE IT????

At this very moment I am talking with a guy who recently bought his first rod, an older T-bucket that I had painted the graphics on.

After owning it for a few months, he decided to build a new car with some improvements, and new ideas he has, but realized it is both cheaper and faster to redo what he already has.

Now the car will have the chassis redone with a different rear, the body will be modified, rewired and repainted, and the motor will be changed and have a different look also.

The point of this is that someone in the future will wonder why it was redone.

When you get the mag you'll learn the car on the cover and inside feature belonged to Brooks Cranmer in Milton, Mass. If he got $10k for just the body in the late '70's he's a god!! That's about what the price of a nicely done complete deuce with one of the much more desired bodies like a roadster, or either style coupe went for around then. But hey............that's what stories are all about! Kinda goes with the "nobody could beat it" line!

FYI ...

When researching your 32 ... do not put a lot of faith in everything you hear. ... Fact is ... people LIE ... or have their version of the truth.

I built a 69 Camaro some years back. It was a car with no engine, no transmission and no rear end. All the glass and interior was gone. It was a stolen and recovered vehicle. I had to put a junky rear end under it to load on my trailer. I installed a Big Block Chevy ( 454 + .030 ) , a Turbo 400 and 9 inch Ford rear end. I did the body work and had a friend paint it. I bought a repro interior kit and installed it. I installed all new glass in the Camaro also.

I sold it to help get money to buy a house ( that I still own ) ...
A few years ago, I was 125 miles from my home and ran across my old 69 Camaro at a cruise night. It had changed hands a few times since I sold it ... but the current owner told me how he pulled it out of a storage shed and built it himself.

I know it is the same Camaro ... I used the Pace Car interior kit, drilled the hole in the rear panel for the cut-off switch ... and installed the MSD. No doubt it was my old car ... ... But he will tell you how he built it

And 10 grand for a 32 Cabriolet ( body only ) in 1979 ... would be like 40 to 50 thousand dollars now ... I know ... I sold a running steel 32 Hiboy roadster for a little less ... and everyone said I raped the new owner ...

Originally Posted by HiboyGal

Rod and Custom February 1973... Has the shot of 3 cars on cover, one of which a cabriolet (my car) - DO YOU HAVE IT????

I'll look in my collection too, Faith.

I'll dig around too. GIve me a few days or so.

Don

The July '72 issue of Rod & Custom had a build up feature of the car in the "Garage Scene" section. You may want to find that issue as well.

Mick

To me digging up the history of a car is as interesting as the build itself. My 28 Hupp has been in my family since it was new and only now, almost 80yrs later, is the car being modified from being original. Thanks for sharing, and keep up informed with the dig!

"........But he will tell you how he built it......."

I hear you, I sold my 58 Chevy mild custom a few years back (there's a picture in my gallery, and the side trim is very distinctive, a combination of Belair and biscayne and lot of trim removed), a friend of mine who knew the car mentioned to me one day that it had shown up on E Bay a couple of years after I had sold it. It was being listed as a car that had been bought from an estate sale of the second owner and that it had sat in the garage for the last 10 years.