Few quick facts:
– Year: 1930/31
– Motor: NA, likely will be SBC
– Trans: Saginaw 3 speed manual
– Trim/body: 5 window
– Suspension: NA
The Backstory
As with pretty much everything i own, this 5w has a bit of a back story. Roughly 3ish years ago my close friend and hotrod mentor Alan pulled this home.. it was a basket case of a body + a frame. I saw it on Craigslist and started drooling; a top car on my bucket list is a 5w, but i was pretty much priced out on the ‘good’ ones. So when he txted over a pic and said he bought it, i was instantly jealous lol. The club (Slackers CC) spent a few weeknight reassembling it and plotting. Alan had an amazing v12 flathead Lincoln he’d been saving for the right build… and this felt right. So Alan started working full throttle on getting the frame lengthened to fit the motor and on patch panel work.
As often happens for car guys, a new project showed up on his door step that took priority and the 5w was pushed to ‘rust row’ for a few year nap. I bugged Alan for a few years to let me know if he ever wanted to sell the 5w. It was in really rough shape, but it was likely the only shot i was gona get at a 5w any time soon.
Fast fwd to ~July 2021 – Alan was able to get his hands on a 100% original ’32 5w and decided that it would be the home for his V12 flatty… which meant the 5w A was now in the way! As promised, he let me know he wanted it gone… so we did some horse trading and BOOM! I’m now the proud owner of a 5 window Model A!
The Package Deal
Instead of just a cab, Alan made it a full ‘hot rod starter kit’. Among a ton of thing, it came with: boxed A frame, 2 SBCs (cores), 3 speed Saginaw, wheels (my old rat wheels i have him lol), 9″ rear, model A stock front axle, grill shell, model A motor, patch panels, some gauges, etc, etc, etc. More parts than you can shake a stick at! It also came with the most important thing of all: knowing that Alan knew the project well and was only a txt/call away if shit hit the fan!
Getting it back to PA
Alan was nice enough to let me store everything at his place for damn-near 5 months. Finally, i was able to get a window to head and pick everything up. I hitched up old-faithful (my LLY Duramax) to my box trailer and headed to NH. With the help of Alan’s home-made tractor, we loaded up everything and strapped it down for the +600mi ride.
Whats next?
This past weekend, my old man and i unloaded the box trailer into my shop.. which was no small feat for a 30-something guy and his 70-something father lol.
This is gona be a ‘slow’ project sadly. As of night now, i live 2hrs away from my shop… so i only see the place every other weekend or so (and like a divorced dad, i dream of the day i’ll be closer to my kids… i mean, projects). For now, i’m going to start working on the cab/body work. I’m SUPER green to body work, so i figure this is a great way to learn. I picked up some body hammers/dollies and have a handful of patch panels Alan gave me.
My hope is to tinker away until the cab is solid, then figure out where to go from there. The end all plan is to chop it ~2in, channel it ~3in, build an SBC to drop in, and set it on a Z’ed frame with 4in drop axle in front and narrowed 9in in rear.