My First Hot Rod
at the Age
of 15 or 16
1946 Ford Deluxe Coupe with a 1954 Chrysler Hemi (331 Cu. In.)
Where It All Started
At the age of 15 or 16 I bought a 1946 Ford Coupe and took
this Hemi out of a 1954 Chrysler New Yorker that
my parents had driven until the transmission quit.
My first Hot Rods engine, pictured
in April 1967 in a 1940 Ford Pickup after I sold it.
I do not have any photos of my first hot rod, a 1946 Ford Coupe that I had
this Hemi in.
Classmate Larkin Martin taught allot of us the basics to acetylene welding,
so I
ordered a header flange kit and U tubing from "Honest Charlie" and
I built the headers using
old clothes hanger wire for welding rod and using old oil filter canisters
off two flatheads for
the header collectors and caps.
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My First Hot Rod at the age of 15. We could get a drivers license at age 14 after we took a drivers education class and passed it at school in those days. Pictured is a 1954 Chrysler Hemi 331 Cu In. with home made headers and a two 4-barrel carburetor Intake. I only had the money to buy one carburetor at the time. I was then drafted into the US Army in 1966. I had my 46 Ford Coupe full fenders and hood assemblied running earlier with just the factory single Carter 4-barrel carburetor. As cousin Gary Mosier can testify, you could barely hold the old car between the bar ditches because it drove so poorly. The Hemi was in a 1946 Ford Coupe. I sold the car while in the service and when I got home the guy, that bought it, had cut the perfect 46 sheet metal coupe up and sold it for scrap. He had put the Hemi in a 1940 Ford Pickup and never did get it running again. Raymond Hogg of Big Spring Texas purchased the old Hemi about 1970 and used it on a Irrigation Pump. I remeber the day the valve covers came back from the chrome shop. I was so excited I didn't know how to act. I think both valve covers with the spark plug covers cost about $18.00 to chrome back then. I had a set of Hemi Valve Covers chromed without wire covers this year, 2009, they cost over $200.00. |