FEATURE – 1936 Ford Hot Rod Pickup
Words: Mike Ryan
Photos: Ben Hosking – Hosking Industries
‘Make Do and Mend’ was a slogan used during World War II in Britain, encouraging citizens to use what was already available, make it well and make it last. More than 60 years later, it’s a slogan that could equally be applied to Tony Webster’s 1936 Ford pickup
Hot Rod Legend
For those in the hot rod fraternity, Tony ‘Webby’ Webster needs no introduction. Based in Newcastle in NSW (the Newcastle suburb of Carrington, to be specific), Tony’s been rolling quality rods and custom projects out the doors of Webby’s Speed Shop for decades, including trophy winners at ASRF shows and other events.
Beyond countless builds for customers, Tony’s also been involved in engine upgrades, race car projects and general mechanical and repair work.
Tony’s built himself a number of personal projects over the years, too, including a bright green Model A Ford sedan delivery that’s been his shop truck for the past fifteen years. You’ve probably seen it at various events, or in the local hot rod mags five yeas ago, after it was reinvented in its current livery and debuted at the 2014 Valla Rod Run.
Coincidentally, the project featured here also debuted at Valla, in 2018, but it has a long, colourful – and rusty! – history before that.
North Dakota to Newcastle
The starting point for this project was a 1936 Ford pickup cab which Tony sourced, with a bunch of other US cabs and body parts, out of North Dakota more than a decade ago.
As purchased the cab was in pretty good shape, but that’s not how it arrived here…
“This particular cab got damaged when US Customs, repacking the container, used a forklift to push it back in and crushed the whole firewall,” Tony explained.
“I couldn’t sell it as is because it was damaged, but it was good enough for what I wanted to do.”
What Tony wanted to do – at least, initially - was use the cab to build a cool rat rod pickup, then sell it. But that firewall had to be repaired first, so an all-new section was made up from 3mm thick steel and welded into the rest of the cab.
With that done, a ’36 Ford passenger car chassis was sourced to fit, with a Model T Ford pickup tub added. The original drivetrain was a 273 Chrysler V8 matched to a 4-speed transmission – but it didn’t stay that way for long.
“I had a Hemi in the shop, out of a dragster I had years ago, and someone said the truck would look pretty cool with a Hemi in it, so we put it in!”
With the Hemi V8 fitted, the rat-look pickup did the rounds of car and hot rod shows for about five years, and appeared in magazines, too, but only as a static display – it never ran under its own power with the Hemi, even though it could have been made to do so fairly easily.
“About three years ago, I decided ‘I’m going to get this truck registered and turn it into a driver, in the style of a ‘60s show car’,” Tony recalled, hence the switch to a reliable 350 Chev and Turbo 350 combo.
Rat and Rust. . .
The cabin suffered a fair few abuses before it was spruced up for its current configuration, including years spent outside exposed to the sea air, and serving as a “stage”, as Tony explained.
“We had it as a stage prop for a gig for The Flattrakkers, which is a rockabilly band up here in Newcastle. The double bass player was standing on the cab while we sat inside drinking beers. He put dents in the roof that we just kicked out from the inside.
“That was fine back then – but when I decided to turn it into a good car, I had to fix it properly,” Tony laughed. “I had to fix dents that we put in deliberately!”
Getting the cab smooth and rust-free was probably the biggest challenge with this project, but nothing Tony can’t handle.
The cab was chopped six inches and channelled eight inches over the chassis – all typical hot rod stuff - but as this project was also being built to be a driver, the cab floor was modified so it actually runs underneath the chassis rails, instead of above. This adds a much-appreciated eight inches of extra head and leg room. It means you have most of the transmission and the driveshaft for company in the cabin, too, but you also have room to fit proper sprung seats, instead of the bum-numbing foam pads most channelled-body hot rods are forced to use.
After sorting out the cab, Tony turned his skills to the pickup tub, which is a reproduction Model T Ford unit. As the T tub is a lot narrower than the ’36 cab, some more metalwork was required, specifically fabricating a new tailgate and front section that are wider by around four inches. The tailgate is actually fixed, but because around half of the tub area is occupied by the fuel tank and battery, the tub was never going to carry anything more than a swag and an esky: “No-one will be loading up their motorbikes in it,” Tony laughed.
A wider floor for the tub was scratchbuilt, as was the tonneau cover (that features gas struts and can lock for security). Tony also rolled up the front and rear guards out of steel. These cover 15-inch chrome steelie wheels and BF Goodrich whitewalls at each end.
A fibreglass ’32 Ford grille shell that Tony had lying around the workshop (Make Do and Mend again!) was drafted in to the project and has been channelled to fit the ’32 Ford heavy axle.
. . . to Rejected Paint
With the decision to paint the pickup, exactly what paint and colour to use was the next challenge.
Tony was looking at a rich metalflake finish but had no idea exactly what colour he’d use before fortune fell in his lap.
“A mate of mine is a PPG paint rep and had made up a colour for another shop that was building a Summernats-style show ute. They mixed the colour up and the owner was happy with it, but the painter said, ‘I’m not painting that sh*t colour’ and that was the end of that!
“Driving back past my shop, my mate asked if I’d picked a colour for my pickup yet and when I said ‘No’, he replied ‘Here’s your paint’.”
So, Tony scored hundreds of dollars worth of quality PPG paint for nix – but even he can’t describe what colour it actually is. ‘Brown’ doesn’t really do it justice, as it has pink and green pearl in it, as well as fine gold flake. Depending on the light, it moves from bronze to gold to Army-style olive green. We’re calling it “Webby’s Original”; a name that reflects the original thinking that’s gone into this build.
As well as the exterior, that paint has also been applied to the Model A Ford headlight shells, the diff and rear suspension.
Complementing that unique paint is flat white for the ’36 chassis, firewall, front suspension, interior and other selected parts.
Holden and Chev. . .
Driving this Ford is a 350 Chev small block that’s largely stock. Fully recoed, with a mild cam job and retro-look valve covers, the engine also wears an Edelbrock Performer manifold and new Stromberg 97 chromed twin carbies.
The extractors were hand-made by Tony in-house and hook up to a 2-inch system and standard mufflers for road legality. The shorty pipes look great but aren’t just for show: they can be made functional by removing the end caps.
The Turbo 350 automatic is completely stock and connects to a VN-VP Commodore BW diff with a stock 3.08:1 ratio.
The radiator was a custom-made job with chromed top and bottom tanks that was another lucky find when Tony picked it up for a song after it had been abandoned at the chromers.
Brakes are made up of HZ Holden discs up front and VN-VP Commodore discs at the rear, linked by an HZ Holden master cylinder.
While the running gear and brakes are all GM, the suspension is neither Ford nor GM, but actually a combination of torsion bars and airbags.
Tony’s worked torsion bar front-ends into past projects and rates them highly, as they’re more compact than shocks and springs, allow a lower ride height and are easy to tune, simply by swapping in different pound-rated bars as required. The units in this project are out of a sprint car and work well with the side-steer set-up, too.
Like the torsion bars, the airbag rear was chosen because it’s compact and helps achieve a low stance as required. Tony says the airbags are actually much bigger than this project needs and can easily lift a Cadillac. But he had them on the shelf, so remember what we were saying about ‘make do and mend’…
Tony only runs about 20 pounds of their 70-pound air capacity when driving, but the rear can lift by about five inches if required.
Inside, there’s a bit more Holden in the form of an HK steering box under the dash, while the dash itself is a severely docked unit out of an EK. Cutting out the entire centre out of this dash still wasn’t enough to fit inside the Ford’s cab width, so a second section had to be cut from the glovebox. Inside the glovebox, there’s switches for the heater-demister and airbag functions.
The steering column is another piece Tony made in-house and has been topped with a white-rimmed Moon wheel that’s one of the few parts that was bought specifically for this project and not taken off the shelves of Webby’s Speed Shop.
. . . and VW, too
The seats are out of a Volkswagen Beetle and are completely stock, except for the trim. That wasn’t done by Tony himself, but by a mobile trimmer that sewed up the seat covers, doorcards, tunnel trim, carpets and tonneau trim in Tony’s workshop.
Tony chuckles when he recalls how soon he picked his desired chocolate and cream colours (selected after the paint was done) for the interior from the hundreds of samples the trimmer presented: “I went ‘flick flick, flick’ and said, ‘I want that colour and that colour’. He looked at me and said, ‘You know there’s about 200 more colours?’. I said, ‘I don’t need another 200 – I want those’. I was done in less than five minutes and the trimmer said that’s the quickest anyone has picked a trim colour in his entire life!”
Like the exterior paint, the brown vinyl has facets in it that pick up the light, and, combined with the buttons and pleats, has that ’60s future vibe: “I wanted the interior to look like a lounge suite from the Jetsons!” Tony laughed.
Other interior bits and pieces include the pedals and handbrake out of a MkII Escort and an aftermarket Hurst shifter.
Rolling and Respected
Two years after he started, working on it only on weekends and occasional evenings, Tony was bringing the pickup to completion by the middle of 2018. Setting a goal of having it ready to debut at the Valla Rod Run put the spurs to the project, with the final pieces done ahead of engineer approval and registration on the eve of last year’s show.
The work Tony put into it – and into making it a driver – was rewarded with a Top Ten and Top Engineered trophy at Valla. Further trophies came when it was entered at the Victorian Hot Rod Show this past January and the Queenscliff Rod Run in February.
“As a car builder, we win a lot of Top Tens, but winning Top Engineered at Valla was pretty insane, especially when you actually manufacture a lot of the parts yourself,” Tony said with pride.
“Any award in Top Engineered is pretty cool for a car builder like us, because it’s judged by your peers.”
Now, close to a year after it was completed, Tony’s still impressed with what he put together and actually wishes he drove this pickup more often, but given it’s for sale (see breakout) he doesn’t want to drive it too much as he might change his mind about selling it!
For something that was made using a lot of scratch-built and existing parts – from nose to tail – this hot rod is much more than the sum of those parts. Not bad for a Make Do and Mend approach, eh?
FOR SALE
Built to sell from the start, Tony finally decided to put this rod on the market earlier this year.
It’s covered only minimal miles since it was completed, but with its proven 350/T350 drivetrain, this pickup is reliable on the road. The full-spring seats make it a comfortable ride, too.
If winning trophies is more your bag, this hot rod has a proven record on that front, too, including trophies at the 2018 Valla Rod Run and this year’s Victorian Hot Rod Show.
Engineer-approved and with full NSW registration, the new buyer would need to add nothing, except maybe door windows.
As he’s keen to move this pickup on and start new projects, Tony’s reduced the asking price from $75,000 to $65,000. Phone (02) 4961 6722 for more details.
View online with more photos at justcars.com.au using the ad code: JCM5064710.
