Economy DRIVE
ECONOMY DRIVE
Steve Alldrick builds his kids a stunningly beautiful ’32 Ford roadster on a budget
IT MIGHT appear that we’re giving Steven Alldrick and the Deluxe Rod Shop a lot of ink lately, but that’s simply because they keep turning out killer hot rods and street machines. Most recently we featured Steven’s XR ute in SM, Apr ’20, and it was a huge hit. In a way, this ’32 roadster is a hot rod version of that car: understated, with a tendency towards factory styling features, but highly detailed top to bottom. I know many of you won’t believe it – and it sure as shit doesn’t look like it – but both cars were built with very tight budgets.
Of course, it helps when you have your own hot rod shop and spend a lot of time attending swap meets to source the cool early Ford parts that would make or break the look of the car. Even so, there are still plenty of areas where Steven invested time rather than money, and that’s something all of us can do. As with all of his builds, he simply had a plan and stuck with it: “We wanted to build a turn-key car in 60 days to showcase at the Victorian Hot Rod Show; something simple and a nice driver with the right look,” he says. “So after the XR was unveiled at Summernats 33, we didn’t stop – [wife] Kathleen and I did a lot of the assembly after work so we could keep the shop running and weren’t taking time away from customers’ cars.”
After doing a bit of a stocktake in the workshop, it turned out they had most of the bits on hand to finish off the roadster. “I had a diff housing and a centre, all the radius rods, a set of Rod-tech four-bars and coil-overs,” Steven says. “I only had to buy the axle and spring for the front end; I had everything else. We bought everything we needed during the build so there were no extra costs at the end.”
There are a few big-dollar items on the car, such as the wheels and tyres, windscreen and front axle.
“I spent the money on the bits you can see,” Steven explains. “Things like the wheels and windscreen I had to have to get the look right. The windscreen is probably the most expensive thing on the car, but it needed it; it’s the same with the back tyres.”
Another neat trick of Steven’s was to combine old Ford parts with street rod parts to create the triangulated four-bar rear. “I used a ’46 radius rod flipped upside down, as it gets the car lower,” he explains. “I did the same on the back of Kathleen’s ’32 Ford tudor, and it worked so well because it’s still a four-bar but the bottom arm is longer. The front arms were ’34 radius rods that someone had cut up and attempted to split. I got some So-cal tie-rod ends and Tig-welded them onto the end of the radius rods and saved them. One was a bit bent, so we heated it up and put it in the press to straighten it, then got them sandblasted.”
All of the suspension components and underside of the chassis were painted in gloss black, and it’s another area that looks a million bucks but was quite cost-effective. “It’s PPG industrial paint, so it’s hardwearing and pretty cheap, but the shine out of it is just awesome,” Steven says. “Once our work experience kid polished all the bolts, it only took me and Kathleen a day to put the chassis together, because everything was polished and laid out ready to go.”
Overall, there are very few shiny bits on the car. Whereas most people would be looking to fully polish the exhaust and wheels, Steven went in the exact opposite direction, having Oxytech powdercoat the lakes-style headers in a heat-proof titanium finish, while the wheels copped a magnesium-look coating. Even the mandrel-bent stainless exhaust has a brushed finish.
The interior is another area that looks like no
THE END RESULT LOOKS LIKE NO EXPENSE WAS SPARED, BUT IN ACTUAL FACT THERE WERE LOTS OF STEPS TAKEN TO SAVE MONEY