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Dec 04, 2023

Building a Custom Trans Tunnel for Troy Ladd’s 1931 Ford Model A Coupe

Related Video It's getting a little intense at Troy Ladd's Hollywood Hot Rods,

Related Video

It's getting a little intense at Troy Ladd's Hollywood Hot Rods, where the pressure is mounting to get his one-day-a-week coupe finished. Troy's the owner of Hollywood Hot Rods and gets only one day off a week to work on his personal project. This is his bad-to-the-blown 1931 Ford Model A coupe being built mostly from his junk pile.

Obviously, not everybody has a pre-chopped 1931 Model A coupe on a shelf, a Brookville Roadster Lakester frame that didn't get used, a 392 Chrysler Hemi block in the corner, plus a lot of the parts needed to join these components together, but when you own a shop, things accumulate, so why not put them to good use? Troy's plan is to build a car he can drive to work and race occasionally.

In Part 1, we looked at the chassis build. Part 2 explored how to adapt 1956 Buick finned brake drums to early Ford spindles and Lincoln backing plates, as well as the fabrication of a driveshaft safety loop. In Part 3, we looked at the build of the spec rollcage. This time around, we're documenting the fabrication of small but necessary items such as the battery box, seats risers, and trans tunnel.

On season 3, episode 2 of HOT ROD Unlimited, Thom Taylor drives a channeled, topless Deuce roadster in the dead of winter from Nashville to Los Angeles, encountering what you would expect in the middle of winter: ice, rain, cold, frost—did we mention cold?? Watch the roadster slip, slide and spin 2,000 miles as Thom takes Interstate 40 through eight states and 70 degrees of temperature change, taking breaks for burnouts, breakdowns, bad weather and junkyards. Sign up for a free trial to MotorTrend+ and start streaming every episode of HOT ROD Unlimited today!