This 1929 Dodge DA Roadster was 1 of 12 vehicles to be invited to compete in the 2022 America’s Most Beautiful Roadster competition at the Grand National Roadster Show.
Being the #1 competition in the world for such vehicles, this was a major honour for our work to be recognized in such a manner.
A Dodge is not a “typical hot rod” and being a roadster, it’s a pretty rare and special car, even if it wasn’t built to be one of the best in the world.
It came into the shop with an older, poorly done restoration but it looked good but the idea behind this build was to “take my wife on nice drives and date nights”. That’s a noble cause, so together with the client, we set out a great plan for it.
Reliability and driveability are always of utmost importance to us and the client agreed, so we were set to go. Fortunately the core’s of the engine, transmission and differential were usable, so they were all rebuilt.
The engine is a 1953 Canadian Pontiac 25” Warranty Replacement engine, so it is extremely rare. The compression was bumped up and the cam got a custom grind, designed by infamous Guy Henderson himself, and a high performance, aluminum EDGY head (1 of 15 reproduced) was sourced along with Thickston side covers (only a handful reproduced) and the original prototype dual carb Tattersfield manifold made in 1938 was located. Finding these parts was like wining a lottery.
The engine is balanced and blueprinted, so the custom, hand built dual fuel injection looks like a set of Stromberg Carbs, will bring it all together.
Opening the hood on this ‘29 Dodge Roadster is like a woman opening her most precious jewelry box and seeing the rarest of diamonds shining back at her. The difference is that the diamond you see is the engine which is the crowning jewel of this build.
No dual control arm suspension systems are available for a ’29 Dodge so we chose the closest fitting front one and modified it to the frame in such a way that it looks like it was meant to be.
The body was brought back to a stunning level and coated with the blackest black we could produce, then 4 coats of clear were applied, wet sanded and polished to perfection. Looking at it is like looking in a mirror. Check out the reflection of the body, you can clearly see the trees that are 400 feet way perfectly clearly.
