Bill Hook started building Wetzel ’s Roadster , a 1932 Ford buggy , in the belated forties , enlisting the celebrated Valley Custom shop in Burbank , California , to further modify the already channel consistency . Valley Custom smoothed the rear wheel arches , bring a pluck rear pan , knock off the threshold handles , and moved the gas filler to the driver - side rearward one-fourth panel .
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The shop also put in a DuVall windscreen and added a Stewart Warner Hollywood instrument cluster . A second Hollywood legal document venire , minus the instruments , was bestow to attend as the glovebox room access . Hook sold the Deuce unfinished in 1952 to Dr. Leland Wetzel , who had friend Leonard Carr work up the engine and finish the car .
Wetzel spar no expense in build theFordflathead V-8 , equip it with Evans head and intake manifold . When complete , he force the Deuce from his Springfield , Missouri , domicile to the Bonneville Speed Week and Pikes Peak Hill Climb with his wife , Bertha , to watch the action . Bertha chronicled that slip in the December 1952Hot Rod , observe the wide-ranging weather conditions they suffer in the buggy .
Dr. Wetzel own the Deuce roadster for 43 years until Kurt McCormick , a noted Barris customs accumulator from nearby Webster Groves , Missouri , convinced him to deal it in 1995 . When Kurt picked up the car , he reported that it was stone - cold archetype to the photo take in 1952 .
Kurt had Dave Conrad of Kirkwood , Missouri , do the complete restoration and vary the locomotive in the process . Kurt choose for another period engine he had on hand , the 1954 Cadillac 331 - cid V-8 from the Barris - built Parisienne custom .
Kurt had the railway locomotive machine employment done by Ronnie Simon of St. Louis , then deploy the SCoT electric fan along with other period - correct components . Kurt says the Cad V-8 fit without drilling any new holes into the frame .
Kurt maintain the front nerf bar with surrounded " W " that Dr. Wetzel had made . With the exception of the new engine and fronttires , the car now appears just as it did in 1952 .
