The street rod team had struck gold in a lot of ways – as long as they looked through rose colored glasses (or the bottom of a beer bottle) and used a lot of imagination! The body was salvageable. The fenders were good, the doors were there, it had a hood and a grille shell and there was what remained of the original trunk lid.

is hard to say what the original “custom” plan was for the ’37 Phaeton back in the 50’s. The cowl and doors were sectioned by 4 inches, but the rear of the car was unaltered. The frame was butchered – especially near the rear axle. The engine and transmission were long gone, but a replacement was soon to be found.


After a careful sorting of the new found treasure, the disassembly began. The cutting torch was quickly recognized as the tool of choice for the job. Absolutely nothing came apart with a simple wrench.

A local welding expert, Doug Times of Times Welding, helped brace up the body so that it could be lifted off the frame without distorting. The frame was stripped down to the rails – which were held together with iron fence-posts above the hacksaw notch for axle clearance.

The build team was going to do this by themselves. (Once again, they overemphasized the “Dirty” theme of the DDT to Las Vegas.) So the work progressed…….. but the target was now the 2007 Posies Driven Dirty Tour from Chattanooga, TN to Las Vegas NV.