Vehicle Description
Something wicked this way comes, and it’s this car
I have installed new wire, Front to back with EZ Wire for T-Buckets, new headlights and new windshield, new quilted dashboard, new paint and chrome on the engine, new headers, along with Red undercarriage lights, engine lights and Chrome Fire Wall, SS hoses, and put on a set of SS Cragar rims.
This is an Outstanding T-Bucket - super clean, super nice - just the right amount of chrome. Unbelievable!!
The Rat Fink Theme runs throughout the interior, along with a 10 “deep dish steering wheel. And it runs extremely strong it’s a 350ci engine with an edelbrock carburetor.
No project is ever called complete when it comes to cars. I am ready to move on – though there are many more weekends and more fun ideas left to make improvements. In my opinion there will always be something to be done..
Building a Hot Rod 1923 T-Bucket from an Old Gear Head
The T-Bucket Hot Rod craze started back in the 1950s, and is still alive and screaming’ today. Norm Grabowski is the undisputed Granddaddy of the 4-wheeled art form, with his original Kookie Kar being an inspiration to the legion of copycat and followers that became a national craze. It all started back in 1952, when Grabowski, newly discharged from the service and now a fledgling actor in California, got his hands on an old 1922 Model T Touring front half and dropped a shortened model A pickup bed on the rear. It wasn’t nearly as simple as it sounds– Grabowski painstakingly cut and recut the frame, laboring long and hard to get just the right aesthetic and stance he was looking for. The power was supplied by a ’52 Cadillac engine with a 3-71 GMC blower, and later evolved to a ’56 Dodge engine with a Horne intake sporting a quartet of Stromberg double-barrel carbs. The steering for the beast was supplied by a Ross box from an old milk truck. Grabowski installed it at home, and then discovered that the T-Bucket steered backwards. He hopped in the dyslexic Hot Rod and nonchalantly drove her from Sunland, CA to Valley Custom in Burbank for a fix– having to steer in the opposite direction the entire way. Why not?
Rabowski’s T-Bucket was so hot on the scene, it soon spawned a movement. Arriving home one day, he was more than a little surprised to find another actor/racer/builder, Tommy “TV” Ivo, in his garage measuring up the Kooky Kar so that he could make his own T-Bucket Hot Rod. Ivo later recounted. “I started out working for my dad at the Corner shell station in Mansfield, Ohio he had a garage / gas station where my dad would sit us down on the bench, and he would hand us a car part and say take it apart not knowing he was creating an old gear head in the process (me). I grew up in the era of muscle cars, models of cars and big daddy rat fink and Hot Rods. I have restored several cars over the years some with great joy some not but, that trusty T-Bucket this set out to be my first order of business — finding an old Model T body, never did I find one ,ended up with fiber glass body. I quickly found Speedway motors one of the oldest mail order parts in the country they had a hole section on just T Bucket stuff a suitable match– a 1923 Ford front end disk brakes. With a little help from Friends we made short work of the project– equipping his new T-Bucket with a 350 cubic inches engine and a TH350 transmission, and setup to use one of a 6 inch raise intake and an Edelbrock carburetor. This setup made it easy for finding parts for it in the future if needed. Throw on some Headers what a sound she made. Despite its reputation at the strip, on the street, and the silver screen - T-Buckets is most remembered by enthusiasts as simply one of the top hot rods to evolve from the Southern California area. Perhaps its first claim to national fame was prompted by its appearance on the August 1957 cover of Hot Rod magazine. The Buick motor was shown wearing its Hilborn livery, and the car was featured inside the magazine on a two-page black-and-white photo spread by Bob D’Olivo.
I have learned a lot about building this 1923 Ford T-Bucket and I have tried to keep as old school as possible My Dad would have liked that, “He was my mentor in motorcars , Most times Dad drove home with a trophy 1956 Chevy truck, or at least bragging rights to a trophy. His passion was purely for the car and the thrill, not the glory of making it run. I must also add, “All us boys wanted to do was race (my Brothers). We didn’t care about trophies back then.” We used to see a T-Bucket and racing at Drag way 42 strip he was always in the Top Eliminator awards in 1970, the car was a consistent for 11-second elapsed times and a top speed of 119 mph. It is more than a bunch of nuts and bolts it is a living history, we as kids were always building model cars as a kid mostly involved waiting for paint to dry, and then along came the full-size kits require some of the same patience and know-how from my dad, but the pay-off is when you get to drive it out of the garage is way better than sticking it on the mantle. Grab your model and your glue and go build something. As for this Hot Rod , I have been working on this 1923 T-Bucket going on 15 years, black seats , new wiring front to back with easy wiring , handmade quilted maple dash, ford parts ,mustang parts, Pontiac parts, Harley parts , removable top undercarriage and engine lights , cover and jacks for the winter. Look at the pictures and you will like it too, but don’t wait too long. A special thanks to my wife for understanding, also my Dad.
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