Back a decade or so ago, our buddy Kev Elliott, as editor of Custom Car in the UK, was building a ’46 Ford roadster pickup. Today, he’s a resident of sunny Southern California, uses phrases like “dude” and “stoked” instead of “mate” and “jolly good”, and is the tech editor of our sister publication, Rod & Custom. But one thing remains the same: he’s still building that cut up ’46 Ford passenger car that he converted into a roadster pickup.
The first task at hand is to straighten the bedrails. A little hammer and dolly work will go a long way at smoothing out the flat sections …
A few things have always nagged at him about his pickup project, however, and he decided that now was the time to sort things out. What really bugged him was the fact that the front and rear fender swages and wheel openings didn’t jive. That was mainly due to the fact that the model years in which each were culled, 1946 for the front fenders and 1965 for the bed and rear fenders, were separated by nearly twenty years worth of styling cues. For the most part, Kev fixed the fenders back in the September 2009 issue of CCT. But the bed never was quite finished and, gunning for a debut at the 2012 Grand National Roadster Show, Kev decided to tear into the bed and wrap up the paint and body on his roadster pickup.
First, he needed to replace a few panels, with fresh sheetmetal courtesy of LMC Truck, which consisted of the front header panel and a cool, hot rod-style louvered tailgate. Then he decided to fabricate a nerf bar/taillight mount. That necessitated a few modifications be made to the back of the bed as well, which we’ll cover towards the end of the story. Finally, it was time for paint and body, which was handled by Kev himself, a well taught body man from his days in ol’ Blighty, using Summit Racing’s latest in paint offerings.
… but this big dip in the middle is a different story.
With deadlines looming, Kev tore into the back end of his truck with furious abandon, and the transformation really left the rest of ’round the office feeling like we needed to get something done as well. A long weekend later and Kev had the bed back assembled, in color, and looking better than it did back in 1965. Or was that 1946? Whenever it was, it looks better now than ever! CCT
