WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

Hot rod enthusiast Bruce Meyer owns eight of the world's most desirable 1932 Ford Deuces' - and the Bob McGee Roadster is a personal favourite. In this extract from his recent book, Ken Gross explains why it's so significant Studio

-  Ken Gross

When someone says "hot rod" to me,' Bruce Meyer says, 'a '32 Ford highboy is what comes to my mind. If you went back and looked at my high school book covers, you'd see '32 roadsters. Lots of them. I drew them all the time. I read Boy's Life and Hot Rod Magazine, and dreamed about having a fenderless highboy. That was my world, with a sprinkling of Popular Mechanics here and there. Although I never thought it was attainable, the notion of owning an historic car that was on the cover of Hot Rod meant a lot to me. Bob McGee's '32 was the first street roadster on HRM's cover, back in 1948. That was historically very significant. And the car was beautiful.

'Truthfully, Bruce admits, 'I wasn't totally conversant with Dick Scritchfield [who owned the car after McGee] and his accomplishments. That knowledge came after I bought the car. But the idea of finding what I would consider the "Holy Grail" of early roadsters was always a driving force. I don't think there is any '32 Ford highboy roadster that is more definitive than the McGee car. I think it's the most symbolic roadster of that early period, and arguably for all time.

This perfectly proportioned '32 set a very high standard for the period, thanks to its smartly raked stance, contemporary body and frame modifications, and its high degree of fit and finish. The classic Deuce the nickname for the 1932-only Model 18, after the '2' in the model year - was already 16 years old in 1948, but McGee's improvements made it a more contemporary vehicle, including a few unusual exceptions that were never imitated.