Travellin Deuce

A stock height windshield, in conjunction with a body that’s been channeled the full width of the frame, gives the ex–De Fillipi/La Masa ’32 roadster a chunky, almost perky appearance. Discrete lakes pipes peek out beneath the framerails, just behind the firewall. In the mid-’50s, the lakes plugs exited (curiously) in front of the rear wheels.

- Ken Gross

LOWBOY.

Growing up in New England in the 1950s, I saw lots of chopped and channeled coupes and roadsters. That term, “chopped and channeled,” had a nice ring to it. It seemed to me to define a real hot rod, so it’s what I aspired to own. Fred Steele’s purple ’32 Ford from the Boston area ticked those boxes, as did another memorable lowboy from Los Angeles that had a cameo role on a very popular TV sitcom.

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet began as a radio show in the ’40s and segued into television in the ’50s. Ozzie was your typical salaryman; Harriet was a homemaker; and their two sons, David, the older, and Ricky, four years younger, were cast as all- American boys. The series got a big lift when Ricky (his real name was Eric) became a teen heartthrob. He played guitar and sang, and his natural good looks and decent, if a bit nasal, voice boosted ratings. Ricky’s many rock ’n’ roll hits, like “Travelin’ Man,” “Poor Little Fool,” and “Be-Bop Baby,” gave the show legs beyond its ​simplistic family theme.

David and Ricky Nelson were hardly car enthusiasts, but hot rod B movies were booming in this era, so it wasn’t long before one of the writers developed a hot rod plot line. There wasn’t time (or interest) to have the brothers build a car, but somehow, a little green roadster made its way into at least one episode of the show. (We didn’t know it was green. TV was black and white in those days.)