In The Buff

The Mariani Brothers’ Rad Rides by Troy–Built Model A Tudor.

- Rob Fortier

You may be familiar with the name Mariani, even if you’re not into hot rods or even land speed racing for that matter. Mariani Farms and Mariani Nut Company are all part of the same Santa Clara Valley, California, Mariani family legacy, of which brothers Mark and Dennis Jr. are part of (fourth generation).

Outside of their agricultural roots, no pun intended, the Mariani brothers also do a little dabbling in salt flat racing—old Model B and Model 40 based hot rod roadsters to be exact. Troy Trepanier/Rad Rides by Troy is responsible for getting the most recent version of number 46, the ’34 Mariani D/SR racer, on the Bonneville proving grounds, as well as a handformed-aluminum–bodied, 800hp C/GS Streamliner for Dennis Sr., which debuted at SEMA 2014 and was most recently piloted by Dennis Jr. this past summer (with a top-speed run of 308 mph).

There was another Mariani-inspired project taking shape at Rad Rides following the Streamliner—and if you happened to be at the very same show famous for unveils this past year, you got to see it in all its glory in the Flowmaster booth … in the buff. Troy conspired with Mark and Dennis to build something with slightly less in the horsepower-proving department (not much), but overly packed with one-offhand- and machine built goodness from stem to stern. The result, as you see here, is a drastic yet welcomed deviation of Henry Ford’s ’29 Ford Model A Tudor.