his ’36 Ford roadster shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has watched the world of hot rodding over the past several years. It has taken home such awards as the America’s Most Beautiful Roadster, Goodguys Most Beautiful Street Rod, the SEMA Ford Design Award, and it recently took home the 2022 Barrett-Jackson Cup at the Scottsdale, Arizona, auction. Now this ’36 Ford roadster can add the Triple Crown of Rodding Street Rod of the Year winner to its lofty list of accolades.
Fabricated at Pinkee’s Rod Shop in Windsor, Colorado, under the direction of Eric Peratt, it was originally built for George Poteet of Tennessee where, until recently, this was the roadster’s home. Not long ago Poteet and current owner Bob Johnson were talking all things hot rods when the conversation began to revolve around their personal rides, with the inevitable question surfacing. “Is that car for sale?” Poteet and Bob had zeroed in on the ’36 Ford roadster and the rest, as they say, is history.
There’s no denying that Peratt and his crew did an amazing job in furthering an already immensely well-designed car. It’s been reported there were an astounding 20,000 hours in the construction of this roadster spread over eight years at Pinkee’s.
While the original ’36 Ford roadster is based on a 112-inch wheelbase, at Pinkee’s an additional 3 inches were added, making the new wheelbase 115 inches. This is based in the radius-formed 10-gauge steel framerails with more handmade items in the beaded aluminum belly pans and faux firewall.
In doing our diligence we found contributor Ken Gross has written much on the topic, so we thought a small quote was proper: “Ford Motor Company cleaned up and mildly modernized its ’35 designs for the ’36 model year. The bodies stayed basically the same, but the front end for the ’36 was redesigned, the hood louvers were reshaped to be more efficient, and the rear fenders were slightly altered. The Type 710 DeLuxe roadster, the least-expensive car in the Ford lineup, was $560 new.”
Upon closer inspection one will note that headlight buckets were shrunk and are accented by custom-made bezels and horn grilles to accept the now-popular 7-inch headlights. The staff at Pinkee’s continued their expert metalwork by making the four-piece hood (with piano hinges) to accommodate the laid-back grille shell was stretched to maintain the stock hood length. It should be noted that more custom one-off work from Pinkee’s includes machined windshield posts that are laid back 10 degrees with a 2-1/2-inch chopped windshield, a custom four-piece hood with two-piece center hinge, custom cowl vent screen, machined taillight lenses, and the exposed decklid hinges. Pinkee’s also performs their own CNC machining via their in-house specialist on such matters, Thomas Kearney of Leading Edge Machining.
Once the copious amounts of sheetmetal fabrication and bodywork were complete then it was off to the body shop at Pinkee’s where Clay Deen, Scott Christensen, and Joe Hickey formed the trip of painters who expertly sprayed on the PPG Chocolate Milk paint. As with any top-of-the-line paintjob it never ends here. Color sanding and final rub out was done with custom-machined sanding blocks with final polishing and waxing falling to Rupes products. From here the brightwork was left to the Sherm’s Custom Plating who have done numerous award-winning hot rods over the years.
Moving to the interior we are now looking at the designs of e. Black Design and the deft touch of Sid Chavers. From here Sid Chavers Upholstery began with a custom-built bench/bucket split seat combo mounted onto Pinkee’s machined billet seat tracks. Chavers then used Relicate leather in Walnut Shell along with hand-laced eight-braided leather for the door pulls, full-length armrests, and the chrome vintage MG-style exposed latches. Beneath the German square-weave wool carpeting is sound damping material from Vibro Solutions in a foil-backed jute. Chavers then leather wrapped the outer steering wheel rim in leather once Pinkee’s had produced the one-off four-spoke wheel. Instrumentation comes from the custom shop at Classic Instruments with the gauges then laid in the radius-cut crosshatched cluster that resides within a Macassar ebony veneer inlaid over a machined billet aluminum dash. More work from the combination of Pinkee’s and Shavers is the folding top. It is made from stainless steel and wood bows and chopped 2-1/2 inches to correspond to the cut-down windshield. The top bows were then covered in Haartz Stayfast square-weave cloth topping. A Chavers Cool Slot provides the flow-through ventilation via the rear opening glass.
Well, there you have it. As far as roadsters go this must be one of the most thoroughly thought-out builds to have come along in some time. And, apparently, there are many others who feel the same way given the many awards this roadster has brought home.