ike Green has many interests in life; now that he is retired, he has time to pursue two of his favorites: early customs and baseball. His garage currently holds a ’50 Merc Fordor, and while he has enjoyed this early custom, he always wanted a Tudor version of the classic custom. He is also the assistant coach for the Fairview High School varsity baseball team in his hometown of Fairview, Pennsylvania.

With visions of timeless customs rolling in his head he turned to Tavis Highlander to collaborate on the design of a ’50 Mercury Tudor. In Mike’s words: “I wanted to build a custom with some features no one has seen before, while still paying homage to all the things that have been done by all the talented customizers from generations of years past.” Armed with Highlander illustrations the build began.

In the summer of 2020, Mike located an old, chopped Merc, a car with a nice profile but in dire need of repair. Northeastern weather had taken its toll and while the early chop had a nice profile it would require a lot of work. Enter E.J. Talik and his shop Craftworks Fabrication, located in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania. Like many great customs, the end design would come from the collaboration of the owner, the designer, and the fabricator. With input from these three hot rodders, one unique ’50 Mercury custom was born. In the end it would be Talik’s responsibility to turn visions and renderings into reality.

1. Our objective is to remove the factory IFS and replace it with a more modern, better functioning system coupled with the latest in braking capabilities.

e’re sure you can relate when we say an old car is never truly finished. There is always a way to continue refining and upgrading your project car. Such is the case with this ’56 Chevy Nomad, a mildly modified street cruiser that has plenty of miles under its belt. The car recently rolled into Hot Rods by Dean, and the intention was to upgrade its suspension and braking system. Although plans involve a complete front and rear overhaul, we’re focusing on the front in this installment and will cover the rear suspension upgrades in a future issue.

For this series of upgrades, the guys at Hot Rods by Dean called Heidts, as the Illinois-based company is known for its Tri-Five suspension components. With numerous options on the table, the Nomad would receive Heidts (PN CA-203-M) polished stainless steel upper and lower control arms, adjustable coilovers (PN CB-120), drop spindles (PN SP-002-A), and Wilwood Dynalite 12.19-inch disc brakes. This is a large improvement over the car’s existing setup, which consists of stamped steel lower control arms, generic tubular upper control arms, conventional coil springs, and ’80s GM disc brakes. While this setup offered many miles of service, it was time for an upgrade and the combination of Heidts and Wilwood parts were up for the task.

You can expect to install this collection of parts in a few evenings of shop time, as all the parts simply bolt in place of the originals. Obviously, painting and cleaning add to the time line, but you can expect a straightforward install with the components featured in this article. It made a huge difference in the stance and ride quality on this classic Nomad, and we’ll be ready to tackle the four-bar rear suspension soon.

t was a great day for hot rodders when automobile manufacturers discovered there was a market for factory performance engines. It’s true that manufacturers have always seen the value of offering engines for replacement, industrial, or other purposes. That’s why even though the last Model T was produced in 1927 Ford produced the same basic Model T engine from 1908-41, which was arguably Ford’s first crate engine. But things have changed dramatically since the Model T days. Today Ford Performance offers a variety of brand-new engines in a range of performance levels; big-block, small-blocks, and modular engines are all available. To make them even more of a bargain, other than sealed race engines and those with mechanical lifter camshafts, Ford Performance crate engines come with a 24-month, 24,000-mile warranty.

Bare Block Performance Package

rapping up an engine build and strapping it onto a dyno can be an anxiety-ridden experience. But if you’ve been following our LS330 engine build process, you’ll know that between the quality of parts we’ve used from Summit Racing and the experience and expertise from the guys at American Heritage Performance (AHP), we had no worries when it came time to start spinning the motor up and putting some numbers down. But first, AHP’s engine builder-in-chief, Kyle Martelli, still has a couple items to install before Kohle Heimlich can slide into the dyno operator’s chair.

We ended the build process last time with a completely assembled long-block, so it should come as no surprise that the first task is to get the AHP-inspected Trick Flow cylinder heads assembled and installed. Once the cylinder heads were in place, Martelli measured for pushrod length before finalizing the valvetrain assembly. New sensors, spark plugs, AHP’s base dyno induction setup, along with the necessary wiring harness completes the preparation phase, and the engine is ready to be tested.

s summer winds down and the kids prepare to go back to school, car show season intensifies in the Mid-South. The NSRA Street Rod Nationals kicks off August, and the following weekend is the Danchuk Tri-Five Nationals held at historic Beech Bend Raceway Park in Bowling Green, Kentucky. 2022 marked the seventh rendition of this incredible event, a car show and drag race, that brought more than 2,500 classic Chevrolets into town. The idea of focusing strictly on ’55, ’56, and ’57 Chevrolets allows like-minded enthusiasts to converge each year for the world’s premier Tri-Five event.

The Beech Bend Raceway Park facility offers plenty of parking for car show participants, drag racers, and spectators, and it’s easy to find shade on the beautiful property. This year’s weather was warm and sunny, encouraging a huge crowd throughout the three days of activities. The event kicked off on Thursday and featured a special drag racing program after the sun went down. Friday and Saturday had packed schedules, with drag racing exhibitions, regular drag racing classes, as well as access to dozens of vendors and a huge swap meet. Thursday’s car show area featured a special section that paid tribute to prior Lokar Top 25 winners. Then, Friday featured a special area where cars would be judged for this year’s Top 25. After those cars were selected, they parked in another special parking area, where the Top 25 would be narrowed down to the Top 5 and finally down to the Tri-Five of the Year. The excitement surrounding this event’s award program keeps folks coming back year after year.

’m going out on a limb, but a sturdy one, that there isn’t a rodder who reads car magazines who hasn’t heard the name Robert Eugene “Gene” Winfield or hasn’t seen his work in magazines. And most likely many, if not all, of us have been to a show and seen the man and his cars.

Gene has been around for a while, 95 years to be exact, and unlike what many of us will be doing when we see that kind of number, he is still traveling to events, building hot rods and customs, and driving race cars. The fact that he grew up in a healthy lifestyle by not having smoked or drank coffee, soft drinks, or alcohol, could be the secret “speed” ingredient that has keep Winfield so “on top” of his game.

When one thinks of the influence on our hobby by the earliest custom car builders, names that come to mind are the likes of George Barris (and his brother Sam), Sam Foose, Dean Jeffries, Bill Cushenbery, the Alexander brothers, Harry Westergard, Darryl Starbird, Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, and then there is Gene Winfield.