(^72) themotorhood.com
I
was just gonna build a rat rod, but that
somehow got lost along the way!” Neil laughs,
while explaining how his remarkable aircraft-
style Model A roadster pickup (RPU) came about.
“I stood back one day, and thought, shit, that
[aviation theme] could actually be kinda cool! So I
undid a whole lotta shit that I’d done, and started
doing it a bit different. It turned into a big job.”
A ‘big job’ is one way to put it; one of the most
obvious tellers is the sheer number of rivets
used — somewhere north of 3000, Neil reckons.
While he’s mentioned that he wouldn’t do it again
in a hurry, he did also admit that riveting was a
pleasant reprieve from the never-ending welding
he’d otherwise have needed to do — a sort of
engineer’s meditation!
The rivets are obvious, but you may not notice that
the reason they’re in place is that the entirety of
the RPU’s panel work has been handcrafted from
aluminium — yes, the whole thing.
“I actually started with a pretty much original
[steel] tank,” Neil explains, “and built the hockey
sticks and side panels and everything. I was gonna
leave it a steel tank ...” — except that Neil, being
the kinda person he is, couldn’t just leave it. “The
whole body is scratch-built out of aluminium.
I just used measurements — made it bigger
here, added a bit here and there. I’m not anal on
measurements; I just do what works.”
Neil’s custom work extended to crafting a raked
windscreen surround, which was filled with glass
from a Morris Minor. The aluminium body sits on a
stock Model A chassis — well, it started as a stock
Model A chassis.
The rear end features a healthy kick-up to drop the
height, and a Model A buggy rear spring — “’cause
you see it, and it kinda goes with the theme” —
while the front end has been converted to an
underslung set-up, whereby the axle and spring
are mounted above the chassis, giving a lower
ride height without the need for a dropped axle or
Z’d chassis.
RPU
Cooling
Made
Cool
With the level of
detail that Neil’s
put into this
build, the trick
cooling system
is unlikely to
be of much
surprise. The
hand-fabricated
header tank
sits where
the radiator
normally
would, and its
two outlets
run into the
chassis rails
and rearwards
to the pair of
radiators and
thermo fans
mounted under
the tray, with an
electric water
pump keeping
the coolant
circulating.
frankie
(Frankie)
#1