1932 Ford Roadster

This car, Lot 173, sold for $192,500, including buyer’s premium, at RM Sotheby’s auction in Hershey, PA, on October 5, 2017.

Several factors, when combined, make for a valuable historic hot rod: racing history, notable owners, a period-correct restoration with authentic parts and a great story. This ’32 Ford Highboy roadster checks all the boxes.

First the story: In 1944, a flimflam artist with a quarter horse won many bets challenging hot cars. His streak ended with a specially staged race between the horse and this hot rod, held in La Habra, CA, and witnessed by a large crowd that included speed equipment gurus Vic Edelbrock Sr., Ed Winfield and Phil Weiand.

The horse had been trained to respond when the con man waved his hat, so he’d always get the jump on an unsuspecting driver. But not this time. Ernie McAfee took a famous grainy photo showing the deuce just leading the horse. Noted hot rod racer Ak Miller and writer Gray Baskerville traced the origins of quarter-mile drag racing to that historic contest.

Young gun

Eighteen-year-old Pete Henderson’s ’32 Ford Highboy was known as “the fastest hot rod in the San Fernando Valley.”

Pete bought the speedy ’32 from Don Casselman. It was equipped with a Don Blair-built bored-and-stroked 296-ci Mercury flathead. It had a cam from the legendary Pierre “Pete” Bertrand, milled aluminum “Denver” heads, a Weiand high-rise dual-intake manifold, twin Stromberg 97s and a Spaulding dual-point, dual-coil ignition. It also had a neatly chopped top, but it retained its original mechanical brakes and mid-’30s 16-inch wire wheels. A 1944-dated Russetta Timing Association timing tag on the dashboard claims a 120.9-mph run at Harper Dry Lake in that configuration.

Pete Henderson sold the car in 1946 to L.K. Chappelow of Monrovia, CA. The ex-Henderson ’32 roadster then passed to Manny Ayulo, who competed at a number of L.A.-area circle tracks in it.

The Henderson deuce was next owned by George Rowland, who added bobbed rear fenders by Art Chrisman, steel wheels with baby-moon caps and wide whites. Ralph “Digger” Guldahl Jr. got it in 1955, dropping in a new 265-ci Chevy V8. The roadster then appeared in a slew of B movies, including “Hot Rod Gang” and “The Spider.”

Later, it was owned by Art Vitteraly, under whose ownership it was channeled and powered by a Buick V8. It passed to Florida-based hot rod builder Chuck Longley in 1977.

Mystery deuce

Longley didn’t know much about his vintage hot rod, so he ran an ad about the car, hoping to find out some information about its history. The ad was answered by none other than Pete Henderson — the man who had driven past the quarter horse.

The two talked, and when Longley mentioned the car’s Auburn dash panel and noted several distinctly filled holes, Henderson said, “It kinda sounded like my car.” Longley asked if Henderson still had the roadster‘s serial number. Henderson did, and was able to verify it as the same car.

After all those years and transformations, the historic deuce still retained its original body, frame and chopped windshield.

Referencing old photos, Chuck Longley and his son Mike set about restoring the car in 1995. In the process, they located a proper flathead V8, a ’34 Auburn dash panel, a rare accessory rimless steering wheel, an early Cadillac fuel-pressure pump, a pair of ’39 Ford teardrop taillights and more.

After restoration, the Longleys took the car to the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, where it won the award for the best historic hot rod.

Crash landing

The ex-Henderson ’32 was featured in The Rodder’s Journal #32, and then later was selected as one of the 75 Most Significant ’32 Fords of all time by a committee of automotive and hot rod experts (of which I was a member). It was honored at the Grand National Roadster show in 2007, and then later passed to Ralph Whitworth, who planned to display it in a museum in Winnemucca, NV.

In transit to Pebble Beach that year, the car was damaged. It then underwent an extensive re-restoration by National Rod & Custom Hall of Fame honoree Tim Strange, owner of Strange Motion in Lewisburg, TN. “We stripped the car to bare metal and did a full frame-off restoration. Jamie Rice did the upholstery. Talking with Pete Henderson, and studying old photographs,” Strange says, “we restored the car as close to the way Pete had built it as we could.”

The Pete Henderson ’32 Ford attracted considerable attention at the RM Sotheby’s Hershey sale. It had been a while since an authentic historic hot rod had been offered at auction, and this car’s neat appearance and fascinating story attracted spirited bidding.

The underbidders were a sports car-loving New Jersey couple who’d never owned a hot rod but were captivated with the saga of the roadster and its victory over the quarter horse. The winning bidder was Ross Myers, a noted Pennsylvania-based car collector whose “3 Dog Garage” private museum in Boyertown, PA, is home to the Ricky Nelson channeled ’32 Ford roadster, the ex-Fred Steele roadster, and several more cars with great pedigrees, not to mention a Ridler Award-winning ’36 Ford 3-window.

The selling price of $192,500 exceeded the $160k–$180k high estimate. You could probably build this car for $150k, but history is priceless. With that in mind, I’d call it a good deal for the seller and the buyer.

(Introductory description courtesy of RM Sotheby’s.)