1929 Ford Roadster

Dick Flint

One of the most historically significant and well-known of the early post-World War II Southern California hot rods is this 1929 Ford Roadster built by Dick Flint. A young man already deeply immersed in the hot rod movement by the late 1940s, Flint worked at the famous So-Cal Speed Shop in Burbank. A burning desire to build his own hot rod yielded the car you see here. Working with legendary fabricator Neil Emory at Valley Customs, using the best parts of three ’29 Ford Roadster bodies to create one perfect one, Flint then channeled the body and dropped it over a custom chassis of his own design. The custom track nose was fabricated following a chalk drawing sketched on the garage floor by Flint and Emory. Built for dry-lakes competition, the car was powered by a modified 286 cubic-inch 1940 Mercury flathead V8. It propelled the roadster to 143.54 mph at El Mirage in 1950. After being painted bright red, it appeared in the pages and on the cover of Hop Up (1n 1951 and 1953) and, most famously, on the cover of Hot Rod in May 1952. Maybe by coincidence, or not, this was the first issue of Hot Rod to sell a half-million copies.