The plan was to build one of the best hot rods in the country, right from the get-go.”

When a car owner makes such a bold statement right at the start of the conversation, you’d better hope he has the goods to back it up. One look at Mick Fabar’s Model A roadster pick-up and you know he’s got nothing to worry about.

First published in the December 2004 issue of Street Machine

Mick’s no stranger to the world of high quality automotive art or the pages of Street Machine — his ZA Fairlane was featured twice! That was a neat car, still pretty much a streeter, but with a super-tough blown Windsor. Built for go, yet still able to mix it up on the show scene.

The hot rod, as you just read above, was built with one aim in mind, and to achieve it Mick says he had to get organised.

“You need a concept, a plan and a really good team.” Right from the start Mick had a solid vision in his mind. To make that vision come to life in the form of an all-steel automotive sculpture, Mick turned to Scott Lane of Hot Rod Lane in his home town of Orange.

Initially Scott had some reservations about whether he could handle the kind of work Mick was planning for the pick-up.

Mick says: “It took Scott a little while to realise my level of commitment to the project but I was confident he could perform the work to the level I wanted.” So once the plan was finalised and Mick showed up to Hot Rod Lane with all the bits he’d collected, Scott went through the pile and said: “Well, that’s gotta go, that too, that’s no good …”

Due to the level of modification required for the project it was easier to build body panels from scratch than modify the original ones. It also means Mick has a whole pile of parts lying around, just perfect for a rat rod project.

Although it is definitely recognisable as a Model A, every panel has been built from scratch to better fit Mick’s vision of the perfect hot rod. The grille shell and the top of the cowl are the only pieces of original tin but even they were cut seven ways from Sunday to flow better with the lines of the car.

Covering up the beautifully detailed small-block Chev is a steel three-piece hood which is built so precisely that you’d struggle to fit a matchstick in the panel gaps. The engine itself is a mildly worked 350 four-bolt block pumping out just under 350hp at the flywheel.

Mick considered several induction options but to keep to the ‘traditional with modern design elements’ theme, a decision was made to modify a 60s Hilborn injection set-up to EFI, controlled by a MoTeC computer. To further separate the car from the rest of the field on the show floor, the manifold was machined so that the injection trumpets could be angled. A very neat touch adding a little extra interest in the engine bay.

The tub has been stretched about four inches and the doors built so that they open suicide-style and close flush with the body. To get the right profile, a VW roof was used for the door skins — we knew Vee Dubs were good for something!

On an original Model A, the cowl is made up of two pieces, with the top half holding the fuel tank. Starting with an original cowl top, Hot Rod Lane built a one-piece unit a whole heap smoother than stock.

The dash didn’t escape attention and was built using a combination of ’29 and ’32 Ford styling, filled with digital gauges. A billet column has been fitted with a custom steering wheel from Hot Rod Lane, while down on the floor you’ll find billet pedals attached to a pedal assembly, all fabricated by the same mob. The shifter is a stock Lokar unit but the linkages have all been re-made using stainless steel. The interior trim is a combination of leather and suede stitched by Sewfine over fibreglass panels, once again built by Hot Rod Lane.

As you’d expect, the tray never saw the inside of a Ford factory. Just as well because they’d never have got it as smooth as this one. Quite a bit shorter than an original tray, it features flush-fitting LED tail-lights, indicators and third brake light, and also hides the number plate which retracts into a slot in the bottom of the tray when the ignition is switched off.

A lot of people use a ’32 Ford chassis under a Model A and Mick admits he also considered taking that path. In the end, mainly to be different, he went ahead with the stock frame. Of course it received a fair bit of massaging. The whole thing has been boxed for strength and completely smoothed for looks but to better follow the lines of the body it has been pinched in the front and also pie-cut to bring it a bit closer to the ground. It now has a much curvier profile than the near straight stock design and is much easier on the eye.

To get the rear sitting right, the chassis was stepped, or Z-ed, eight inches. All of the crossmembers were fabricated by Hot Rod Lane with a lot of thought going into the symmetry and flow of the lines so that when you look under the car it’s all very neat. Scoops either side of the gearbox feed air to twin oil coolers which once cooled the lube in an EA Falcon. The scoops start off rectangular then transition to a rounded shape to match the oil coolers.

With all of the bodywork flat as a tack and the driveline smooth as a baby’s bum it was up to John Zelukovic to bathe it in a custom mix of House of Kolor Kandy. The custom hue covers the body, chassis, most of the engine and driveline. Just check out the reflections — even underneath the car they’re perfect.

A lot of thought also went into the ratio of shiny-to-painted parts and that’s been the case with most aspects of the car, even when it came to the overall styling. It’s obvious that this is a modern-style hot rod, with EFI and independent suspension all ’round, but somehow it still manages to have a traditional feel to it. That was precisely the plan, to blend features of traditional and modern hot rodding and come up with a cohesive design. Quite often it can end in disaster but in the case of this pick-up it has worked out just fine.

To Mick, the measure of success is whether your car is memorable. He says: “When people go to a car show they might see a hundred cars but when they walk out they’ll only remember three or four of them. I wanted to be in that category.”

After being unveiled at Motorex and causing quite a bit of interest among the regular punters as well as long-time hot rodders, we think Mick’s achieved his goal.

And what of the rumour the car will be entered in the America’s Most Beautiful Roadster competition in 2006? Mick says he didn’t have any plan to do it but as the car progressed and the quality of the workmanship shone — and with some gentle encouragement from friends — the car may well make it over there.

SWUOOP

You can’t see it in the pics because it retracts, but the number plate reads SWU OOP. Get it? What it refers to is the little dip that’s present at the top of the Model A grille shell. Mick and the Hot Rod Lane team picked it up as a design feature that they could follow through the rest of the car. To that end they have incorporated it into many other parts of the car. You can see it on the top edge of the dash, in the steering wheel, the mirrored floor details, the door trims, rear window and the tailgate.

IN DETAIL:

• Mick was always thinking of different ways to do things and it’s apparent in the radiator hoses. Hoses were custom-made with crimped ends which were then polished to remove the tooling marks. It’s those kind of details that separate the men from the boys.
• To keep with the traditional styling cues an early Hilborn injection system was converted to EFI and uses a MoTeC computer to work it all out. The stacks normally stick straight up but for something a little different Mick had the intakes machined so they angled away from each other.

• The majority of the acorn nuts you see were custom-made from stainless steel by the team at Hot Rod Lane, then polished to a chrome-like shine. Mick wanted a look reminiscent of the popular practice of dressing up your flathead Ford. Problem was, you can only get acorn nuts in about three sizes, so many hours were spent on the lathe machining up the different sizes required.
• Independent coil-over front end from Rod-Tech has been re-worked with custom caliper brackets and it’s detailed to within an inch of its life.

• Tray is completely hand-made and features a rolled pan with LED brake and indicator lights. There is also a third brake light mounted in the middle, as well as a light for the hide-away number plate underneath.
• Number plate retracts into the bottom of the tray when ignition is switched off.
• Exhaust tips are styled along the lines of the injection stacks.

Mick Fabar
1929 Ford Roadster Pick-up

Thanks:
Scott Lane & family, Hot Rod Lane team, John Zelukovic Smash Repairs, Owen Webb, House of Kolor, Meguiar’s, Junkyard Classics, Show Wheels, Toyo Tyres, Darren Dark, Sewfine, Bill Patterson (EFI system), family and friends.