Ford's Fair Lane estate lies half a mile due north of Greenfield Village. Completed in 1915, this fifty-six-room, 31,000-square-foot home presided over 1300 acres of gardens and woods on the Rouge River. The powerhouse's hydroelectric generators served both the estate's and some of Dearborn's electricity needs. On the day of our visit, Ford's 1896 Quadricycle and his 1901 Sweepstakes racer are parked in the garage. Wood trim accenting Fair Lane's limestone exterior is painted the same medium maroon hue as our visiting Deuce.
In 1941, while the Willow Run bomber plant was under construction, Ford's chauffeur drove the elderly magnate seventeen miles west from Fair Lane along U.S. 12 - the main highway between Detroit and Chicago - for daily site inspections. Suburban sprawl and two major Ford plants currently crowd the road, now five lanes wide in places, but it suffices as the Deuce's high-speed test track.
After the V-8 engine's birth defects were resolved, Ford owners began extolling their cars' performance virtues. In 1934, public enemy John Dillinger wrote to "Old Pal" Henry Ford saying how much he enjoyed seeing other cars eat his Ford's dust. Clyde Barrow added, "For sustained speed and freedom from trouble, the Ford has got every other car skinned." Britain's The Motor magazine clocked the Deuce's run to 60 mph in less than seventeen seconds and reported a top speed of 76 mph.
Ford V-8s quickly became the darlings of the dry lakes, the drag strips, and the oval tracks. Preston Tucker and Harry Miller teamed up in 1935 to race four factory-backed Ford V-8-powered cars at the Indianapolis 500, but all were sidelined due to poor preparation. California hot-rodders were knocking on 130 mph in fenderless Fords before World War II and had topped 140 mph in high-riding V-8 roadsters by the early 1950s. As the ultimate tribute to Henry's horsepower, Ron Main's remarkable Flatfire streamliner set a 302.7-mph record at Bonneville in 2003 with a heavily supercharged and nitromethane-fortified Ford flathead.
Stringer's Deuce - fitted with a 1936 model-year engine - accelerates in energetic spurts, thanks to its 2200-rpm torque peak and the 85 hp available at a heady-for-the-day 3800 rpm. While that energy level sounds modest, it's burdened by a mere 2300 pounds of curb weight and aided by short gearing. As an antidote to the Great Depression, the new V-8 probably topped the arrival of color movies and the return of legal beer. I buzz the roadster to 27 mph in first gear after a stoplight, then to 48 in second. Shifting deliberately to let the synchromesh work, my top speed for the day is slightly less than 60 mph. That's more than enough with cable-operated drum brakes prone to howling at low speeds and distinctly disinterested in deceleration at modern highway velocities.
At the end of a two-day journey that coincidentally covered seventy-five miles, here's our conclusion: Henry Ford did not intentionally invent the factory hot rod. But after spending decades paring weight from his cars and scheming about ways to power past competitors, he couldn't stop himself from this last, great legacy: V-8 engines for the masses and speed for everyone.
Sidebar: DEUCES WILD
Delightfully undisciplined examples of the hot-rodder's art.
American Graffiti Coupe
The chopped '32 five-window highboy in George Lucas's 1973 American Graffiti flick found no takers when it was initially offered for sale for $1500. Rick Figari of San Francisco, who purchased this Deuce in 1985, also owns the '55 Chevy it beat in the movie's race scene.
Doane Spencer Highboy
Doane Spencer invented the highboy roadster in the mid-1950s by jacking up his Mercury-powered '32 Ford to race it in the Carrera Panamericana. Modifications include a DuVall windshield, Lincoln drum brakes, and through-the-frame exhaust. Owner Bruce Meyer won the inaugural Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance Hot Rod Class award with this Deuce in 1997.
Deuce Coupe
The aesthetically challenged Little Deuce Coupe is the most famous hot rod in history, thanks to builder Clarence "Chili" Catallo, top chopper George Barris, and five Hawthorne, California, surfin' dudes. The 1963 Beach Boys album singing its praises spent forty-six weeks on the charts, topping out at number four.