’32 Ford/Rolls “British Invasion”

The inspiration for this car came from stories of a hot rod uncle Nigel built in England in the 60s. He loved the American hot rod culture, and somehow managed to find a ’32 Ford, but didn’t have access to typical American later model parts or speed parts to build himself a proper car. In true hot rodder tradition, he made do with what he could find, which ended up being the wreck of a Rolls Royce V8 Silver Cloud.

With this car we hope to have captured the essence of his creation.

For the drive-train we started with a low mileage ’76 6.7 liter aluminum V8 (Visually identical to the early Silver Cloud engine, but bigger displacement and more power). We detailed, painted, and removed all ambiguous hydraulic, vacuum, and accessory systems. Then we fabricated stainless steel headers and exhaust, The transmission is also the rebuilt turbo 400 from the ’77 Rolls (yep, RR used GM transmissions), The rear axle is from a ’63 Silver Cloud, and really trick looking with all it’s stainless steel hardware. We went through it and replaced the axle shafts and wheel ends with Ford 9” since it was a he early rolls hydramatic too big and clunky.

For the frame, we started with a So-Cal step boxed frame for a traditional look, added the crossmembers for the RR motor mounts, and pinched the rail ends in around the fabbed SS front and rear spreader bars. The rack and pinion steering is a modified dune buggy center take-off unit. I mounted it in the center so it would provide correct bump and brake steer with the split beam independent front suspension. This is an idea I use for traditional early cars, it’s very difficult to tell they are not beam suspensions, but the ride and handling is far superior.

We used lots of fabbed stainless steel stuff. The underside of the floor is skinned with diamond patterned SS, normally found on the back doors of a refrigerated truck, of course the headers and exhaust are all hand fabricated, along with the rolls Royce style grill insert.

Ben Conley applied the proper Rolls Royce Pitch Black and Sterling Silver, and Al Perriera added the subtle licks.

The traditional Rolls Royce materials were stitched together by Karl Griffis. He hated the project. Trouble is Connelly leather went out of business several years ago, and we managed to find NOS hides back east. The dash insert was fabbed with English walnut burl and features the RR speedo with matching VDO gages.

Notice fabbed stainless header, harley air cleaner, English lights, centers cut out of RR caps on baby moons.

Another detail. Rolls Royces have twin calipers with separate hydraulic systems so if one is lost there remains a complete brake system. This one was done with modified wildwood motorcycle calipers.