Deuces Are Wild at Classic Car Showcase

For Derek de Heras, it was a no-brainer. When it was time to buy the hot rod he’d always wanted, it had to be a ’32 Ford.

The little deuce coupe immortalized in the Beach Boys’ eponymous ballad, the ’32 Ford is “the classic body style with the classic lines,” said De Heras, head of operations at his family’s plastic packaging materials plant in Arcadia.

Indeed, devotees of the deuce, as well as cognoscenti of the coupes and roadsters and sedans and even trucks that rolled out of the company’s plants in and around Dearborn, Mich., 70 years ago, say that everything else pales in comparison with the smooth, flowing lines of a 1932 Ford.

Several hundred of them will be crowding into Los Angeles’ museum row this week for Deuce Day at the Petersen Automotive Museum--a celebration Saturday of the 1932 Ford’s 70th anniversary. Organized by Checkered Flag 200, a museum support group, the event will be open to the public from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

In 1932 Ford started fitting the doors flush with the upper body’s framework instead of overlapping them. “That’s one way you can quickly tell the difference between a ’31 and a ‘32,” said De Heras, who bought his deuce hot rod three years ago and is about to treat it to a complete restoration. The ‘32’s front end also was far more aerodynamic than in the past, with a streamlined surround and grille that hid the radiator.

That also was the year Henry Ford gave in and added V-8 models to augment the standard 4-cylinder models to keep up with the competition. (Today, hot rodders usually replace the engines with more modern power plants built from Chevrolet or Dodge engines, but to be considered stock, a deuce must have a Ford flathead V-8.)

In 1932, would-be speedsters found the Ford V-8 easy to soup up, and their pursuit of more and more horsepower led to the birth of the hot-rod era, which started with the dry-lake racers of Southern California just before World War II and hasn’t yet ended.

For Ford, 1932 was not a particularly great year--the Depression was going strong, and production volume was at its lowest level since 1914. But the 1932 roadsters and coupes were a big hit with consumers who had $440 to $485 to spend (Ford wasn’t so sure V-8s would catch on and charged $20 more for its 4-cylinder models.)

These days, a decent ’32 in daily driving condition can easily start at $50,000, and a fully restored model can be triple that amount.

With something like 20 companies now manufacturing ’32 Ford bodies--two of them in steel, the others in fiberglass--and scores more making new versions of everything that goes into, under and around those bodies--enthusiasts say there are more deuces (including copies) on the road today than there were in 1933.

De Heras, co-chairman of the Deuce Day event, said he expects more than 300 cars and trucks, with 20 of the 21 body styles Ford built in 1932, from dump trucks and fire engines to touring cars and roadsters, to be represented.

The flock of Fords, including cars from Connecticut, Washington and Texas, will be heavy with hot rods, but there will be scores of stock ‘32s as well, De Heras said, including six unrestored originals.

Hot-rod deuces on display will include four that have captured coveted “America’s Most Beautiful Roadster” trophies at the annual Grand National Roadster Show in Oakland over the years and 25 that have graced the covers of magazines such as Hot Rod, Street Rodder and Rod & Custom.

General admission to the museum, which includes admission to the Deuce Day show, is $7 (with reduced prices for seniors, students and children); a combined admission and lunch ticket is $18.

The Petersen Automotive Museum is at 6060 Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles. For more information, call (323) 930-7010 or go to www.petersen.org.