Reid's Rose

Rose and Bill Reid’s Model A roadster...

- AL O'TOOLE

Coasters Hot Rod Club member, Bill Reid has been hot rodding since the seventies and has spent his working life as a panel beater, so he knows his way around a car. He owns a 1936 Ford flat back sedan that he’s had for 43 years and rebuilt three times. Bill built this neat Model A roadster dubbed, “The Rose” over a three year period for his wife, Rose.

The project started in 2015 from a pile of Model A pieces. Bill did all the work to bring it together, which made it a fairly cheap build, but he says it was a lot of work. The original Ford chassis was fully boxed, fitted with custom square tube centre members and stepped up in the rear to mount a Jaguar rear end. At the front Bill installed a So-Cal I beam assembly with urethane bushings, a panhard bar, a Vega steering box and Corvette disc brakes plumbed to an XY Ford master cylinder. Finding brakes to replace the worn Jag rear discs proved a hassle though.

“The Jaguar rear end brakes were going to cost me $600.00 to rebuild, so I looked around for something else. I fitted Nissan Skyline calipers to the Jag rear end. They work great and only cost $38.00.”