Flathead Gulch

We Visit a Rare Parts Treasure Trove and Spot a Caddy-Powered ’32 Ford Stashed in Arkansas

- Connell R. Miller

During a visit several years ago to Frank Pratt, an ex-West Coast refugee living in the Ozark Mountain community of Bella Vista, Arkansas, I asked about a rumor I’d heard about a ’32 Ford three-window that was built as a hot rod in the early 1950s and was still in the owner’s possession. Adding to that mystery, the garage in which the car was parked supposedly contained a large collection of Ford flathead parts. He laughed, grabbed his cell phone, and 20 minutes later we pulled up in front of a large home on a cul-de-sac that overlooked Loch Lomond, the largest of the town’s lakes.

Through each of the four open garage doors, I could see a roadster peeking out. Greeting us at the door was a tall, gray-haired septuagenarian by the name of Robert “Bob” Whitehead. After our introduction and some small talk, our genial host first took us through what was only the home’s upper-level front garage. The roadsters were beautiful: a Brookville steel-bodied black ’32 sporting an Eaton supercharged flathead, and a red, slightly stretched ’glass Deuce, also with blown flatty power. Next was the red, Magoo-built Model A with 327-inch Stovebolt power, and in the last stall squatted a bright yellow ’29 A that harbored a four-cylinder Datsun powerplant under the hood (more on that later). We followed Bob down his drive to the lower rear of the house, where there were four stalls and an oversized two-car space.