This 1939 Pickup is Pushing Hard to Break 200 Miles Per Hour
What does a NASCAR veteran build to take on the salt flats? A street legal, rat rod Ford truck of course. Is this 1939 Ford pickup a rat rod, a street car, or a land speed record racer? Yes.
Sweet Home Carolina
Aaron Brown spent twenty years as a fabricator, building cars for NASCAR teams—but that was just his first act. Brown is the founder of The Garage Shop in Chewbacca Catawba, North Carolina. His shop specializes in keeping vintage race cars going, but they are also known for building outrageous hot rods. When it came time for Aaron's next rod, he wanted to build something... Well, he wanted to build several things: a tribute to old-time hot rodders, a standing mile speed record car, and something he could legally drive on the street whenever he got the urge.
From Super Speedway to the Salt
But why a land speed car? Brown says he was hooked after his first trip to Bonneville. “I got hooked pretty deep. It is the best kind of racing there is,” Brown gushes. “There is no second place. You either set a record and win, or you lose. So I decided I wanted to go out and build a land-speed car of my own.” He found the seed for this project, a 1939 Ford pickup truck body, in Texas, attached to a Chevy S-10 chassis. Brown brought the truck body home to his shop but left the S-10 where it sat. Brown says he figured the truck was originally a 1 ton with dual rear wheels, but that doesn't matter because he didn't keep much of it.
Body and Soul
Back in his North Carolina shop, he and his crew began work on the race truck. They tried to keep the soul of the original shell while reducing its overall size. They narrowed the truck by 6 inches, shortened it by 21, and chopped 5 out of the top. They chose a 1932 grille for its smaller dimensions—better to cut through the wind. He found a truck bed lying around, and thinks it's circa 1940. The doors, bed panels, and tailgate remained stock. Brown and company attached the cab and a Ford 9-inch rearend to his chassis jig and went to work.
Experience at Work
All that NASCAR experience was put to good use when it came time to build the chassis. Brown started with a tube frame and utilized a NASCAR type truck-arm rear suspension set-up from Roush-Yates, including the differential housing and rear axles. The front suspension continues the traditional hot rod theme in appearance, but it's actually a custom design by Brown, with fabricated radius arms and cantilevered shocks. He says he built the front end on the fly and never resorted to pen and paper. Experience pays, and it saves trees.
Racer Recycling
Also from the land of the left turns is the 358ci Ford race engine, with Yates heads, that puts out 715 hp to the rear wheels. The rear wing came from the the world of the drag strip. Brown felt the narrowed drag car wing would help with stability, he explained, "It turns out the truck drives pretty well at 190 mph without it. I ran it when I checked out with the ECTA, but now for land-speed racing we take it off. We call it the ‘training wheels’ because it really settles the back end and makes the truck very stable, but it does slow you down a bit, so it comes off when we are trying to set records.”
On the Road to 200 mph
Brown has run his '39 at the East Coast Timing Association’s Ohio Mile twice and though he's still tweaking it, the truck has already gone 197 mph. Being the racer that he is, the work he's planned for the car is all mechanical, and not cosmetic. He isn't immune to style though, as he does allow that he wipes the bare metal pieces down with penetrating oil from time to time to keep them from rusting. Rust never sleeps, and neither do racers.
For help with service of your truck, check out the how to section of Ford-Trucks.com