Personal Projects – A louvered hood for Gary’s roadster

Many of you saw Michael Dobrin’s article on Gary’s roadster in Hot Rod Deluxe magazine. We spent the day with photographer Tim Sutton who snapped this at-speed photo spread laying in the bed of my truck as I raced along next to Gary on the street in front of the shop.
At the time, Gary wasn’t running a hood. He had a full hood for the car, but felt it would be a shame to cover up that handsome flathead. Maybe a hood top would be in order. Louvers were already an element in the car’s traditional character – there are a hundred in the deck lid – so they’d be a factor in the design of this project, too.

Job One was to massage the top panels so they’d fall perfectly into place. It’s more work than you’d imagine; the hood hinge bracket had to be sectioned and the reveal reshaped before Gary got perfect height and gaps.

Layout of the louvers on a Deuce hood is a challenge and over the decades guys have come with a lot of creative patterns, some successful, some not so. The hood’s trapezoidal shape, the roll at the cowl and grille shell, even the pattern of the louver layout on the decklid, all must be taken into consideration. Doane Spencer got it right, of course, and Gary looked to Spencer’s iconic roadster for inspiration. Gary actually punched out rows of louvers on individual panels, then moved them around on the hood until he was satisfied with the count and the alignment.
Anyone that’s punched louvers knows measurement is critical. Louvers index off each other as the rows are punched. A minor mistake in measurement is multiplied as you punch down the row and your pattern can quickly lose its alignment.
The hood came out great and, after a little hammer and dolly work, went back on the car in bare metal. While it definitely has that Dry Lakes vibe, it will eventually be painted black to match the car.