Goodguys 2024 Tanks, Inc. Hot Rod of the Year – Keith and Jody Hill’s ’33 Ford Coupe
When it comes to hot rods, it’s normal for things to get out of hand. Engines get built with more power than intended. Tops get chopped more severely than planned. Creature comforts get tossed out the window in the name of performance. It’s easy to pick up speed on the slippery slope toward overkill, which is exactly what Keith and Jody Hill learned during the building of their ’33 Ford coupe that was just named the Goodguys 2024 Tanks, Inc. Hot Rod of the Year.
The Hills had previously teamed up with builder Eric Peratt at Pinkee’s Rod Shop to build another standout ’33 Ford, a Hemi-powered three window dubbed the Federale Coupe that claimed the Hot Rod of the Year title back in 2015. A few years after that, Keith started building this five-window that was intended to be a little more basic. “This was supposed to be a ‘build me a quickie chassis so I can put a primered body on it’ project,” Eric says, “and it got out of hand.”
The project began as intended, with the team at Pinkee’s building a back-to-basics hot rod chassis using a boxed frame with custom crossmembers, a 4-inch dropped front beam axle, split wishbones, Vega-style steering, and ’40 Lincoln drum brakes. It was initially fitted with a 9-inch rearend riding on a transverse leaf spring. It was all pretty straightforward hot rod stuff
The chopped five-window coupe body Keith had acquired ultimately needed a little more work than he anticipated. “He said, ‘I need you to massage the body a little bit,’” Eric recalls. So, the body was sent to Pinkee’s for metalwork and, at some point, an Eric Black illustration entered the equation – a rendering of a heavily chopped coupe with much more curve in the window openings than you normally get by simply lowering the lid on a Model 40. To achieve the desired shapes and contours, the Pinkee’s team would not only need to re-do the car’s chop, but would essentially need to scratch build all the top panels from the beltline up. Keith loved the idea, and the slippery slope just continued.
As metalwork commenced to create the new chop and many other subtle slices and mods were made to the body to achieve the desired profile, Eric and Keith bounced ideas back and forth on how to make the car an even bigger standout. A distinctive engine is never wrong in a hot rod, so they located a ’54-vintage 331c.i. Cadillac V8 – a choice that Keith says he might not make again. “The Caddy engine was the biggest challenge,” he says. “It almost kicked our butt.”
Challenge or not, the vintage Cad is a key ingredient to this hot rod’s appeal and proved its performance during the Reliability Run and drag strip passes at the BASF Nashville Nationals. Internal upgrades include an Isky high-lift cam, roller lifters, and Studebaker rocker arms, while a smooth dual-carb intake fitted with Autotrend EFI units and a custom air cleaner top things off. Custom stainless open headers were built to enhance the hot rod attitude and were fitted with motorcycle baffles to keep the noise in check. A Speed Gems adapter mates the engine with a Tremec TKO five-speed transmission, which sends power to a Winters quick-change rearend that replaced the previous 9-inch. The chassis eventually got rolling on one-off 16×4- and 16×8-inch pin-drive knockoff wheels machined at Pinkee’s and shod with Firestone 4.50 bias plies in front and 8.90 dirt track tires in back.
Besides the top chop and leaned-back windshield, the body was treated to lots of louvers in the filled top and across the deck lid. A custom-radius fuel tank and curved rear spreader bar were also built to achieve a just-right shape. Despite all the complex metalwork, Eric and Keith agree that color selection was one of the hardest tasks of the build, as they wanted to keep the car distinct from the fleet of other ’33-’34 highboy coupes that have debuted recently. “Color was very important,” Keith says. “Every color in the rainbow was considered. We got our hands on a Ditzler paint sample book from the 1920s and ’30s. It was called their Bird Series. Woodcock Brown became our choice after Pinkee’s spent countless hours mixing to land on the present color.”
While the paint hue was named after a bird, most people associate it with something sweeter. “If you put a butterscotch candy on the car, you can’t find it,” Eric says with a laugh. No matter what you call the color, though, there’s no denying it has an appropriate period look that perfectly suits this traditional-style hot rod.
Speaking of well-suited, the coupe’s interior nicely complements the rest of the build. The dash is fitted with custom-machined panels for the glove box, switches, and Classic Instruments gauges, with a column-mounted tach visible behind the custom four-spoke, leather-wrapped steering wheel. Sid Chavers stitched the custom seat with brown leather and diamond-stitched inserts, wrapped the door and side panels in a clean and smooth style, and covered the floor with square-weave carpet. There are plenty of custom-machined parts to add thoughtful finishing touches, all of which are designed with a vintage style to maintain the car’s cohesive theme.
Finished in time to debut at the Grand National Roadster Show this year, the coupe had more than 500 shakedown miles on it by the time it arrived in Tennessee for the Goodguys 18th BASF Nashville Nationals. It did all the things a hot rod should do throughout the event weekend – it made noise, was driven hard, did burnouts, made dragstrip passes, and looked mean and angry the whole time. It’s a fitting and worthy recipient for the 2024 Tanks, Inc. Hot Rod of the Year title, and we congratulate Keith and Jody Hill and the team at Pinkee’s Rod Shop for taking home the honor this year.
Photos by Marc Gewertz & John Jackson
