Inspirational projects at HGHRs

15/02/2008

Hilborn injected 502 cu in Chevy motored roadster in the foreground, with a 350 equipped version on the ramp. The former is being completed for a German customer.

Visiting Home Grown Hot Rods is always an interesting experience and even more so in the winter months when there’s not much happening on the street. Seeing three roadsters under construction and Andy Barry’s metalworking skills on Keith Abrehart’s steel three-window coupe, made it an inspirational day out. It’s easy to see why Jon and Andy are so busy when you look at the quality of work they regularly turn out. Yes, we've seen it before, but it's still impressive the second time around. Of course, they both make it look so easy, especially by the matter-of-fact way in which they work, but there's years of experience behind that seemingly casual approach.

Keith Abrehart's coupe is coming aong nicely, but it's taken a lot of graft to get it looking this good

The lower rear corners were eaten away along with the lower valance. Now as good as new - if not better!

The back window aperture was beyond economic repair, so it was cut out and a new panel has been expertly grafted in

What a perfect fit!

One more roadster, which wasn’t on the premises at the time of our visit, had recently been completed and will be off to its new owner shortly. Hopefully we’ll be able to get the odd photo of it before it gets tucked away in a garage prior to summer. What we do know is that it’s painted in a fetching shade of pearlescent red, it runs a stroked small-block Chevy motor, sports a black roof and runs on Budnik wheels.

It's still in the mock-up stage at the moment, but this roadster has all of the makings of a knockout project

4/71 GMC blown flathead should have plenty of get up and go

Jon has been a Brookville dealer for some time now and has used quite a few of their steel roadster bodies to complete various projects. He’s never had a coupe though, but that will change in the next couple of months when HGHRs get their first Brookville three-window coupe, which will be built up as another full turn-key car. There’s lots of excitement and anticipation about this and other projects this year.

“We are busier than ever and the work is stacked up well into 2009,” said Jon. Who said hot rodding was dying out?

Story & photos: Andy Kirk

There seems to be no shortage of motors in stock nor exotic induction systems

This photo of the German roadster shows off the custom aluminium panels which will be used for afixing the full cloth interior