Markham’s Garage: Grant Fulling’s award-winning 1927 Model A Ford truck
All work is by Frulling and local hot rod builders
Grant Frulling's 1927 Ford Model A Truck.
By Markham Hislop
Grant Frulling’s 1927 Model A truck was built to drive, though it occasionally gets shined up and entered in the odd car show, like the 2009 World of Wheels, where it took home first place for modified rod.
Frulling bought the beauty from his uncle, who just didn’t have time to work on it anymore. The basics were all in place, but the Calgary-based welder wanted to do it up his way.
A 400 horsepower Chevy small blocks fills up the engine bay. Local engine builder Kenny Gilmore bored out the now 406 cubic inches and added the 2.02 heads to give the sweet little ride a little more kick on the bottom end. A Holly 650 cfm carb sits atop an Edelbrock manifold and headers transport exhaust gases, otherwise this baby is pretty much stock.
The body hasn’t been modified much, just a few tweaks here and there to make it all Frulling’s own. He tells the story of his Afghani bodyman who laboured long hours rolling the front fenders by hand until the crease was just right. His only clue as to how the fenders should look was a photo Frulling downloaded from the internet.
While this baby can be seen many summer nights tooling around Frulling’s northwest neighbourhood, maybe stopping for a quick burger and shake at Peter’s Drive-in, you won’t see it very often at a car show. In fact, it wouldn’t have been entered in the World of Wheels if Frulling had his way. But his local club was short a car after a member pulled out, so Frulling stepped up.
A trip to the car wash and a few swipes with the rag was all the ’27 needed to be show ready. And ready it was, pulling down 1st place in its category, an achievement its modest owner shrugs off with a shy smile.
But you can bet that trophy is sitting over the mantle when fellow car buffs drop by. Seems Frulling’s shop is the go to place for community wrench pullers. The shop even served as a paint booth for the lemon yellow Ford.
The paint is 1998 Viper yellow. Local shooter Bob Smith brought his gun over, they wet the walls to keep dust down and away they went laying on the ’27′s bright yellow skin.
The purple flames are a nice, subtle touch. Frulling says he wanted everything about the flames to be custom, but even he was surprised when local artist Phil Fletcher pulled out a black marker and started to free hand on his fenders. Frulling quickly got over his shock as the gorgeous flames took shape on the background of yellow.
“I didn’t want anything computer-generated,” he said. “Phil gave me exactly what I was looking for.”
Category: Markham's Garage
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