Sylvester III

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There's a rather lovely story behind this '32 Ford. Built into a welded-door roadster in 1955 by a chap named Gaylord Scrievers, it originally ran his own hand-fabricated tube frame and a Buick Nailhead V8, with the seamless body painted in candy apple red. Scrievers drove it daily during his tenure - impressive, given the brutal nature of the mods - before selling it on to a friend; this friend later passed it on to another, who then passed it on to another... you know how it is. And each owner added, subtracted, altered and embellished to personalise the rod; every new curator evolved the car into something fresh and new. It debuted as Sylvester in 1962, its outlandish features and state-of-the-art suspension earning it a Car Craft cover spot.
...and, as is so often the way with project cars, it was broken up in 1968. In '71, the remains found their way to a man by the name of Albert Garcia in lieu of a debt, and it remained untouched in his garage for nearly forty years. When he died in 2007, his wife tried to sell the parts but, at the $1500 she advertised it for, no-one believed it would be a genuine '32 so nobody bit. It wasn't until a while later when she advertised the other parts cluttering up the garage that somebody came to view a Datsun 240Z engine, spotted the '32 in the corner, and excitedly told New Metal Kustomz' Paul Shaughnessy about it.
What Paul ended up buying in 2007 was a portion of the frame, the original rear wheels, a few interior panels, and some random other bits and bobs. It took much investigation, calling in favours and tapping up old hot rod hands across the jungle telegraph to learn about the history of Sylvester, and start building something to complement its rich history. This is a tricky area, of course, as a rebuild of this nature will always be judged against previous iterations. Thankfully, however, this is New Metal Kustomz' bread-and-butter - and as you can see, they've built what is almost certainly one of the most beautiful hot rods you've ever seen.
You can read the full story here at Hot Rod Magazine.