Hot rods don’t really come any more storied, recognizable, or influential than the Dick Flint roadster. It raced at El Mirage, it spiffed up for multiple magazine covers in the 1950s, and after a no-holds-barred restoration, it won its class at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. And next month it may very well set a record for world’s most expensive hot rod when it comes up for sale at RM’s Art of the Automobile auction. A World War II Navy veteran and member of the Glendale Sidewinders, Dick Flint returned home to postwar Southern California to work at Alex Xydias’s So-Cal Speed Shop and began assembling the pieces for the hot rod he’d been dreaming about for years. He started by buying three Ford Model A roadster bodies and assembling one using the best parts of the three, channeled the result over a Z’d frame, then took the body to Neil Emory at Valley Custom in Burbank – also responsible for the body of the So-Cal Speed Shop streamliner, among other legendary hot rods and customs. Emory and Flint collaborated on the design of the unique track roadster-influenced nose and worked out a plan to smooth the body, fill its seams, and even install a full five-piece bellypan (that latter item fitted by Dean Batchelor) all for the sake of aerodynamics at the dry lakes. Flint then assembled a balanced 286-cu.in. 1940 Mercury flathead V-8 for the car. According to RM’s description, the flathead used a Winfield Super 1A camshaft, Johnson adjustable lifters, Fleischmann ignition, block-letter Edelbrock heads, three Stromberg 97 carburetors on an Edelbrock intake manifold, and tubular headers. Backed by a Ford three-speed with close-ratio Lincoln Zephyr gears, Flint had it ready to run at El Mirage by the summer of 1950, and that June ran 143.54 MPH in it. Though he continued to race the roadster at both Southern California Timing Association and Rusetta Timing Association events throughout 1951, he also ran it on the street during that time, his hands on a 1940 Ford steering wheel and his eyes on an Auburn instrument cluster complete with 100 MPH Auburn speedometer. Painted the same red hue found on Federal trucks, it first appeared in the pages of Hop Up (actually twice: in November 1951 and again in May 1953), and then on the cover of the May 1952 issue of Hot Rod along with Flint, his friend Bob Roddick, and a casually strolling Harriet Haven. Afterward Flint appeared to run the roadster mostly on the street, though he did later add cycle fenders and a cowl-mounted steering box. In 1961, he then sold it – with an asking price of $2,500 – to Duane Kofoed of Burbank, who later swapped in a 352-cu.in. small-block Chevrolet and Oldsmobile rear axle. He later tried to sell it for $2,000, the lower asking price likely due to the frame that was severely weakened during its original Z’ing, as The Rodder’s Journal noted in its Summer 2001 issue. Kofoed disassembled the roadster, but then left it disassembled for the next 30 years, until Don Orosco bought it in the 1990s and embarked on a full restoration of the roadster, though one that would require an original Model A frame Z’d front and rear and reinforced with a 1932 Ford K-member. Instead of the long-lost Mercury flathead, Orosco installed a 276-cu.in. Ford flathead V-8 using a 59AB block, Mercury crankshaft, and triple Strombergs on an Edelbrock intake. Though he ran Eddie Meyer Hollywood heads on it for some time, RM notes that block-letter Edelbrock heads now top the flathead. Orosco finished the restoration in time for the 50th Grand National Roadster Show in 1999, participated in the Goodwood Festival of Speed the next year, and then in 2001 alongside Flint himself showed the roadster at Pebble Beach’s second-ever showing of hot rods, where it won not only best in class but also the Dean Batchelor Memorial Trophy. |
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