This is the fifth in a series of speedster creations by Terry Cook using his Deco Rides body. Terry saw a scale model of a boattail streamliner by Mike Ball of Velocity Engineering in Fort Wayne, IN. Ball was inspired by the famed Lockhart land speed record attempt car from 1929. Mike’s model, which inspired Terry to build this car, is distinguished by four pontoons cloaking the wheels.

Built over several years by Gary and Dillon Brown at Browns Metal Mods in Indianapolis, the same town where the original Frank Lockhart Stutz Black Hawk was built in the late 1920s. Fat Man Fabrications in Mint Hill, NC fashioned a 130-inch wheelbase frame with a “suicide” style tube front axle suspended by quarter elliptic springs. The goal was to enclose the Radiir 18 x 3-inch 12-spoke front wheels and Hearst spot disc brakes within a pair of slim fiberglass streamlined wheel pants which Deco Rides also manufactures. Not only do the front wheel pants swivel and turn with the cars steering, the headlights turn with the steering as well. Denny Jamison built the aluminum rear pontoons that mount directly to the rear axle housing.

Air shocks in the rear raise and lower the car as needed. When the car is moving, it appears to be mysteriously levitating or floating above the ground.

The car debuted at the Louisville Street Rod Nationals, followed by appearances at the Quail: A Motorsports Gathering as a tow-vehicle for the Bella Figura Type 57S, at the Rolex Laguna Seca Vintage Races, and the Pleasanton Goodguys event. Wherever it appeared, it attracted a crowd and a bevy of photographers.

The engine in the House of Kolor Tangello orange pearl and black boattail is a 4.6-liter Mustang V-8. Because Cook likes to incorporate humor in his creations, a set of chrome plated Ferrari V-12 valve covers sit atop the engine cloaking the Ford single overhead cam engine. Terry jokingly explains to people that it is a rare “Fordrarri” engine. The exhaust shows twelve stainless pipes peeking out from under the boattail in keeping with the V-12 joke. The automatic transmission is a 41279W Ford overdrive.

The interior of the car was done in black tuck n’ roll leather by Mike and Gary Griffey of Muncie, IN, who also fashioned the black Hartz cloth top over a Dick Rodwell metal frame that was fabricated to final shape by Gary Brown. The rear window is a LeBaron Bonney item. Rodwell also supplied the subtly curved Stanley Wanlass windshield, and Brown custom built the smooth A-posts that hold it in place. The side spears were chrome plated by Finishing Touch in Chicago and the front end by Sherm’s Custom Plating in Sacramento, CA.

The steel nose, hood and side panels were hand fabricated by Gary Brown. The side panels feature unique reverse cut sweeping curved louvers by metalshaper Rex Rogers of Custom Auto in Loveland, CO. Most people take the louvers for granted, but have you ever seen reverse cut louvers? This was a masterful and complicated job artfully accomplished by Rex after a dozen or so e-mails between Terry and Rex to determine the final louver layout. The louvers were sprayed with chrome paint, then the side panels were painted black. Thanks must go to illustrator/artist Darrell Mayabb of Arvada, CO, Art Center grad John Caswell of Detroit and veteran custom painter Don “The Egyptian” Boeke of Dayton, OH for their input advising and conferring with Cook on the design of this project.

Credit for the the final dorsal fin goes to “Gyp” Boeke. The custom taillights in the trailing edge of the rear pontoons were hand hewn from red plexiglass stock. A small set of aluminum “pie plates” with a screened mesh opening to cool the spot brakes were fashioned by panelbeater Denny Jamison of Automotive Hammer Art on Gasoline Alley in Indy. Each pontoon has its own pie plate.