Cars On Line reported on Friday that this 1937 Ford Woodie Wagon makes the Great 8 list of contenders for the Ridler Award. Mike and Melinda Terzich of Gibsonia, Pennsylvania asked Clay Cook of C. Cook Enterprises to build the custom woodie wagon. It was no small task. Clay and his crew have overcome immense engineering challenges to build this car. All of the custom builders here at the show agree that this car was done right. Normally a builder must be a craftsman at sheet metal. But in the case of this 1937 Ford Woodie Wagon Clay’s crew had to become specialists at wood crafting and using carbon fiber materials as well.
Some of the builders who know tell us this is the car to beat. We watched as the judges went over this elegant street rod today for the final judging for the Ridler Award. They are pretty tough. But the ’37 Woodie was built right and has some incredible features designed in.
For instance, when Mike Terzich wanted power windows installed all the door panels had to be contructed of double wood panels. As any Ford woodie owner will tell you the Ford doors were always a problem anyway. Putting power windows in the doors was not small challenge. Likewise, when Nagle Design rendered the air intake for the headlights (see photo) and included LED headlights in the design, special cad work had to be done at Clay’s shop to produce the plans machining the headlight housing and the ductwork to cool the front brakes. Fabricating the differential cover took a full set of cad drawings and breakouts. They also had to have cad work done to design the fabrication of Carbon 14 embossing on the brake calipers. Such attention to detail is part of what makes the 1937 Ford Woodie Wagon such a formidable contender for the Ridler Award.
Why the Carbon 14 theme? The panels in the wood doors are made of carbon fiber. There is also a lot of carbon fiber used in the interior giving it that very special look.
The list of equipment used on the Carbon 14 ’37 Ford Woodie is like a litany of the top performance parts vendors. Advanced Plating for the chrome work, Billet Specialties, Classic Instruments, Glasurit, Kooks Custom headers, Roadster Shop, Roush Performance 427, Vintage Air, Wilwood and Winters Performance.
Click the images below for a larger view:
[…] All the top custom builders think this 1937 Ford Woodie Wagon is the one to beat. They say it was built right, a very difficult build to achieve because of the wood construction. The display benefitted from a digital media presentation on how the rod was built. This is not your typical resto rod. The list of equipment used is like a litany of the top performance parts vendors. It was brought to the show by Mike and Melinda Terzich of Gibsonia, Pennsylvania. Their company, ProRides, has been building top show cars for over 20 years. They have won Goodguys as Street Machine of the Year with a famous ’56 Chevy Radical Custom. But they have never won a Ridler Award. This year, that all might change. See more high resolution photos of the ’37 Ford Woodie by clicking this link. […]