For what feels like the past nine decades, hot-rodded 1930s Fords have a staying power that other hot rods can only dream of. So great is the desire to shove modern hardware into a timeless classic package that we, as gearheads, are still obsessed with a full nine decades later. Look no further than what the notorious hotrodders Pete Aardema and Kevin Braun have been getting up to lately.
For those of you not in the know, Pete Aardema and Kevin Braun are a dynamic pair of custom hot rodders and DIY tuners specializing in land speed record racing. In their time, the two have built some of the most unique and specialized racing engines to come from an independent North American tuning garage. In the hands of a team that genuinely does know what they're doing, the tired old trope of a 30's Ford hot rod becomes something far more profound than just another restomod.
In its day, a 1934 Ford coupe would've left the factory with either a 221-cubic inch (3.6-liter) Flathead V8 making around 85 horsepower or a 201-cubic inch four-cylinder engine making considerably less than that. Well, with whichever of these two motors that came stock with this Ford now long fone, Pete and Kevin were free to put what they liked in as a replacement. The solution to this problem started with the bottom end of a 6.2-liter GM LS3 engine like you would've found in the base-model Chevy Corvette C6 from 2008 onwards.
But because wacky custom engines are something of a theme with Pete Aardema and Kevin Braun, there was no way this LS3 bottom end was headed into this Ford without some nutty but brilliant modifications done to it. First thing first, that LS3 bottom end was paired to a set of dual-overhead-cam heads from a GM LT5 V8, as you'd see in a C7-era Corvette ZR1. This engine was then converted over to belt drive before the custom stamped heads with the last names of the builders were mounted on the LS3 bottom end.
With a shortened torque tube feeding to a 4L60E automatic transmission, this build is now built with considerably more GM hardware than anything from Ford. But as Pete is very eager to point out, he's always been more of a GM guy than a Ford guy, anyhow. Once the drivechain was completed, a fully-custom sheet metal body from Marcel's Custom Metal in Los Angeles could be mounted, making for a menacing silhouette that adds several layers of machismo and curb appeal to the finished look of this restomod. Seeing it nearly complete, it's easy to rationalize why people still obsess over pre-war Ford restomods even almost a century later.
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