I love… No, it’s not like that. I adore and admire the American style of car tuning in the second half of the last century. That’s why I always look at supercharged cars. I’m drawn to steel, painted in bright and catchy colors, but I’m dubious about carbon fiber and all other modern gadgets. But when I saw a hot rod called Carbon 14, I knelt down, because it is literally a masterpiece.
I admit: the execution is just perfect. A supercharger protruding from under the hood will definitely break the body lines. And any other color, except black, is unlikely to go so well with carbon fiber, of which this car consists of about half.
So, we have a 1937 Ford Wagon in front of us. In the original, it’s one of the so-called woody cars, that is, cars with wood elements. At the dawn of the automotive industry, many elements of the car body were made of wood. Why? Yes, because steel was expensive at that time, it was difficult to work with it, not everyone could do it, and in general, the term “coachbuilder” was translated rather not as a “manufacturer of car bodies”, but as a “manufacturer of carriages” – the very carts that horses pull. And which were mostly made of wood. The same people worked with both carriages and cars. And since the automotive culture emerged and strengthened quite quickly in the United States, the tree took root and was used in the manufacture of cars until the 1950s: only at the dawn of rock and roll, steel finally finally won. However, all sorts of cosmetic options disguising the car as woody continued to be produced right up to the end of the 90s.
Specifically, the woody station wagons of the 30s and 40s are now firmly and clearly associated with surfing culture in general and surf rock in particular. That is why it is very rare to find a car of this type without a roof trunk loaded with a couple of boards. And this is another reason to admire Carbon 14: this type of custom is just another unicorn born in pure creativity and breaking established orders.
Mike Terzic is a big fan of wood-paneled cars. However, he lives in Western Pennsylvania, which is not so close to California and surf rock. So the taste of comrade Terzic is rather strict and combative street racing, dissecting not on beaches, but on stone jungles. Mike was helped to combine urban style with a ’37 station wagon by his friend Gary Ragle, a designer and illustrator by profession. In fact, it was Gary who created the Carbon 14, since it was his hands that painted the car from all angles and modeled it down to the smallest detail.
“I’ve always wanted Woody, and I think Henry Ford’s 1937 Ford is the best of its kind. So Gary and I spent months discussing how to build a car that would not deviate from Henry’s original vision, but would develop its beauty and timeless design. We have made the focus on contrasts to the limit. We needed this car to look at home on the show, on the highway, and on a winding country road.”
Apart from carbon fiber instead of wood, the exterior looks almost factory-made, except for a couple of classic features like removed bumpers and shaved handles. However, in fact, almost every detail is custom. Only the steel panels remain from the original machine. The wooden part of the body is handmade from solid maple. The radiator grille is new, custom-made. The headlights are completely custom, and the hole above the headlights is the beginning of a functional duct that cools the front brakes. All the chrome is also new, executed in two tones. Even the license plate was customized: Jeremy Sinor of Luckystrike Designs in Pittsburgh repainted the plates in black, after which he highlighted the signs with silver leaf.
Looking back, the solution seems ridiculously simple: replace the wooden panels with carbon fiber. However, no one has done this before; Carbon 14 is the first of its kind. As they say, everything ingenious is simple.
The interior continues to blend classics and modernity in the best possible way. A fresh audio system and new instruments are located on a column panel designed in vintage Art Deco style. The doors are still the same mixture of wood and carbon fiber. The handles are new, but molded from old Bugatti handles. The seats are handmade, but also designed in a very retro style. Perhaps the only uncompromisingly modern interior details that stand out from the general style are the steering wheel and gearbox lever. They are also custom, of course.
Under the body of the car is a custom-made frame, with a wheelbase increased by 2.5 centimeters. The independent front suspension is also an individual project, made in the image and likeness of the Mustang II. The rear suspension is four-lever, with a Panar thrust. Both the rear and the front are equipped with coilovers. And the discs, of course. B-Forged Performance Wheels is the top line in the Billet Specialties catalog, and the 530 SL model was selected for the Carbon 14. As befits hot rods, they are of different sizes: R20 in the rear with 295 mm wide rubber and R19 in the front with 235 mm wide rubber. All this is complemented by Wilwood brakes: discs with a diameter of 33 centimeters, perforated and slotted, with six-piston calipers.
Of course, such brakes should slow down something, right? And there is something to slow down: under the hood is a seven-liter monster with a capacity of 525 horsepower. Unfortunately, the details are unknown, but these numbers are clearly enough for a very fast movement. Add to that the rear differential with a 4.11 gear ratio - a quarter mile in 13 seconds is guaranteed.
The construction of the car ended in 2015, and in the same year, the Carbon 14 deservedly almost won the Don Ridler award, being among the eight finalists. However, in the final, the judges still gave the Nobel Prize to Hot Rodding Chip Fuz and his Impala named Imposter, which translates to Narthex. So, Chip Fuza’s Vestibule is very similar to the Carbon 14 car in the sense that it also does not deviate from Irv Rybicki’s original vision, but develops a timeless design. To demonstrate this, Chip Foos parked his car side by side with a factory-made 1965 Chevy Impala. And yet Comrade Fuz still put a supercharger under the hood of his car… But that’s in another article. Which the devil knows when they’ll get around to writing. So even though the Carbon 14 did not take the award at the Detroit Auto Show, the engine room calculated on the RockThisTown website as follows: after 78 years, this 1937 Ford was reborn into something so unique that it is worth putting it even in front of an inflated Impala named after Fuza.
