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Hotrod / Hot Rod?
THE HOT RODI was reading the Apr. ’09 issue of HOT ROD about barn finds and survivor hot rods and would like to tell a tale of a surviving homebuilt hot rod in my own family. My grandfather, Steve Caroleo, owned a small shop in Carnegie, Pennsylvania, back in the ’50s, where he worked on cars and sold welders. He built a car for his first-born son, my uncle Don. When I say built a car, I mean home-built the car by creating his own frame and using parts from many different cars to build a sleek twoseater, a true one-of-a-kind hot rod. My father and I still refer to this car as The Hot Rod. The build began back in 1953 with a Dodge front suspension, a Ford transverse-sprung rearend, and a Corvette windshield that was sectioned in the middle. All the body panels, grille, and bumpers were hand-fabricated around the homebuilt chassis and welded together by my grandfather. Custom louvers were worked into the one-off hood to reduce engine compartment heat. The fabbed bumpers, grille, and many of the suspension parts were sent out for chrome plating. A custom dash and interior with red and white upholstery are complemented by Studebaker gauges. Power for The Hot Rod comes from a ’48 Mercury flathead that was rebuilt with a hot cam, two carburetors, and a custom, must-see air intake system that mounts a filter on each side of the body to receive fresh air. The bodywork and car were finished in 1955 with a fire-red paint job at the same time my uncle was ready for college.He felt The Hot Rod was too nice for driving around at college and left it in my grandfather’s garage where it still resides today. I spent a lot of childhood years in the mid-’70s with my grandfather, who took the time to teach me the fractions of an inch, the different types of tools, and how to use them. He even taught me how to weld. Little did I know back then that my grandfather was prepping a third-generation hot rodder—me. My grandfather is now 94 years old. He still gets around pretty good but is quickly losing his eyes and can no longer drive The Hot Rod, but I have pictures from one of the last times he did drive it.
