Some guys are lucky if they own one really cool car in a lifetime. Dundas, ON’s Matt Hayes isn’t even 30 and he already owns two. We spied the Model A while shooting his wicked slammed ’53 Chevy so decided to chronicle both. Age before beauty they say, so let’s start this tale with Haye’s ’31 Model A, dubbed appropriately the A Bomb.
     Hayes ’31 Ford is often described as an old school rod, but few people realize how accurate that statement is. Back in 2002, November 18 to be exact, Hayes, who was then only 19 years old, bought this ’31 Ford coupe body. He already had a Brookville frame, engine and most other “stuff” to build a car. Hayes and his father had been planning a trip to Manitoba or Saskatchewan to find a Model A body when they heard of a ’31 project that had been abandoned in Grimsby, ON. Seems it was a high school auto shop project that was left in a long-since closed school. That means Hayes’ old school Model A is literally from an old school. 
     According to Hayes, the new owners of the property almost rolled on the ground laughing after he bought the coupe for a $1,000. “There was some bad welding in the floor and roof, a frame that was a joke,” says Hayes. “But there was evidence of a previous life as a rod.” That evidence was remnants of lead in some body work, traces of red pin stripes and bits of tufted gold upholstery. Hayes left the frame at the old school and went to work on the car beginning with the Brookville frame fabbed with a 3” kick up and a traditional hot rod suspension including the requisite ’40 Ford axle and split wishbones up front and a less traditional 4-link with coilover setup and 8” Ford out back.
     With his dad’s help he had the Model A on the road in 2003 and rolled up close to 7,500 miles that first year driving it “everywhere until there was ice on the roads.”
     In 2007, Hayes decided it was time for a face lift. A talk with hot rod icon Norm Grabowski inspired the car’s current paint and interior colour. Grabowski told Hayes that Mediterranean Blue (in this case a 1956 Buick colour) and white interiors were popular combos back in the day. 
     Hayes has a sketchy memory for names and can only remember Grant in Brantford painted the car and Stan The Indian in Midland did the upholstery. Hayes and his dad worked the body over and installed the 350 with three deuces and a GM Turbo 350 automatic. 
     The A Bomb now sports stainless ’32 headlights and ’58 Chevy taillights  The face lift included freshening up the steel wheels with a few coats of red accented by beauty rings and chrome nuts. Pinstriping and the A Bomb girl were both done by Ron Gibbs who we featured in a series of CHR issues painting flames on a Deuce coupe owned by Canadian Rodder’s Frank Colgani.
     Hayes’ Model A might have come to him as a high school dropout but when it comes to the test of hot rod cool A Bomb passes with flying colours.