Story & Photos by Terry Denomme

History often repeats itself. In the case of Dennis Schneider’s 1931 Model A, we’re glad it did. Schneider, of Duncan, BC is responsible for rescuing El Torro from storage limbo and putting it back on the streets, but the roadster’s hot rod story began more than 50 years before that.

The first step was ditching the Model A chassis and drivetrain.  A ’32 Ford chassis was sourced locally and the project was on its way. “That was the deal back in the day.....you put a Deuce frame under your car,” says Walker. He can’t remember where he found the Deuce frame, but he does remember where he found most of the other parts for the car. “I had a buddy, Jim Lussie who worked at Sandy’s Auto Wrecking in Victoria and he knew where I could find the stuff I wanted.” The front suspension is ’48 Ford wishbone with a Dago 2.5” dropped axle ordered from Dickinson & Dunn Tire on Blanchard St. Victoria. Out back was a transverse leaf spring with a ’48 Ford rear end with enclosed driveshaft. The dash is ’32 Ford in which a set of ’55 DeSoto gauges were inserted. The steering box came from a 1937 Hudson. “I used it because the bolt pattern fit the ’32 frame and the pitman arm was an exact fit to The Ford splines,” says Walker. A 1955 Chevy swing pedal assembly was installed as was a 1956 Ford hydraulic slave cylinder. A 1956 MG donated a hand brake assembly for a parking brake.

“I picked an Oldsmobile after reading an article in Rod & Custom explaining how easily it could be bolted to a Ford transmission,” says Walker. “It was a simple as buying an adapter plate. I got the motor from Sandy’s Autowrecking and rebuilt it installing solid lifters, tubular pushrods and adjustable rocker arms.” The camshaft was also a special grind machined at Shadbolt Cams in Vancouver, BC. The end result was a Model A roadster that could scoot. “It was an Olds V8 engine in a car that weighed almost nothing…it was pretty fantastic for its day,” explains Walker. The 303ci Olds was the first mass produced OHV V8.

With a lot of help from his older brother Bob Walker, who at the time was driving a 1947 Ford coupe with a hopped up Mercury OHV V8, El Torro took one year to build and hit the streets of Victoria in 1958. It was painted a Robin’s Egg blue and the late Dave Winters (a pinstriper from Salt Spring Island) pinstriped the car. Walker can’t remember why he dubbed the car El Torro....or why it was spelled wrong....he just remembers it was popular to name your hot rod and he thought his car looked kind of tough, like a snorting bull, so El Torro it was. A few years later Walker repainted the car a OEM Ford metallic blue which is the colour of the car in the old show photos included with the story. He kept the car until 1977, painted green by then and off the road for about five years prior to that. “I just kind of lost interest in it,” says Walker. “Someone made an offer on it and I accepted.” Walker doesn’t remember the name of the person he sold the car to and Schneider only knows that he bought the car from Nanaimo, BC’s Don Purdy in about 1999. It took a while to make the deal though.

Schneider was only four years younger than John Walker and in his youth, and to this day, actually used to hang out with Walker’s cousin...also John Walker. “I might have seen it (El Torro) at the races at San Cobble or car shows but didn’t remember it,” says Schneider.  Maybe that was because Schneider was really into ’55 Chevys (he’s owned a least four), Nomads and even had a ’62 Corvette 327/300hp 4-speed car as well as a 1967 GTO with a 4-speed. In the late 1950s, when Walker built El Torro, Schneider owned a 1940 Ford Sedan. He’d never owned a car older than that but in the late 1990s he started to think it would be neat to build a Model A coupe. That’s when Nanaimo’s Larry Forrester told him about Purdy’s Model A roadster hot rod. When Schneider went to look at the car it was in pieces and not for sale. “I kept phoning him and finally after about a year and a half he called me and said ‘you sound sincere and I think you’ll get it on the road so I’ll sell it to you.’” At first that proved not to be true. Life got in the way and once in Schneider’s garage the roadster sat for almost 10 years before his family and friend’s finally convinced him to get at it. “In all fairness, if it wasn’t for my wife, two boys and good friend Bob Bridge I would have sold it.”

The project started in September 2009 with a goal to have the car finished by the 2010 Northwest Deuce Days event in Victoria, BC. (www.northwestdeuceday.com). Instrumental in the build were John Walker (cousin to original builder, who performed the body work, paint and chassis repair) Lee Schneider and Bridge who helped with the mechanical aspects. The 11-month time frame was tight but the car that had taken a year to build in 1957 was still in pretty decent shape. “We had to put a floor in it but that was the biggest body repair that had to be made,” says Schneider. Miraculously, a lot of the original parts from the first build remained, including the front and rear nerf bars, front suspension and what Schneider thinks are the wheels and caps that were on the car in the early 1960s. The rear ’48 Ford rear end and transverse spring was gone and had been replaced at some point by an 8” Ford and coil springs, which for practicality sake was left in place during the restoration. The bias ply tires are Remington Cushion airs which probably replaced the original wide whites, but nobody knows when. The ’49 Olds engine was still in the car but the block was cracked and couldn’t be salvaged but it came with the original intake and three carbs. The ’55 DeSoto gauges were gone and in place were a set of vintage Stewart and Warner gauges. “Even the original wiring was in awesome shape though I updated it all with Painless Performance kit,” says Schneider.

The Deuce frame had seen better days and had cracked in a few places but Walker welded it up, though didn’t box it. “He wanted to but I wanted it to be as true to the original as possible so instead he welded in gussets,” says Schneider. Though the goal was to keep as true to the original as possible, concessions to the new owner’s tastes were made. The car had been channelled about 8” but Schneider wanted more leg room so he raised the body almost two inches. He also replaced the chopped windshield with a full size Model A roadster windshield. The original wishbone was replaced by a chromed set of split wishbones Schneider scored at a swap meet. “I  just felt they suited the car,” he says. To extend the roadster’s mileage, a bigger fuel tank was fabricated by Walker. Before the project started, Schneider found a 1955 324ci Oldsmobile V8 to replace the original ’49 Olds.