Cam Grant - Inducted 2005

Pioneer - Hot Rod, Custom Car and Drag Racing

Cam Grant, 2005

Cam started his hot rodding career building jalopies out of balsa wood at age six. At 13 he acquired a ‘28 Ford roadster pickup that was beyond hope, a year later a ‘31 Model A roadster became his first real rod. Doing all the work himself, he channelled the body over the frame, fitted hydraulic brakes and initially a flathead V8, shortly replaced by a Buick Nailhead to give him the speed he thought he needed.

Over the next few years, Cam worked through a couple of Studebaker Lowboys, a ‘48 Merc coupe, a ‘40 Ford coach, to name a few. Then after marrying Susan in 1965, he settled into what was to become his trademark, early Fords of a style and quality.

Cam pioneered the fiberglass roadster industry by building moulds from a ’31 Ford roadster in 1965, assembling it over a hand made tube frame with a small block Chev engine. This full fendered, black lacquered beauty was so well done that until the word got out, most experts thought it was a steel car.

Recognizing the need for a family sedan, now that his two children, Clayton and Lorie were growing up, Cam built the ultimate resto-rod, a 1934 Lincoln Town Car with late model Ford running gear, including disc brakes and air conditioning. The modifications were done without disturbing any of the original structure and beauty of the car so that a future owner could restore it to

By Roger Glassford and Al Dewey, 2005

Cam Grant 1928 Ford Touring Car, 1969 (Doug Harder collection)

its original state with relative ease.

In the early ‘80s, Cam fitted a Speedster or Duvall style windshield frame to the ‘33 Ford Phaeton that he was building. The effect was so dram-atic, that along with his friend Gary Lang, he formed the company Past Tech to manufacture these windshield frames for a number of early Ford models. Cam still builds these frames today and dis-tributes them through most major rod builders worldwide.

In 1992 Cam built his first 1932 Highboy roadster in the manner of the early lakes roadsters, but with what was becoming the “Cam Grant Difference”. It is his ability to pull together unique and always subtle details in design and innovation that make his cars appear “traditional” until you notice the first in a series of tricks that take it beyond what has gone before, without losing the feeling, the style.

A couple of other ‘32 highboys followed, one for his friend Rob

Murray, probably the only hot rod he built for someone other than himself, and then the DeSoto Hemi, 4 speed, Winters quick change driven number that had so many unique yet ‘40s touches that you could spend all day over and under it and not grasp it all. It simply looked right.

Then last year he finished a 1928 Ford Touring that he found in the Vernon city dump in 1961. This rod has to be seen, not described. It was feature-ed in Issue Six of Hop Up Magazine and is a masterpiece of tradition and illusion that cloaks advanced engine-ering.

Currently, Cam is doing another traditional ‘32 Highboy.

Cam’s machines have been feature-ed in Rod & Custom, American Rodder and Hop Up Magazines among others. But the measure of his ability is the respect and admiration of his peers, those fellow rodders and builders that have seen his creations evolve and have drawn from the experience. You’ve got to like a guy whose almost daily driver is a primered 1932 Ford 3-window coupe, full fendered, dropped axle, flat-head powered rod built in the’50s, who has a 1962 Corvette that he has done a ground up restoration on for his wife Susan, but never quite finished and probably won’t until he runs out of imagination, and has to do things by the book.