Bonneville Salt Flats Racer: 1932 Ford Roadster Built to Break Records

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Booking it through the SEMA Show's central hall, we got caught in a multi-person pileup at the AM Hot Rod Glass booth. The cause of it all? A built-for-Bonneville 1932 Ford roadster that might be the wickedest flathead-powered Deuce we've ever seen.

Matt Jewell of Davenport, Iowa, had been a dirt track racer and drag racer before getting into land speed racing at Bonneville. The Jewell Group Motorsports team built the roadster in 2015 to go after the XF Gas Roadster class record of just over 161 mph. The XF/GR class is for roadsters running pre-1953 Flathead engines, which must be normally aspirated and fed by carburetors or mechanical fuel injection.

The roadster body is a steel 1932 Ford reproduction from Brookville. The chassis features suspension parts familiar to anybody into traditional hot rods, including a 3-inch dropped tubular front axle, 1940 Ford spindles, and classic wishbone-style radius rods, along with a Winters quick-change rearend. A Liberty air-actuated five-speed transmission backs up the flathead.

The XF/GR record of just over 161 mph was set in 2012. Jewell was determined to beat it but was having no success, and turned to Troy Trepanier at Rad Rides by Troy for help. "He was hitting a wall," said Rad Rides fabricator Adam Banks. "Part of it was aerodynamics and part of it was the horsepower he was getting out of his engines."

At Rad Rides by Troy, the engine was filled with Devcon epoxy and machined. "There were a lot of trials and changes," Adam said. "We flow-tested different blocks to find out what the best cfm was and kept changing the combustion chambers. We ended up increasing the cfm almost 150 percent without losing a lot of compression. Switching the intake and exhaust ports—which is why the exhaust comes out through the top of the engine—helped with the flow. "

Related: America's Most Beautiful Roadster 2022 Is a Breathtaking '34 Chevy Built by Troy Trepanier

The billet aluminum cylinder heads that got so much attention at SEMA were custom machined at Rad Rides. Cooling runs through the heads; an oil-squirter system cools the pistons and cylinders walls from underneath.

Back at Bonneville in 2020, Jewell achieved his goal, setting a new XF/GR record of 165.558 mph. After that success, the car went back to Rad Rides to be modified for the Gas Modified Roadster class. Modifications include a belly pan, aluminum side skirts, lower air dam, an aluminum tonneau cover, an aluminum sectioned hood top, and an aluminum aerodynamic nose, all allowed in the XF/GMR class. The AM Hot Rod Glass acrylic windshield is mounted on a fabricated chassis and can be completely removed. Other changes include the dry sump oiling system and new paint.

"We got rained out at Bonneville in 2022, but we're eager to get back out and see what the changes will do," Adam told us. "If we can get another Gas record, we'll add the nitrous tank and go for a Fuel record."

"People might wonder how we get excited about going 165 mph," Adam said, "but breaking any record is exciting, whether it's 300-plus mph in a streamliner or 165 mph in a '32 roadster. To hot-rodders, there is something relatable about these cars and the classes they race in, and holding a flathead roadster record—the oldest records on the books—is desirable. It's a part of land speed history."

On season 3, episode 2 of HOT ROD Unlimited, Thom Taylor drives a channeled, topless Deuce roadster in the dead of winter from Nashville to Los Angeles, encountering what you would expect in the middle of winter: ice, rain, cold, frost—did we mention cold?? Watch the roadster slip, slide and spin 2,000 miles as Thom takes Interstate 40 through eight states and 70 degrees of temperature change, taking breaks for burnouts, breakdowns, bad weather and junkyards. Sign up for a free trial to MotorTrend+ and start streaming every episode of HOT ROD Unlimited today!