Weep, you sinners ; Brand-new 1932 Ford roadster bodies.(Brief Article)

If you're into hot rods-especially everyone's favorite, the '32 Ford roadster-here's a statistic. Of the 258,927 vehicles built by the Ford Motor Co. for 1932, apparently only 12,080 were roadsters. That's all. Then consider how few could have survived being crushed, busted or simply rusting away over the years. Hard to believe that so few actual specimens made such a broad impact on the automotive world.

Of course, today many deuce roadsters are fiberglass replicas. Fiberglass is fine, but for old-school hot rodders, nothing feels or sounds like real steel. But original roadster bodies have become scarcer than Faberge eggs and nearly as pricey: 10 grand or more, if you can find one. And after 70 years, originals are usually eggshell fragile as well. Builders can spend hundreds of hours correcting the inevitable rust, cracks, wear and previous repairs. A more severe test of a rodder's skills, patience and vocabulary there may not be.

There Ken Gollahon and his father Ray saw opportunity. The senior Gollahon founded Antique Auto Sheet Metal 30 years ago to reproduce Model A body panels, and its hot rod division, Brookville Roadsters, is Ken's baby. Brookville manufactures new '32 Ford roadster bodies, stamped from 16-gauge cold-rolled steel, just as Henry Ford intended. AutoWeek visited Brookville, and we say to every soul who ever dragged home a crumbling pile of rusty junk with dreams of building a hot rod: The sight of a new 1932 Ford roadster body, bare metal a gleaming, is enough to make you weep.

The 68 individual stampings that make up a Brookville body are ...