Prodigy.

Most 11-year-old boys back in the late 1940s would have been happy enough to spend their time riding bicycles, piloting toy trains, or even playing with one of the multitudes of toy guns that hit the market in patriotic, post-World-War-II America. Most kids were, but young Buddy Hinman wasn't one of them.

"I was always around cars and trucks," Buddy recalls. "My dad owned a coal yard in Rome, New York, and he was quite fond of Model Ts. He had the car bug. Sometimes he even traded coal for cars." Growing up surrounded by delivery trucks and Dad's small armada of Henry Ford steel, the youngster became quite inquisitive about the inner workings of motorized vehicles at a very early age.

See all 78 photos Once 11-year-old Buddy Hinman saw his first hot rod on a trip to California in 1947, he knew he had to have one of his own. This roadster was his first foray into the world of building hot rods and race cars.

But it was a trip to California in 1947 that really turned the power switch on in Buddy's brain. That's when he saw his first true hot rod. "I had never seen one before, and wow, it just hit me. I remember it was a '32 roadster." With an asking price of $500, it was a little too much for the family to purchase. But from that moment on, all he could think about was building a real hot rod for himself.

When he got back to New York, the first thing Buddy did was to "commission" a '27 Chevy roadster they had on the coal yard property. "I wanted to lower it like that hot rod, so I took all the springs out of it and just U-bolted it to the axle. I'd drive it around the yard and the doors would fly open from the body twisting so bad," he says with a laugh. But that creative spurt was just a stepping-stone to his father's next purchase.

See all 78 photos The car that started it all. Though Buddy was surrounded by cars and trucks at his father's New York coal yard, seeing this hot rod on a trip to California inspired him to want to build one of his own.

Seeing Buddy's eagerness to learn about cars and their function, his father stoked the flames and purchased a Model A sedan at a Utica car lot for $50. Over the next couple of years Buddy added '40 juice brakes, suicided the front end with a Shell Auto Parts drop front axle, and beefed up the banger motor with a Cyclone head, twin carbs, and full oil pressure.

His uncle even gave to the project, donating a mint '31 roadster body to the youngster. Buddy would go on to channel the body over the frame a full 6 inches to get it as low as he could on the chassis. From there, the roadster would be his "daily driver," venturing around his family's large private property and a full square block coal yard. Buddy was still not old enough to drive on open public roads.

See all 78 photos Buddy's first attempt at building a hot rod was with this '27 Chevy roadster. He lowered the car by taking all the springs out of the suspension and bolting the axles to the chassis.

A few years later, his family moved to Deansboro, New York, where his father bought a farm. One day a man from the nearby town of Clinton saw the roadster and traded Buddy straight up for a '36 Ford Cabriolet. However, just a few months later the roadster showed up at a salvage yard right there in Deansboro, now relieved of its potent Cyclone-topped banger.

The ravaged roadster would soon become a mad-motorized laboratory for Buddy and his friend Ronnie Pierce, the son of a local garage owner. They would pull the roadster's body from its chassis and Z its frame a full 12 inches, using an extra donor Model A frame they had found at a scrapyard. To get even lower in the driver seat, they creatively turned the framerails inside out, swapping them side for side. This modification would drop the seats even lower in the cockpit and give the occupants a little more breathing room to boot. A Deuce grille was sectioned to fit up front, and the team also built a barrel-shaped bellypan and torque tube tunnel to finish the floor and interior.

See all 78 photos Buddy used this flyer from Lewie Shell—this is the original, not a photocopy—to order speed parts for his roadster's four-banger in 1949. His note to Eli indicates he ordered Kit #1, which came with a "highly polished Cyclone" high compression head, single- or dual-carb manifold (Buddy ordered a dual), down-draft carburetors (complete with throttle linkage), 3/4 or full cam with adjustable tappets, finned valve cover, and chromed nuts, all for $74.

The motor-vation in this hot rod jigsaw puzzle was a potent flathead pulled from one of Ronnie's father's stock cars. They set it so far back in the frame that one carburetor on their Edmunds 2x2 intake was in front of the firewall, the other behind. A '39 transmission was added to do the shifting. One last touch: Buddy's mom offered a leopard-print blanket that was stitched into a pair of seat cushions for the low riding roadster.

Though the car was never legally registered, it racked up plenty of miles on the backcountry roads of central New York State. Buddy lost track of his little Model A roadster after 1955 but continued with his love of cars and racing. He went on to build and race stock cars quite successfully and even won a few track championships.

See all 78 photos Buddy traded his roadster for a '36 cabriolet but soon found it abandoned in a salvage yard, the banger he had built gone. In its place he installed a flathead, set back in the frame to optimize weight distribution. Doing so split the Edmunds 2x2 intake, spacing one carburetor in front and one behind the firewall.

Second Life

No one knew the whereabouts of the roadster until it popped up on an online auction site in 2008. It seemed to have led a hard life, wearing a heavy patina of rust and mocked up poorly by a previous caretaker. Its dilapidated state attracted no buyers. As a result, it was then traded to a used car lot in New Jersey, where it became lawn art for an unknown amount of time. That's where Tom Peach saw it.

Tom was passing through on his way back to Massachusetts and spotted the car, now serving as someone's front yard planter. He decided to buy it and bring it back to his boat yard in Marblehead. Not having any immediate plans for it, he stuck it in a storage container with the notion that someday he would get to it.

See all 78 photos When Eli English took ownership of the roadster, the flathead Buddy had installed was seized and beyond immediate repair, so he sourced a '48 58AB motor that was already rebuilt.

In 2015, Eli English, owner of Traditional Speed and Custom in Pittsfield, New Hampshire, answered an ad for some Cyclone flathead Cadillac heads he was looking to purchase for a customer. The seller of those parts was Tom Peach. Eli headed to Massachusetts to check out the needed Caddy parts. Once he bought the heads, Tom asked, "Are you looking for a roadster project?"

Eli is always on the lookout for original hot rods and equipment, so he was interested in what Tom had. "It was buried behind rolls of boat rope," he remembers. "I couldn't make out much of it, so I passed on it that day." That decision would haunt him for weeks. "What did the rest of it look like? Did it have history and was it still available?" he thought to himself constantly.

See all 78 photos

See all 78 photos Another change Buddy made was to swap the framerails from left to right, turning them inside out, and swapping spindles side to side as well. Sometime after Buddy let her go, someone put the tie rod in front of the axle, instead of behind. "To compensate for the reverse Ackerman in the steering, caused by the spindle reversal, I re-castered the front split wishbones to 13 degrees, about twice what is normal," says Eli. "Other than looking really weird when the wheels are turned—the outer wheel leads instead of the inner—the car handles incredibly well."

Unable to shake the urge, he contacted Tom and asked if it was still there. A deal was brokered, and Eli rode out to Marblehead and loaded up his prize.

Back at his shop, Eli scrutinized his new old hot rod. "The thing I noticed right away was the inside-out frame. I knew if someone was to recognize and I.D. the car, the frame would give it away." He sent some pictures of the roadster to good friend Peter Flavin, who posted them on the H.A.M.B. Within an hour, a friend of Buddy's spotted the photos and messaged Eli. "By the end of the day, I was speaking to Buddy himself on the telephone," says Eli. The first thing Buddy asked was if the original seat skins were still there! Eli confirmed that they were.

Eli decided he was going to keep the roadster the way it was found, which was the way Buddy had last seen it back in the mid 1950s. A few things had to be changed due to damage, but miraculously, the car was amazingly close to the way it was when Buddy last drove it 60 years ago.

See all 78 photos The inside-out frame allowed the driver to fit down low between the framerails and in the belly pan (instead of sitting high on top of the frame and above the quarter-panels). The front end was set up with an adjustable spring perch with three height positions as well.

Anything that was replaced was done with factory parts (no repops here). For safety, the tie rod ends were replaced, and the stuck steering box was swapped for a rebuilt duplicate. The flathead was also stuck and needed serious attention, so Eli sourced a replacement as well. The Edmunds Custom 2x2 was reused, as was the starter. For a little more firepower, an old six-volt generator was converted to 12.

To top the intake, a pair of original Stromberg 97s was sourced and rebuilt. An old Ford crab dizzy that Eli had around the shop was used for spark. Out back, the gas tank was missing, but the straps were there. Eli deducted that the missing tank was an oval Model T type, so he traded some parts for one a friend had lying around. "I also installed the battery in the original rear-mounted battery hanger, and hooked it up to Buddy's original battery cable, which is made from a welding cord, to make it all work," says Eli. In the interest of safety, Eli added a Model T tail/stop light and a '47 New Hampshire license plate, in honor of the year Buddy started the build.

See all 78 photos Stance is everything when it comes to hot rods, and Buddy did everything in his power to get his low to the ground. That included Z-ing the frame 12 inches out back and then channeling the body 6 inches over the chassis.

Meet and Greet

Eli has been a staunch supporter of The Race of Gentlemen since its inception, and both he and his wife Lisa have raced pretty much every year. So it was only natural that Eli would take the fully functional roadster to Wildwood and put it through its paces on the sand. And he wanted Buddy there to witness the event.

In June 2016, Buddy's son Mike and his wife brought Buddy to the beach for the annual event. There, the 81-year-old laid eyes on his roadster for the first time in 60 years. Not only that, he even got to make a pass down the beach in his hot rod, spinning the wheels just like he did on those dusty gravel roads in the backwoods of New York State.

See all 78 photos Everything inside the roadster is pretty much the way Buddy had it back in the day, including the seat cushion fabric, sewn from a leopard-print blanket Buddy's mom gave him.

And Eli, well, he made some waves too. He piloted the car for a First place win in the Heritage class. The sleek, low-slung, patina-flanked roadster showed that this 11-year-old's vision of hot rod design still applies today.

See all 78 photos "I don't have headlights, gauges, dashboard, or firewall because Buddy said that it never had them," Eli says. "I don't really need gauges anyway. I can see, hear, and feel everything that is going on with the motor while I'm driving it."

See all 78 photos There was no fuel tank in the roadster when Eli got it, but the shape of the straps led him to believe Buddy used an oval Model T tank. A friend of Eli's happened to have one, so Eli traded some parts for it.

See all 78 photos How special was this roadster to Buddy? To this day he's carried this tiny, battered photo of the car in his wallet. The dime is there for scale.

See all 78 photos "Having Buddy around, I was able to ask all kinds of questions, like tire size, tire type, body specifics, engine specifics, and more," Eli says. "I decided that I would leave the car as-found, because it tells the story of where the car had been. I would also finish it, with Buddy's guidance, to accurately put it back the way it was when he last saw it." Buddy (left, with Eli) was reunited with his roadster at TROG in 2016. He even made a pass in the sand, turning the hands of time back more than half a century.

See all 78 photos Once 11-year-old Buddy Hinman saw his first hot rod on a trip to California in 1947, he knew he had to have one of his own. This roadster was his first foray into the world of building hot rods and race cars.