Grand National Roadster Show Hall of Fame member Tom Prufer balanced a long career in the San Francisco Bay Area with Lockheed Aircraft working on secret projects while making a parallel effort as a noted Hot Rod builder and Top Fuel Drag racer. Prufer’s many cars included frequent GNRS entries. His roadsters and coupes were unmistakable—cutting-edge cool, technically interesting, well built—and several of them were featured in major magazines. Tom Prufer’s cars always set high standards. They have been admired and imitated for years. This car is no exception. In 2005, inspired by a Dave Bell cartoon image, Prufer built the famous “Cop Shop” ’33 Ford Coupe to much the same pattern: big rake, mean chop, no fenders, flashy flames and external headers. But he liked keeping functional parts like handles and hinges. That was a formula that worked well for Prufer, so he repeated it, but he always changed the elements just a little so his cars were never quite the same. You can see the family resemblance to the “Cop Shop Coupe” in this car, but there are many different details. Chopped, channeled and raked, this 1932 Ford 3-Window, one of a memorable series of Prufer-built hardtops, debuted in 1999 at the 50th anniversary Grand National Roadster Show, which was held that year at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. The mean-looking 3-window packs a massive 427 CI big-block Chevrolet V-8, with distinctive Limefire-style four-into-one headers, riding on a custom chassis by Ron Attebury. The body was extensively modified by the Renteria brothers; the roof was filled, and the hammered 3-window was dramatically flamed by Rod Powell. Dan Fink fabricated the custom louvered hood and filled-grille shell. The car’s original E-T knockoff wheels were initially painted red. When Munz bought the car, it was fitted with traditionally finished and polished alloys. He re-installed the red E-Ts, of course. From its aggressive, bull-dogged front end, tiny headlights and hairpin radius rods to the abbreviated track roadster-style side nerf bars and the rolled rear pan, this coupe has many of the distinctive styling and flame-painted elements that Prufer loved and included in many of his cars—especially those “crab claw” fade-away flames in bright yellow with sharp red tips. Over the years, Tom built a number of progressively tough-looking coupes. Writing in The Rodder’s Journal, Pat Ganahl, who’d earlier edited Hot Rod magazine and Rod & Custom, called Prufer, “the inimitable, indefatigable, 100-proof Hot Rodder.” Referencing Tom’s cars over the years, Ganahl wrote, “… a real Hot Rod has to be low, powerful, sinister, swoopy, clean, understated and brutish, all at the same time. [With Prufer’s cars] … no two are exactly alike. There are some themes and similarities, sure. But there’s no formula, no template. Just the right stuff.” Commenting on Prufer’s work in 2012, a H.A.M.B. member with the handle “Flat-N-Low” commented, “I always thought Prufer had a keen eye for proportion. His cars were always proportionally correct—the right chop, the right stance, the right color and the right wheel/tire combo.” Munz added, “This is what I would call a real Hot Rod with a lot of provenance.”
