When Roamin Angel Lynn P. begins to build a street rod, he starts with a twenty-four foot piece of rectangular steel tubing to start the frame and an idea. No fancy drawings, no pre-made kits, just a concept and raw materials. And since he’s been building cars since he was thirteen years old, he has a lot of experience in that area, building street rods out of everything from Model T’s to ‘40 Fords. He did take a hiatus of about 35 years while he and wife Lou raised a family, but, since retiring, building rods has become his "regular job." He works from nine to five, just taking a break for lunch. After completing his ‘32 Chevy coupe with a 396 CID Chevy engine in five winters, he started on Stretch, his ‘31 Ford pickup street rod. Three years in the making, it was finished for the Roamin Angels “Cruisin’ The Pines” Car Show in 2007 and has been shown there ever since. The reason for its name is obvious: the Model T’s Lynn-built rectangular tube frame now has a wheelbase of 142" rather than its original 99", and that’s even after Lynn shortened the bed 18". By comparison, a big Ford F150 pickup’s wheelbase is only 3" longer. He dropped in a 396 CID Chevy engine bored out to 410 CID that is mated to a Turbo 400 auto trans and drives a nine-inch Ford “locker” rear end with 4.11:1 gears. When you consider the light weight of the vehicle, that means it can almost fly. Lynn chopped the top six inches and gave it a ground clearance of only two and a half inches. Long and low. He used a ‘40 Chevy pickup front axle with Mustang II front disc brakes. For Stretch’s suspension, he put in coil-overs (coil springs over shocks) in the back and friction shocks in the front. He even custom wired all the electrics and did his own painting. With Stretch on the road, Lynn is now working on a ‘27 Model T two-door sedan with a 454 CID Chevy engine. And, as with Stretch, he’s doing all the work himself.

Stretch is old-school hot rodding: use whatever part works or make one yourself if none will. Take the headlights, made from aluminum landscape lights. But don’t ask Lynn to build one for you. He feels that he builds his rods and you should build yours too.

This big-block Chevy has a tunnel ram intake with a 750 cfm dual-feel, dual-pump Holley, RPM-built heads and a high-lift Erson cam. Although the zoomie exhaust pipes have silencers, Stretch still has an awesome rumble.

Stretch’s interior is strictly utilitarian: no carpet or padding and race-car type seats. A/C and a radio are also absent. Besides, who could hear a radio over Stretch’s ground-thumping roar?

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