Crowd Pleaser
Gus Woods’ 1935 Ford Pickup Story and photos by Cam Hutchins
S
ome Hot Rods are built by fellas that took up the hobby as kids when keeping the rides running was as important as having a cool car. Gus Woods of Surrey, B.C. sort of got it backwards, by buying a project car when he was already an upstanding adult. He had his pick of a few cool cars to buy in the mid ‘60s in Saskatoon, including a ‘33 Ford, but opted for a 1931 Oldsmobile Coupe because it actually ran! He drove it a bit before parking it with the idea of Hot Rodding it. Life and family took precedence, but he still drove a bunch of cool cars including Pontiac Grand Parisiennes and a few big-block Dodges as family cars. Fast forward four decades and after retiring, he turned his attention towards the Hot Rod Olds. He hooked up with a family in L.A. restoring a 1931 Olds Patrician. He sold them all the stock parts he was stripping off the Olds and they sold him some parts that had been chromed on the Patrician that were not supposed to be chromed. After licensing the Olds with ICBC, he finds out it is one of only two ‘31 Olds Coupes in B.C. Now that the Olds was done, he set his sights on a Hot Rod Pickup, a 1935 or ‘36 Ford to be exact. Before he actually finds one, the family from L.A. suffers a tragedy with the husband passing away, and they really want the unfinished Patrician to go to Gus. So after finishing off the four-door Olds, it is Hot Rod truck time and he finds the perfect candidate just south of his Surrey home in Stanwood, Washington. A bit of haggling and a few visits later, a deal was struck with the highly motivated seller. The 1935 Ford truck was in pieces, but had been in the process of being turned into a Hot Rod, so it came with a 36 MUSCLE CAR PLUS MAGAZINE OCT/NOV 2020
