What's behind door No. 3?

HUTCHINSON — The car would be a head-turner in any case. But Roger and Melinda Mitchell's gun metal gray 1930 Ford, which appears to be a classic Tudor hot rod, surprises almost everyone who walks around behind it and discovers it's actually a 3-door sedan.

"I just wanted the sedan look," said Roger, who had built a nice '28 Model A coupe for his wife, but found it to be a bit too cramped.

The solution was a fiberglass third door kit for a 2-door sedan. "I knew all along I wanted the back door," Mitchell said.

So the Mitchells went looking for a good, rebuildable Model A Tudor. "We found it online, in Brainerd, Minn.," Mitchell said. The owner was a retired highway patrol officer who had literally dozens of old cars for sale and buildings stuffed full of parts. They picked out a 1930 Tudor that had just arrived at the collector's place.

"This one had been stored in the bottom of the federal building in Milwaukee for years," Mitchell said.

"It had a bullet hole in one window and an animal's skull in the back seat. I wanted it because it had history," Melinda Mitchell said.

A deal was struck and they trailered the Model A home. That was almost exactly seven years ago.

"I decided not to chop it... we wanted it to be comfortable," Mitchell said.

"I wanted a hot rod, and sedans and flathead motors were what started hot rodding going," he said.

He had his heart set on building a classic Mercury flathead V-8 to remain true to the vintage hot rod theme.

Unfortunately, it took him seven tries before he finally found a rebuildable Mercury block without cracks in it.

The 255 cubic inch engine was bored .02 of an inch oversized and Mitchell installed a Max 1 camshaft in it. The factory intake manifold was replaced by a nicely detailed Fenton intake mounting a pair of vintage Stromberg 97 carburetors that he rebuilt from the ground up.

The finishing touch was a set of Speedway Motors headers that Mitchell assembled from a kit. Using old flathead connecting rods, he constructed a set of eye-catching exhaust hangers for the dual exhausts; he used the same approach when he crafted the steering column support under the dash.

Mitchell saved the original frame, but boxed the rails for added strength. To conceal the frame rails beneath the body, he fabricated a panel that runs along the lower body, which gives the car a sort of "highboy" look.

To close in the old open top of the Tudor, Mitchell used a modern Ford van roof, creating a nice paneled effect.

Once the routine body work was done, the aftermarket third-door kit was ready to be installed. The fiberglass door had warped a bit while in storage, but Mitchell was able to finesse it into shape and it now looks as if it was installed at the factory in Dearborn 81 years ago.

He applied his first base coat/clear coat paint job on the car in his backyard workshop, then had a bit of pinstriping added inside and out.

The Mitchells chose not to install seats in the rear of their 3-door sedan, leaving it open for travel gear — and a special passenger.

Roger decided to try his hand at upholstering the car himself and bought a book on the subject. Using signboard, foam and contact cement, he was able to create a dark gray tweed interior accented by red vinyl panels.

A set of Pontiac Grand Am bucket seats were installed in the narrow confines of the car. The stock instrument panel was updated with wood trim and an Auto Meter speedometer, with the stock float-style gas gauge retained. Auxiliary gauges were placed in an overhead wooden console, which also houses the controls for a modern sound system.

A banjo-style steering wheel atop a tilt column, along with a modified Hurst floor shift rounds out the interior.

The build-up of the project involved a lot of test-fitting and rethinking.

"I got real good at taking it apart and putting it back together," Mitchell said. "There ain't no such thing as a 'bolt-on' part.

"But that's the challenge of it... you can't buy a book that shows you how to build one. Driving is a lot of fun, but I enjoy building 'em, too."

He credits his wife for being a steady backer of his car projects. "She's my support... I don't think I could do it without her," he said.

When he considers taking a cheaper shortcut, she's the one who tells him to go ahead and do it the right way.

Winning trophies doesn't matter to the Mitchells. "I get a lot of older people coming up an talking to me about flatheads," he said, and that is payoff enough.

That, and taking their big Siberian Husky Zoey out for a ride, her head poked out through the window of that unusual third door.