Isky Tribute Roadster
It’s hard to do a good cover song. Throughout rock and roll history, there have been a zillion failed attempts to improve on a great original that didn’t need improvement. But sometimes, the cover is just different enough from the original to stand up on its own. The point here? If your garage band is planning to cover one of the greatest hits of all time, it’s probably best not to try to outdo the original. Instead, making it a tribute to the original with elements of your own artistry might just lead to something great.
What we’re looking at here is a “cover car” if you will. A tribute to one of the all-time greats that is great itself, in part because it’s not an outright clone. Builder Dennis Taylor took his inspiration from Ed Iskenderian’s groundbreaking Model T hot rod, but threw a few 2020’s influences into the pot right alongside Ed’s pioneering ideas from almost 90 years prior. But before we talk about how he did it, let’s back up and talk about why.
Ed Iskenderian founded Iskenderian Racing Cams in 1948, then grew the business into one of the most storied brands in racing history. All the while his first hot rod, a sleek black Model T roadster built in the late ‘30s, sat in the shop as a reminder of where it all began. Remarkably, the car survived untouched and exactly the way teenaged Ed had built it all those years ago. Now let’s fast forward to 2022. Isky Racing Cams is preparing to celebrate its 75th anniversary and Chief Operating Officer Nolan Jamora is looking for a fitting way to commemorate the huge milestone. Nolan, Dennis, and the rest of the Taylor family have a great working relationship and collaborate often, including near constant work and innovation on the 6-second ’55 Chevy driven by daughter and Hot Rod Garage host Alex Taylor. A little bench racing at SEMA led to the plan to build a tribute to Ed’s car. Nolan knew that if anyone could do justice to the original, it would be Dennis and Co.
Since Nolan and Dennis knew that Ed’s original T was in the Museum of American Speed, right next door to Speedway Motors’ huge warehouse full of hot rod parts, it didn’t take them long to connect the right dots. After cornering Speedway’s Kelsey Bugjo in an elevator at a media event, the possibility of working together to do something really special became a reality. A few months later Nolan, Dennis, and the rest of the Taylor family showed up at the Speedway Motors Lincoln, NE headquarters with a mission. First, they were going to measure Ed’s original car down to the last detail. Next, they were going to hit up the Speedway parts counter for a few of the parts they would need to put their tribute together.
Speedway Motors is famous for fiberglass T bodies, but Dennis wanted real Henry steel, just like Ed started with when a Model T was still just a used car. These days those roadster bodies are a bit harder to come by, but after some searching, Nolan turned up an old T roadster, wood spoke wheels and all. Dennis harvested the body and started building. The usual restoration work preceded the custom work necessary to match the sneaky restyling done by Ed so many years before. Dennis cut and reshaped the area behind the seat using templates made from the original car. The original windshield posts were chopped and laid back just like Ed had done it. Instead of sourcing the obscure Pontiac grill shell like the original car, Dennis modified a repro steel ’32 Ford shell until it looked right. Even the requisite flying skull hood ornament was updated and recast by Dennis. Like everything else on this car, the updates are slight, but just right.
Dennis built the chassis from scratch to hang the Speedway Motors dropped front axle from a transverse spring out in front, just like Ed did it. Out back, a quickchange rear was suspended by Speedway Motors ladder bars and some coilovers that were hidden so as not to harsh the vintage vibe. Isky’s original was built with a flat stance, largely because the “hot rod rake” wasn’t really even a thing yet. In keeping with the plan to pay respect but also update, Dennis put the tribute on a rake with Speedway sourced big and little Coker whitewalls mounted to OG red painted wires.
When Dennis called us to order up a Ford 7.3 Godzilla and a Tremec TKX, there was admittedly some apprehension. First, how on earth do you make a modern engine look at home in the most open of all engine bays in an extremely old school car? And if you can do that, how do you make the big engine and transmission fit in the tiny confines while still leaving room for an adult human? In the end, all involved had faith that if anyone could pull it off, it would be Dennis. As clearly evidenced by the photos you’re seeing here, there was nothing to worry about.
If you think about it, there’s a spiritual connection between Ed’s original Maxi-headed flatmotor and the Godzilla crate. Ed sourced a mass-produced Ford V8 that was widely available at the time and had way more power than the T’s banger, then hopped it up with some clever engineering, custom fabrication, and of course one of his own camshafts. Essentially, that’s what Dennis did with the Godzilla, adding some clever touches to make it all work. The front drive is adapted from an LS kit, an 8-stack EFI managed by a Holley Terminator sits on top, and of course there’s an Isky cam spinning inside. To us, the details that really make this all visually work are the custom valve covers and headers. The headers were custom built by Dennis to match the trademark pipes on Ed’s car, and those valve covers were custom designed and cast by Dennis using a digital scan of the original set courtesy of Speedway Motors engineering. How cool is that?
Isky built his roadster a decade before Hot Rod Magazine came along with the blueprint for the hot rod revolution. That makes the clever tricks and brilliant solutions throughout the car even more remarkable. A tribute to the genius who built a hot rod before building a company and an industry. Dennis spotted those details during his research and measuring session and had the vision to incorporate similarly clever ideas in his tribute. Things like the virtually hidden alternator, custom made Auburn dash with curved-glass Stewart Warners, and the stainless half-round trim to separate the interior from the body. Game respects game, you might say.
After a gnarly thrash, the car made its debut at the ’23 SEMA show to commemorate Isky’s 75th anniversary. In fact, Ed Iskenderian himself showed up to check it out. 102-year-old Ed offered his stamp of approval to Dennis’s tribute, then sat down with the car to sign autographs and provide some firsthand recollections of how the original was built so many years ago. How cool is that?
Paying tribute to such an iconic car while making a few statements of his own was a heavy lift, but Dennis threaded the needle and the car came out just right. Recently, the tribute T landed at the Museum of American Speed to meet the car that inspired it. The pictures you see here are the result of that meeting, and though they’re beautifully shot by the immensely talented Jason Lubken and Jessica Coleman, they can’t quite convey the emotion of everyone in the room. It was a full circle moment for a few individuals, a couple companies, and an entire industry. Things have changed a lot in the nearly nine decades since Ed and his pals were burning up the streets and dry lakes in their “gow jobs,” but a bad, black hot rod roadster will always be cool.
