Award Winning Hercules Body '33 Ford Woodie Cost $200K To Build, Selling for Cheaper

It comes to us for sale by RK Motors in North Carolina, proprietors of everything from restomods like this, as well as contemporary sports cars, supercars, and numbers-matching classics of all sorts. Only a handful of specialty car dealerships on the continent have the kind of inventory on standby at any given time. So, maybe this kind of crazy hot rod is just another day at the office for these folks.

Whatever the case, it's pretty clear that this 1933 Ford didn't leave its home factory looking this way. This considerable custom exterior woodworking is the result of one of the most mysterious and enigmatic restomod shops in North America. Hercules Motor Cars has no official website; a quick Google search only shows that they operate out of the Tampa area.

If you hadn't bothered to look any further, you'd never learn just how special this shop is. But they specialize in hand-built, custom woodie body panel conversions on vintage platforms. The kind originates from bespoke, coach-built wooden carriage bodies of the 19th and 20th centuries, and was popularized in the automotive space by Ford with their 1929 Model A station wagon.

Even as far back as 1923, the original Star Four woodie station wagon dates the medium's creation to over a century ago. The types were often used as hotel and resort transport vehicles, where the polished wood grain body panels helped ease guests into the relaxation that awaited. Others were used as posh taxis or commercial delivery vehicles.

After a renaissance in the 40s and 50s in the wake of World War II, Woodie culture gained a second life among the Southern California surfer scene of the '60s and '70s before it gained its rightful status as a classic. Hercules Motor Cars simply takes that formula, the custom body work, hand-painted and varnished wood grain, and all the fixings, and makes it available brand-new for people to buy today.
This time around, they've given this treatment to a 1933 Ford, and anyone in the know will tell you it's not just the same model from the year before. The wheelbase was stretched by six inches and sat on an entirely new crossmember frame. The grille was slanted forward compared to the year before, looking like the front end of a shield or the back end of a shovel. Some argue that Ford borrowed cues from the previous model year's Packard Light Eight, which had a similar front grille.

1933 Fords were slightly heavier than the year prior, with the added benefit of more power from flathead V8 engines to compensate. In the era before Ford differentiated the underpinnings of its cars and trucks, these early '30s Fords came in all kinds of body styles. We're talking coupes, sedans, pickup trucks, drop-tops, panel vans, and the station wagons on which the woodie was birthed.

Just a touch over 1,500 Deluxe model 1933 Ford Woodie station wagons were built that year, only around a couple dozen are still known to be out there. That makes them easy six-figure collector's items. Maybe one day, they'll be worth even more than that. Hercules Motor Cars strives to provide a nearly identical shape to the genuine item, but in a package you don't mind driving because it's not an ultra-rare genuine item.

Their body panels are all made of steel, with genuine accents fashioned by skiled artisans, spending hours assembling each maple wood trim piece by hand. The way they accentuate the intricate grains of genuine wood is nothing short of admirable, and the woodie mods give the whole car an unmistakable appearance. There's no other type of automobile in the world that looks quite like this one. Even among other woodie-bodied cars from history, these '30s Fords are nothing short of special.

The Sherwin-Williams Planet 7000 Tangerine paint color on this restomod contrasts nicely with the pseudo wood-covered exterior, and Billet Specialties 'Fast Lane' wheels clad in BFGoodrich Comp R tires melt new with the old in a way that looks amazing. Even the undercarriage is painted in the same vibrant orange paint as the rest of the car, making for a remarkably consistent build inside and out.

Expert bodywork technicians went to great lengths to widen the rear roll pan and fenders, and chrome the front grille to you can see your reflection in it. Whatvever original sheet metal remains is seamlessly blended with new exterior additions until the finished product looks as though it came from the factory looking this way. Safe to say, they did a pretty remarkable job doing that.

The rear tail lights have been swapped for flush-mounted LEDs, a stark contrast to the old-timey bulbs that once occupied that same space. Meanwhile, the grill is extended roughly an inch from where it would've sat from the factory, and the louvers on the side of the hood have been re-oriented and stylized. The frame underneath is also an all-custom job from TCI, as if the original '30s job had the fortitude to handle what powers this Ford now.

It's a 502-cubic-inch big block V8 Street & Performance Inc. in Arizona. It comes with fuel injection but without forced induction for that old-school feel you're looking for. These big block 502s can make around 500 horsepower out of the box with a basic carburetor setup. With EFI, you're probably looking at closer to the neighborhood of 550 to 660 horsepower.

That's enough to get this little pocket rocket wagon going in a hurry, and with a 700 4R four-speed gearbox with overdrive, you can cruise the whole day at low RPMs until you decide to start ripping it. The suspension is taken care of by a fully independent system with coilovers from Kugel Komponents in La Habra, California, and you get disk brakes that make the old drums feel like melted cheese by comparison.

The engine breathes through a fully custom exhaust, and we assure you this is a restomod as loud as it is flamboyant. Inside, the interior of this restomod is just as flamboyant and stylish as its exterior. Modern accouterments like power windows, a high-fidelity premium audio unit, and a contemporary tan leather upholstery accented by bright orange stitching.

The old front bench seat's been replaced with modern-looking buckets, and the carpet weave is borrowed from the current Mercedes lineup. To heat and cool the cabin, a full Vintage Air HVAC unit is present, and the intricate wiring for the radio and the twin amplifiers is hidden behind a panel for that clean look you want out of a restomod this nice.

Award Winning Hercules Body '33 Ford Woodie
It's about as refined as a restmod this old and this primitive could possibly be, and it melds the realms of the old school and the present day in a way that feels fresh, inviting, and like it was done with all the care in the world. Per the official RK Motors listing, this is a build with at least $200,000 worth of parts and labor put into it.

This translates to thousands of man-hours, making every nook and cranny shine better than it did the day this car was built. Now, after all that, the whole shebang is for sale for a comparatively paltry $119,900. So, who's the lucky fella who gets to turn someone's loss into their own personal gain? You do need to be a special kind of enthusiast to buy it, but these people are indeed out there.