I was prepping to sketch a 1937 Packard when I heard a roar and saw a flash of red coming up the main resort road.
I got up from my seat in time to see this huge long hot rod come into the parking lot and pull to a stop.
Of course, I had to get a better look at the motorized beast, and meet the driver stepping out of the cab.
Jay Ouellette introduced himself, and told me the story of “Red Screamer”, the hot rod he designed and built with his team over 1100 hours in a period of 2.5 years.
Jay is the proud owner of Bumper to Bumper Auto Repair in Twin Mountains NH and has been building hot rods for many years. It started in his youth, stimulated by what he saw and read in Hot Rod magazine.
He wanted to make a statement, and build something that no one else had built.
He started with a low-mileage decommissioned 1979 Maxim 100’ ladder truck, using the fire truck’s 8V92 Detroit Diesel engine, the 4 speed Allison automatic transmission and the front and rear axles, and attached them to a custom-built frame. Jay added a factory turbo-charger to get a good 424 hp out of the engine.
Jay did the plumbing and electrics for the beast, keeping the original airbrake and power-steering systems, along with the gauges and switches.
A special tribute to Von Dutch is painted on the differential case.
The cab is from a ‘46 Ford pickup truck, and the rear fenders are polished sheet aluminum.
By any measure, it is an impressive piece of bold rolling art that just screams, “I’m here!”