I’ll be completely honest with you, the first time I saw Dave Robb’s roadster I had a hard time with the particular choice of colors. To me, they evoked somewhat of a kitschy ’50s style more suitably worn in conjunction with wide whites and full-disc ’caps. That, however, didn’t detour my opinion of the Deuce in its overall form in a negative direction, and as I once again admired the craftsmanship I’ve come to expect from Moal Coachbuilders, I began forming a hypothesis based on both color and shape.
While Dave Robb, a Northern Californian auto dealer, has coined his roadster as wearing a PPG Clapton Blue (a nod to Eric Clapton’s Brizio-built 1932 in its former glory when Darrell Hollenbeck painted it a fleet color he calls Vintage Blue), the famous guitarist wasn’t part of my initial theory—though I am a fan of his! No, what images were conjuring up in my mind revolved around early dirt track racing—more so, the cars themselves. Mostly, the historical record of Midget Auto Racing is black and white, but a rare glimpse of that era in full color reveals that those beautiful open-wheel cars weren’t all white or various tones of gray—they were vividly dressed in bright, just as race cars are today. It was a photo from a ’40s Saturday Evening Post that really struck a chord, however, that depicted drivers Gordon Cleveland and Ed Haddad perched up alongside a Midget at Gilmore Stadium … a scalloped and two-toned blue Midget. Gone were those thoughts of the ’50s; now I could see a totally different influence with Dave Robb’s Deuce in my mind.
Regardless what inspired Dave, he relied on Steve Moal’s crew to construct the track-nosed, Brookville-bodied roadster that lies beneath the colors that were applied by his own shop, Parker-Robb Body Shop. It features a state-of-the-vintage-art T-bar (torsion front and rear) chassis with QA1 adjustable coilovers and Wilwood disc brakes, Tim Morgan–built small-block with a TREMEC TKO500 five-speed, and a Currie Trac Lock 9-inch. Along with the aforementioned nosepiece, Moal Coachbuilders also hand-fashioned an aluminum hood and rear roll pan before sending the roadster off with Dave for final body and paint. Upholstery is a mix of black vinyl and rubber mat by Michael Boloyan, with a pair of handcrafted aluminum bomber seats by Frank Wallic, Stewart-Warner gauges, and a Schroeder four-spoke steering wheel.
Dave’s roadster may be wearing hubcaps on the Stockton Wheel steelies fitted with BFGoodrich blackwalls, but you won’t find any fuzzy dice dangling or crybaby dolls loitering—not that there’s anything wrong with either of those!
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