Tim Sunn, of North Smithfield, is the owner, builder and driver of this modified ’32 Ford Coupe.

The Providence Journal / Steve Szydlowski

NORTH SMITHFIELD Tim Sunn knows in his heart what makes the world go round and is equally sure that his chopped 1932 Ford 3-window coupe with a 400 horsepower Corvette engine is a pure hot rod.

“Some people call it a rat rod and I don’t challenge them,” he said in a recent interview in the traditional hand-built barn that serves as his garage and workshop. “But I call it an old school or traditional rod.”

Sunn, 55 and a devout Christian, was standing beside his meticulous but unadorned car with its open engine and wheels, and rudimentary fit and finish. The paintwork, for example, runs from rust to old primer

“In my mind’s eye, rat rods are caricatures, something that someone in 2008 thinks is what a car looked like in 1950, but they are not authentic,” he said. “This is as original a car as can be built today.”

Sunn took three years (1,600 hours to be precise) to build his traditional hot rod, although he had been collecting the various elements for years. He is a measured worker who takes his time to get everything just right.

“I’ll build (something) five times but take it apart three or four times to make sure things don’t conflict,” he said.

He finished it three years ago but recently replaced a 200 horsepower small block Chevrolet engine with the souped-up Corvette motor.

The low-slung car has open wheels and double exhaust pipes that take advantage of the double cams that he said gives it a rough idle. Open front wheels

“Both valves are open at low revs,” he said. “It gives it more high-end horsepower.”

The engine is a 1965 327 cubic inch, 365 horsepower Corvette motor, which he said puts out 400 horsepower with the modifications. As it weighs only 2,280 pounds, he said the car has a top speed of about 130 mph.

Inside, the cabin is all business. The doors are not lined and the floor and the rear wall are unadorned sheets of plywood. The ceiling has the original wooden frame with new chicken wire and canvas. A row of new instruments, including a vacuum gauge and fuel pressure gauge, runs atop the windshield.

“I love instruments,” he said. “I should have been a fighter pilot.”

Sunn said he drives the car about 3,000 miles a year, “to church, to Home Depot, anywhere, even in the rain.”

He said he even used to drive it before the roof was finished and just wore a raincoat and hat when it rained. “The water ran out the floorboards,” he said.

He said he has always been “a great scrounger,” collecting bits and pieces from old cars since the early 1960s. This complies with his strongly held belief that, “Part of being a hot rodder is (building cars) as inexpensively as possible.”

He bought the chassis of the 1932 Ford, which had already been chopped 4 3/4 inches, resulting in the distinctive low windows, from a hot rodder in California in 1978 for $700.

He said the steering box comes from a 1954 Ford F100, while the gear shift lever and shift ball come from a 1939 Ford Sedan he bought for $3 in 1962 and tore apart with a tractor. He lived on a farm at the time.

The rear end, “which is perfect for a car this narrow,” comes from a 1957 Ford. He bought it from a junk yard for a bargain price of $65. “I couldn’t get my money out fast enough,” he said. “It’s worth $200 to $300.”

Overall, he said, he has about $14,000 invested in the car, including $4,000 for the engine and $40 for the creature comforts inside that include a Mexican blanket thrown across the front seats. He compared that with some hot rods that can have $100,000 invested in them.

“The 1932 three-window Ford coupe is the quintessential hot rod,” he said, citing it as being different from the 1930-31 and 1933-34 models with its V8 engine and unique grille.

He said it was also the first three-window coupe, as well as the first with suicide doors, a parcel (glove) box, ashtray and cigarette lighter.

Sunn said he has a connection with cars that goes back to his childhood. However, he said everything in his life comes second to his Christian faith.

“God is the most important (influence) in my life,” he said, adding that he reads only the Bible and hot rodder magazines.

His parents were Baptist missionaries who moved to Brazil with his sister when he was 13. He chose to stay behind and moved in with church members Lloyd and Louise Whitford on their farm in Matunuck.

It was while living on the farm that he developed the skills to work on and drive cars and farm vehicles. He said he first fell in love with hot rodders listening to “a 1933 Ford 5-window coupe with a 331-cubic-inch engine from a 1954 Cadillac,” that was owned by Warner “Sweet Pea” Sweet.

“It was the first rod I ever saw,” he said, adding that he used to walk up the road to hear it start up.

Later, he said he used to build his own cars and race them against other kids, from the “end of the guardrail just north of Matunuck to a water trough in front of Smith Farm at the end of Matunuck Beach Road.”

“We’d know Mr. Smith would call the police the first race he heard but we figured we could get in three or four before heading to Pitcher’s Garage (on Post Road in Perryville),” he said. “We’d park the cars and they’d be crackling from the heat and the police would come and we’d be hanging out and they knew what was going on. But they’d go and we’d go and race some more.”

“It was a matter of not much money, not much experience and the adolescent mentality that we are immortal,” he said.

Then there was the Jeep with a Corvette motor that he drove without brakes. “I used the downshift and the emergency brake,” he said, adding that the accelerator was connected to his foot with a piece of string that ran through the dashboard. He said it was a fun, fast car until the Whitfords found out and took it away.

His parents did not return for five years, by which time he was enrolled in Barrington College, a Christian college in Barrington that merged with Gordon College, in Wenham, Mass., in 1985.

Sunn has a master’s degree in psychology from Rhode Island College and has spent his career working with school-aged children. Currently a student assistance counselor at Middletown High School, he is married to Ruth, a retired school teacher and now a program director at Slater Mill, and they have a grown-up daughter, Bethany, who lives in Connecticut.

It’s a 50-mile commute to Middletown, which Sunn said he does not mind, and which he sometimes does in his rod. He said the students enjoy the car but are mystified by its appearance.

“When are you going to paint it, Mr. Sunn?” he said they ask him.

Not only has Sunn always worked on cars — he has owned a number over the years — he built his three-bedroom house in 18 months in the late 1970s. He said the work combined with his regular work resulted in a 110-hour workweek that led to a breakdown that required a couple of weeks in bed. He said he reached such a state of total exhaustion that one morning he froze up at the breakfast table, with a spoonful of cereal halfway to his mouth.

“I couldn’t lift it any further and I couldn’t put it down,” he said.

With the house finished, he took two years in the early 1980s to build his barn using traditional tools and a post-and-beam design held together with wooden pegs.

“Having built my home, I was sick of stick frames,” he said, adding, “My wife says the only reason I built my home was so I’d have a place to live while I built my barn so I’d have a place to work on my car.”

Sunn smiles and doesn’t readily deny the charge.

pelsworth@projo.com