White Bear Lake

Dick Hanson's 1934 Ford 3-Window Coupe and Gordy Kordowsky's 1932 Ford 5-Window Coupe as they appeared in June of 1957. Photo courtesy of Bruce Rosengren.

Bruce Rosengren's 1936 Ford Cabriolet and Bill Martin's 1933 Ford 5-Window Coupe as they appeared in June of 1957.

Gordy Kordowsky's 1932 Ford 5-Window Coupe. Gordy bought the coupe in South St. Paul in the 1950s, and it already had a chopped top when he got it. In 1964 Gordy sold the coupe to fellow White Bear Lake hot rodder Louie LaBossiere. Louie still owned the coupe in 2014.

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Bill Martin's 1933 Ford 5-Window Coupe.

Dick Hanson's 1934 Ford 3-Window Coupe

Bruce Rosengren's 1936 Ford Cabriolet as it looked after Bruce had fixed it up in 1956.

White Bear Lake is a city in Minnesota. Back in the 1950s about 3,500 people were living in White Bear Lake. It was a small town, without any hot rod or custom car clubs. According to Bruce Rosengren, a mid 1950s hot rod and custom car enthusiast of White Bear Lake, the wrench twisters just hung around together. When he owned his 1936 Ford cabriolet in the mid 1950s, there where about three hot rods in town, his 1936 Ford, Gordy Kordowsky's 1932 Ford 5-Window Coupe and Dick Hanson's 1934 Ford 3-Window Coupe. In addition to this, there were other mildly modified cars such as Bill Martin's 1933 Ford 5-Window coupe as well in White Bear Lake. Bill's coupe was lowered, and he ran it without a hood, but that wasn't enough for the local kids to consider it a hot rod back then.^[1]