It depends on whether or not the latch is accessible from underneath the car or only from within the trunk.  If the later, like Becks, you might need to cut an opening into the trunk via one of the front wheel wells.  I did that to my Beck when vetch latch jammed and then fabricated a cover for it.  Fortunately I never needed it again.  I believe that Becks now have such an emergency access panel from the factory.  Creating a similar opening is not a bad idea.

Obviously if your latch is accessible from underneath, then no such work is needed.

The Vintage Speedster latch is accessible from underneath.  It's not that difficult to release if you can get your head under there to see what's going on.

On FF/CMC you can release it from under the front. Not so with the engine lid.

I think Jack Crosby put an emergency release under the front somewhere, just in case.

Obviously the Vintage Speedster Arizona people don't have that much experience.

Again, the fault is theirs, but it's yours as well, JPC. You bought the car with apparently not enough research before the purchase.

Thanks for the question! Now it has me wondering about my car, these are things that you really don't think of until it happens and then TO LATE.  My car is in the shop (CMC WB Speedster) having some work being done on it.   I'll  talk to the tech to see what it will take to install some sort of "emergency pulls" for the Frunk and Engine lid under the car, that are easily accessible, in case one of the main pulls becomes faulty.....

In my humble opinion and at least for CMC/FF/VS/JPS and maybe Beck cars, As everyone says, getting at the front frunk latch is relatively easy to release it from the outside so I've never bothered to install an emergency latch pull.  Besides - Where you gonna run the cable to?  Into the wheel well, maybe?  That's about the only choice but you could have just reached up under the latch and moved it from below, so.....  ???

The rear engine cover is a whole different Burrito, though.  Once it's buttoned up, the latch isn't accessible without major effort.  Like taking all of the lower engine heat shields off to let you reach waaay up in there, to the total extent of your arm to reach the latch and THEN have to move it sideways.  (Major Tip:  get Stan to help - He says he has really long arms).  Or maybe, get out the Sawzall, major.

Given that, it makes a LOT of sense to install an emergency cable back there.  It's easy to do, you can follow along outside the original cable tube over to the driver's side rear wheel well and poke the cable through a hole in the inner fender, crimp a loop onto the end in the wheel well to keep it from disappearing back into the engine compartment and when you need it, just pull hard on the loop and

"Presto!"  

The engine lid opens.

Have I done this?  Weeeeeellllllllll, no, not yet.  I'm just tempting fate.

But it's on my list.  Who know?  This could be the year.......    

The Beck trunk latch is not accessible from below as the trunk compartment extents to the front of the car, making room for a full sized spare. I think an emergency release in the wheel well is a pretty good idea, but wouldn't have helped me anyway.  My latch had actually gone too far through, and I had to unscrew it from inside the trunk (via the emergency access hole I made) to get it to release.  I then adjusted it back to where it should have been and never had another such problem.

All my mechanic did was to properly lub the cable and that was it..

How am I to research all these issues which you assume were done correctly when you buy a car  

Yes it was a tight pull when I bought it, but I felt it would break in  

Thanks