Walking through a NY salvage yard yesterday waiting for them to load the Falcon I rescued, I stumbled across this car. Looks like a homebuilt special of some sort. Kinda cool. Engine is a 4 cylinder, looks newer than this build, I didn't take pics of it.
Anyone else notice what looks like an original Bell sprint car steering wheel sitting on the floor of that Fiat?
Hey Andy, you need to tell the owner that you'd like to do him a favor by taking that ugly little car off his hands (doesn't hurt to try). Lotsa Fiat parts up front, the rest looks to be fabbed. Hard to tell if it was ever finished. I would call it "interesting" and for the right price could be if nothing else swap meet material. What yard is it at?
I think it is likelier a Fiat coupe of the sort used for half the altereds in the country long ago. Doors welded and "Darrined," central area of deck replaced with a sheet of tin, front fenders savagely hacked. It's actually a pretty neat little car in overall look. Probably the only Fiat of that generation in this country that WASN"T made into an altered!
Yup. And duals through the deck. Wonder was in that little mouse when it was first modified? Flathead maybe. OP, hustle your ass back there and GRAB THAT STEERING WHEEL! Even if you don't want it, you can sell it and finance half your next engine build!
I'll be going back this weekend, see if I can grab it. There's a fiberglass Willys hood and fenders I'm going to pick up.
My guess is that it probably was made into an altered and this got made from the resulting hulk once the body was repuraised.
Those hood top pieces are original too, I think this was a '36 from the look of it. The sheetmetal from the firewall back may well be fabbed, but that front clip sheetmetal is probably worth a small fortune to the right buyer. I'd be extremely tempted to buy at least the grille, hood tops and surrounding sheetmetal clip off of that car and try to resell it, I think you'd do very well on it and save what has to be a very rare item. That said, those head blisters are really cool too. Someone put a lot of work into that. If I were closer, I might try to buy the whole body and hang it up from the rafters in my shop, upside down. What a cool display piece that would be.
I tried to do some homework on this car last night, seems they're pretty scarce here in the states, couldn't get an idea on what the grille is worth. They come up for sale so infrequently here. In the UK it's a different story. I'll probably just keep it anyway, wall hanger until I happen across a coupe body.
Holy cats, what is the Holman moody bell from? Did you get it? That's a hell of a wall hanger. Did you get the grille too?
headrests/headlites probly not 41-6 Chev truck, they had marker lites on top where that chrome trim is and were longer buckets I'm thinkin...maybe Buick/Pontiac about 39?
Grab the steering wheel. Telling you this for your own good. Unless someone on here has managed to figure out where it is, and is on a plane right now. GRAB THAT WHEEL. SERIOUSLY.
those bodies were used in a lot of dragsters. speedway still sells 'glass versions--"bantam body." topolinos were sold in the u.s. as "austin bantams."
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