Technical What is it about the field cars?

You know the ones that are or almost are lost causes. You have to think about it though. A lost cause in 1990 is a builder or almost a "survivor" today.

I still think that a rough car is pretty much parts. If someone wants in to an old car, they are much better off finding one that is running and driving. So young guys or those new to it. Even though these rough old cars can be found cheap, the dollars and cents...make no sense.

With this said, there still something about discovering an old broken down heap and "fixing it up". Maybe it's dreams. Maybe it's the hope, what was lost is now found. Maybe this is what draws us.

Years and years ago I came up the road I live now and noticed a '39 Deluxe Tudor just sitting under a pine. It was a rough old car. A decade maybe 15-20 years later we bought our home in the same area. I remembered that old Tudor. Many times, I have driven down this road and looked for it. I assumed it was gone. Where it was is now a lake.
Last summer the neighbors cut their property and low and behold, next to the lake, there it was under a pine. It now has a cotton-wood growing between the bumper and grille, a big one.
Here's the thing...If I'm going to try to get it...now's the time. Now's the time to get it before the brush takes it back over and the cotton wood destroys it.

I don't need it. I'm deep into a project now. Still though I look at it every time I go by.

What is it about the field cars?

 

You old softie.
I'll bet you rescue lost puppies, too.

That's great. You might not need it. Someone else will. You will rest in the knowledge that one got saved against all odds.

And you can share pictures here. And I can look at your pictures and continue wasting time not getting anything done.
Thank you.

 

My avatar was a field car I built in the early 90's, I wanted a Model A and it was cheap. The cost of building it wasn't a lot more than buying a runner and tossing half of it, I did the work myself so the cost wasn't really any more just more time involved.

 

"What's a field car?"

 

"Something that runs through the fields dropping cow shit so the lettuce will grow"

 

It's yellow and gonna be a football field ahead of you

 

The tug of field car is the irresistible urge to buy it thinking it can be bought and fixed cheap.
Almost never is it cheap to fix up.

 

For me, part this ^^^, and part thinking this was once someone's pride and joy. Later, as a 2nd or 3rd hand auto, someone's life blood for work, etc. Some do not call to me, some do. Lucky in the fact I cannot have projects outside (covenants) and a too small shop to have them inside.

 

I always thought of field cars like this.

 

Save it, if for nothing more but parts to sell at a swap meet. You might regret buying it but most definitely regret NOT buying it later on when its hauled off for the price of scrap.
Remember, it has the 39 transmission everyone wants and front spindles we all like.

 

^^^^^

 

Answer: Field of dreams.

From an article:

Forget the Chevies (<= Edited to add, after Johnny Gee liked this comment). This 60 Falcon Fordor could've been running and driving in little time:

 

Forget the Dorfs and Cheapies:

 

I think it starts with .. we all see “ what could be” and a “cool car”

we all think we are smarter then the average bear , and can get it up and running and have fun for a bag of peanuts.

it’s also I think saving something that’s just wasting away,
Before I bought my merc I went to look at a early 50’s Dodge ( yes I think it’s funny too)
Hemi , push button trans all the “ cool 50’s dodge stuff “

poor car was parked beside the barn , hood up rusted in place , engine stuck mouse eating poop filled interior . Everything needed to be blown apart and new. BUT I STILL WANTED IT !!! Lucky the owner thought he was sitting on Barrett Jackson gold so I walked .
Been there done that too many times to count.
It’s an illness all car guys have .

 

This is from a Hudson field car HAMB thread:

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/51-hudson-hornet-project.1033922/

 

There's a field car 37 Hudson Eight (for cheap) and 60 Comet Fordor that keep calling me.

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/good-hudson-forum.1230872/#post-14072231

Was still there, last time I drove past:



Goggle street spy screenshot. I don't know if it's still there:

 

My 49 Buick was a field car. I saved it!!!!

 

I drug this body out of a field about 1/2 a mile behind the house I live in now where it had sat in a batch of cat tails beside a slough for who knows how long and I have no idea how many times I walked past it hunting along that slough every year before I spotted it when I was in my teens. My buddy had built the chassis out of channel iron and I never got the flathead running. I wish I had that body now though. A true roadster body that still had the back part minus the turtle deck when I found it.

 

You need to look at the recent updated thread by Rik Hoving on the resurrected Jimmy Summers '36 Ford coupe that showed up at the Grand National Roadster show to see a worthwhile field car comeback.

 

I must say that I love field cars, gives a guy a lot to dream about. As for putting one back on the road for not a lot of coin, it’s possible as long as you don’t get too carried away . That said, it certainly helps to be able to get parts for little to no money and repair or rebuild things yourself. My truck for example, more bush than field, cost me approximately 8500 cad. to get back on the road. If I’d been able to get away without rebuilding the y block it would have been about 4000 plus just over a year of working on it.

 

I snapped this one while I was in Needles California the other day. I don't even know what it is but it looks like a cool project.

 

The yellow one is a Dodge.

 

The yellow one. I was thinking it'd make a killer tow vehicle but I've got other things going on right now.

 

The yellow panel is a 40-47 Dodge (a 39 had a different grille stainless). Could narrow it down even more if the headlights are mounted on the crest of the fender (43+), or more towards the center (39-42). There are a lot of replacement parts made for these trucks, the US military used them up to 1968.

My field car (also in my Avtar pic and in its current form). I've been called a hack a lot, so at least I couldn't hurt the value of this one. Hit the road with about $2000 in it but have added more since that first drive. Been driving it since 2011, around 90,000 miles. Gene

 

Another field truck, different field though. Paid $63 including sales tax for what was on the trailer!

Drove this one 12 years before some lady turned right in front of me and we hit head on. Yes, that is a snow plow bracket on the front, the truck plowed my driveway for all of those 12 years. Truck got 10 mpg, probably saw an average of 6,000 miles a year. About a month before the crash it hauled my coupe home. Gene

 

Thrill of the Chase, Savior, Challenge.

Agree it's often " buy this cheap and get it running" There's a reason it's in a field - something major went wrong. Rare that a perfectly functional car gets driven to the hill and left there.

Overcome whatever the major problem was (usually engine or trans) then contend with all the other things that came from sitting for years (brakes, wiring, tires, suspension). Then it still has bad paint and rust and usually a rotten frame.

Guilty of doing it.

Guilty of continuing to look at them.

Gotten old enough to walk away, well except for maybe that next one

 

The " Field car" aka project car to us who build our rides.
As someone who has bought/built many, it's the basic starting point for the build of my vision.
Often people will say "why not buy an already finished car, it's cheaper?"
A finished car rarely will be a car I wouldn't change something (often many things), so out goes the ugly outdated (and not in a good way) upholstery, the color choice, the wheel choice, the engine/trans. choice..see a pattern here?
Essentially you pay for someone elses idea/vision, dollars spent, of what it should be, to only change it all out in the end anyway.
I'm all for people who buy the finished cars..but for me, the finding/planning/building of the car is what keeps me coming back.
Some people lack vision, they can't see potential in a "field car"..I don't think those people are members of this site.

 

I have a 62 Chevy in my basement that came from that auction.

 

This field car is a one family owner, taken in trade by a car dealership fellow car club member. NEW PRICE. OBO. Very savable and a great first project. You won't see most of the needed restoration work (floors and rockers) so it is a great way to get your feet wet (and arms burned when you weld in the floor panels and rocker panels). Doors open and close nicely. Frame and suspension are good. Just reposted in Cars For Sale.

 

We called them field beaters, cars we drove in fields while learning to drive when we were 14 years old. My friend had this 54 chevy, he cut the body off and made a roll bar from old cow stantions from a dairy barn, fun way to start our hot rodding careers. Best part of growing up in the country. We had a real dragstrip just across the field hence the AA/GD class marking on our hot rod , mine still had a body on it