I recently bought a 1951 ford Custom Club Coupe, thats been sitting in the guys garage since 1967 up on blocks. He was the second owner of the car. The first owner had a rod go through the side of the block on the original 6 cylinder motor. He was junking it when Jim talked to him and bought the car from him, ad put it in his newly built garage. Jim told me ,everything on the car is stock , except the rebuilt 283 which he put in it. Nothing else was done except maybe taking off some of the accessories he didnt like , stainless window visors and such. I really didnt notice at first but something was bugging me about the front end. Then i realized it was the headlights. The car , like i said is pretty much original even the paint, chrome and the interior, (he did give away the front seat to his friend who needed one because he had planned to put buckets in it anyway.) none of the wiring was butchered up, the body wasnt messed with, just the chevy motor and he switched to swing pedals. So my question is, did Ford offer optional headlight bezels in 51? I looked all around the web and no where did i find factory or dealer options available in 51, a google image search came up with 2 or 3 51s with the same headlights bezels as i have. the one was an ad forsale that said his car had just about every option you could get in 51. To me the look like 55 or 56 headlight bezels but all chromed. its got me stumped as far as was it an option ,or just something the original owner swapped out. Any help would be appreciated
Yep, not off any '50s Ford product. Keep in mind there was multiple companies selling 'accessory' bits for popular cars in the '50s to 'update' the styling on older cars.
that would make more sense being an aftermarket deal i guess. I was planning to just french the headlights anyway, but curiosity got the better of me and I figured id ask to see if anyone else might have any idea.
Take one off and look at the inside for any type of id. The fit looks good but they really stick out, like a ******* bunny tail.
The "eyelids" on the Cadillac bezels droop down more. These appear to stick pretty much straight out at the top center...
ok, i took one off and i tend to believe it was an aftermarket bezel. there is some letters and numberson it, ABCo? heres some pictures. Now to see if i can find who made it..
after digging around in the boxes he gave me ,i discovered wrapped up in a paper the original bezels. there were a few other aftermarket things either in the car or on it, such as the paint protector for the door handle and the drives and p***enger adjustable side window sunvisors. Guess i need to start going through al lthe boxes and parts that are wrapped up! anyway , thanks for the help!
Looks exactly like the ones on my 53 Customline chrome was gone so I painted them. Aftermarket I don't know who made them.
they sure give it a different look, Ill stick with frenching the lights and stick these up on the wall with the spare dash and stuff he gave me.
That sounds like a plan. I remember putting some money in an envelope with the little square for your name and address that JC Whitney put in their adds in the magazines in the early 60's and getting a catalog a month later with dozens of pages of chrome trinkets including about three pages of just hood ornaments. I wasn't into that stuff as even then at about 14 years old I thought cars were supposed to be clean and slick and not have junk stuck on them.
I sent off for a catalog when I was about 12 in the early 60's. Over the next 20 or so years, I probably got 1000 more catalogs from them. Seems like they sent 2-3 a month.
That's what I'm ***uming since there is no factory brand code or part number. Just the ABCo name and the number.
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