After watching the local and national ads for a long time, I finally picked up a car, and it turned out to be from a local guy in the same town, not more than a couple of miles from me. It has the ubiquitous 350/350 running gear, w/ I believe it is an 8" Ford rear end mounted on parallel leaf springs. I've looked at a lot of cars over the past, oh I don't know, 18 months or so. I knew if I took my time I'd find what I was looking for. Some were really crude projects, some were real nice, too nice in fact, and way out of my budget range. What I was looking for was a "road car", something the wife and I can take trips in, since she isn't up to taking them in the A pickup. After a knee replacement surgery she never gained back full range of movement (and she has another knee replacement coming up this spring), making it difficult to even get in the A, let alone ride for a full tank of gas in it. I still have both original knees, and both work well, so I don't have the same issue, but I do have to admit that truck is a bit cramped. Beside that, no hood, fenders, side glass, wipers, heater, makes it a little less than ideal for inclement weather you might find on a road trip. So, this one is much easier to get in/out of, and much more comfortable to ride it. It rides pretty damned nice for a straight axle buggy spring front suspension. And it does have all the modern creature features, heat, a/c, radio, power steering, power brakes (disc/drum), even a tilt column, though it's a small column not one of those fat modern columns, I think it's an old van column, no key switch, with a smaller diameter '40 style steering wheel. Hell, it's even got a functioning fuel level gauge, haha! The speedometer reads real slow though, I need to get that dialed in. While this thing has the balls to break the tires loose from a dead stop, it's actually really nice to just cruise in, nice and slow, taking in the view over that long hood (with ornament) and the fat fenders. It runs down the freeway really well, plenty of acceleration to get up to speed on the on-ramps, and plenty of reserve on tap for passing. Interior is nicely done, if dated, no high back buckets or center console. This will do for a while until I get a more appropriate traditional interior installed. I have other things to spend money and time on till then. Headliner is nice Dash has newer gauges installed behind the original dash Those led's (turn signal & brights indicators) are pretty lame, I'll have to figure out something else for that. A lot of work on it has been done by Lakeman Chassis here in Fullerton, but I don't think they did the original powertrain swap, I'm pretty sure that was done some time ago, and they just did some other incidental work (the PO is friends with Bud Lakeman and took it to them to do some work after he bought it). I went over to their shop to put it up on their lift and do a walk around. Lot's of little things to do, but the major work has been done.
Man, that looks pretty dang sweet, congrats. Getting one already done up, then putting your own personal touches on it, puts you leaps & bounds (& $) ahead of the game IMO. Always liked those post-war coupes, you got a nice one!
I love mine, they're great road cars. Roomy interior, comfortable ride, big trunk. Enjoy, it's a nice one!
Thanks slowmotion. Yeah, it does seem to be cheaper to buy than it is to build, but the other thing is time. With my work schedule and side jobs, I'd be years in building one up myself. Getting one done like this puts me in the drivers seat years sooner.
I've had mine for over 25 years. Long door made it easy for my boys to get into the back seat, and with the parallel leaf rear, and M11 front, rides awesome down the highway. Might be heading to CA this June with it.
That's a great car and sounds like it ticks all your boxes. Congrats. What's the story on the long/short door thing?
long door allows access to rear seat- short door has no back seat- plus roof shape different in long door for head room- ours a long door-
Fine lookin' Ford. I'm down to 2 of them now, a 46 and a 48 Merc. There is a nice ribbed panel to go around those VDO gauges that has round openings VS the square one's and makes it a little neater. Have Fun.
Your going to love it, We have had our for about 20 years She likes that it's easy to get into It's a glorified minivan L o l And there's a lot of room in them Let us know if you make changes, one of us has probable did it in the past
The business coupe has no back seat and a shorter door. As 2bubba's said, the roofline is also different.
Nice, is that available from like Mac's or other early Ford parts stores? Or is that more like an eBay item?
Long door, short door, thanks for the new info. Very nice car. Did you get here or how to find it? I'm in the same boat and do feel I need to feel thing out before I buy something. As far as the LED bits on the dash, maybe you can replace them or cover them with something like this. https://www.ebay.com/itm/3-Vintage-...ash=item4d6d977851:g:hgYAAOSw7rdaf5sE&vxp=mtr but make sure to get a diameter that works.
The bulbs from Dialco are fairly large, you might try these cheap ones from pep boys (thats's where I got mine years ago).
The Jalopy Journal
