Hi, I'm a new member from the UK, I've kinda fallen in love with the idea of making a real traditional rod, I hate polishing cars and slightly scruffy and smelling of oil is, according to my wife, my natural state. I currently have a 67 Chevy C10 long fleetside truck with a lightly tuned 350 which is my first American car after a long line of UK and European cl***ics but am hankering after something a bit more radical. I've found what i think is a 1930's American car thats been cut down into a pickup under an open barn next to a sawmill near my holiday home in southern France. To me it would make a great project if I can persuade the owner to part with it and drag it the 900 odd miles home. I've only got one picture of it at the moment as below. The hood looks to me to be from I think a 32 Chevy but several people have said the rest looks more like a ford. Its quite possible that it is bits from several cars, maybe adapted during or just after WWII to keep it on the road. Any ideas on what it is would be appreciated. I'll try and get some better pictures when I'm next over there this August. I can weld and fabricate and scrounge and adapt stuff being a bit of a backyard engineer so it would be an interesting project. This kind of thing is hard to come by in the UK without spending big bucks so if I can pick this up in France for a good price it'll be an excellent start.
The hood looks like a '32 Chev. Did you get a picture of the dashboard and guages? That would help. The frame looks thick for a Model A Ford. It may be a '32 or later.
1932 Year chevy you can tell be the vents on the hood,,This 29 is sitting out back.Actually with the over hang on the back of the roof could have been a 4 door at 1 point
I gotta go with tommy on everything but the mid 20th part. Get us some better pictures and we can tell more. In anycase I would love to see the faces on people out there when you cruise by in that thing while they drive their large displacement 2.0 liter cars that can fit into a shoebox. Good luck and once you figure out what it is count me in on helping you scrounge parts. I love scrounging junk yards.
Log pulling sawmill mule I think as its sat right next to an old sawmill and a long way from any Junkyard! The frame has wood bolted to the sides of it which is why it looks so thick at the rear end presumably to add strength to take the weight of that big upright frame and whatever it was used to haul. It does seem to have five stud wheels though and I understood 30's chevys had six studs. I've found a surprising amount of American iron hidden away over there including what looks like a late sixties Barracuda coupe that belonged to the ageing owner of the local garage in my village sat in surprisingly good condition behind a house, unused. My Truck is in the UK although iI'm currently replacing the rockers and fixing some rust, it does get some looks when you park it up at the supermarket although it kinda spills over into a couple of parking spaces. Its currently sharing some rented garage space with a 68 427ss Impala and a 69 Camaro drag car running very low 9's on methanol, theres a thriving American car and rod scene over here.
the hood looks like it might be 32 chevy car (or 31 cadillac? it's pretty long) or something like that, but the cab is something else. Not Ford, the cowl is too short and does not have the right lines. 32 Chevy truck hoods were different than the car hoods, also.
It appears the hood is Packard or maybe Buick by the sharp "shoulders but the cowl looks Oakland or some other off branded GM.
LOL, I'm glad its not just me finds these things hard to ID, it's possible its not even American as it could be something obscure and european but it doesn't tally with anything French made I can find. Bearing in mind its France it could be a locally built model if Chevrolet/Ford had a presence in France before WWII or a canadian built model. I am still coming down more on a 4 door 32 chevy cut down into a truck cab. The body lines seem to line up and the hood looks right. It's hard to get a better picture as its on private property and I need to find out who owns it before I can get any closer and explain why in my very bad French.
Whatever it is, I love the hood. Does it really matter who made it? Whatever it is, you need to go and get it. I agree that a pic of the dash and the grille would really help to ID it.
It,s more than likely a big old Renault KZ8. The rear wheels are French thats for sure. If you enlarge the photo of the rear wheel you can see that the axle looks out of centre. Thats a Michelin wheel, they are,nt symetrical. Naturally they are round on the outside perimiter but the inner rim is a sort of big oval shape. The inside of the rim is stepped in on one side like a normal rim and the other side is pretty flat.Idea being easier to fit a tire (in the 30s ) Wish i had a photo to explain. Maybe i have a Michelin rim in my stash, to hot to look now ( pushin'up to 100 F. )
Blimey, I think the mans right, I had a look at this site http://www.renaultoloog.nl/autos-english.htm and it does indeed look like a Renault KZ8, would still make a very cool rod though and I can search for parts over there too, theres several local garages (now closed down) tht probably still have parts on their shelves for it! I hear what you're saying about the wheels. This is the only picture I could find of one now, a 1932 Renault Primaquatre KZ8
Well i did find a Michelin wheel in the shed and maybe the car is a Citroen C6 or C4 from 1930/32.Check the swage line on the door.They all look pretty much the same. Are you sure you want to drag all that s**** back to GB. All you really need are the panels. Just dismantle the panels and give the guy a crate of local wine. Then he still has his contraption to play/work with. BTW glad you could work out my description of the wheel. They look crazy.
I'd probably just drag it to my house which is about five or six km away and shove it in the barn and bring it back a bit at a time, I'm back and forward with a six foot trailer with a one ton capacity fairly frequently so I reckon the cab would fit in one trip and the rest in another.. Its not been used for years so I'd have thought they'd be glad of the extra space tbh but old Frenchmen don't always think the same way as the rest of us!
The Jalopy Journal
