A very good friend of mine is the second owner of a 1951 Ford Convertible that his uncle bought brand new in Los Angeles. Jack's uncle gave him the car when he turned 16 in 1967 and he's owned it ever since. Jack grew up in Spartanburg, South Carolina and I've known him since we met a Georgia Tech in 1969. The car has been in hibernation in the ba*****t of his parents house in Spartanburg for many years but he has just brought it down to the Atlanta area were he has retired from his work as a designer at General Motors in Detroit. He never wanted to subject the car to the potholes and salt of Michigan so its lived in either California or South Carolina its entire life. The Ford is pretty cool - very highly optioned with a flathead V-8, automatic transmission and power convertible top. It was built in the Long Beach Ford plant and the family legend is that his uncle bought it off the stand at a big car show in the Los Angeles area in 1951. Jack drove it during his high school years but bought his uncles 1965 Ford Mustang V-8 with a four speed manual transmission before starting college. He now wants to restore the old Ford - which isn't going to be a terrible task as its still wears its original paint and interior and is in generally good shape Its going to need a mechanical restoration of all of those systems as it hasn't run in at least ten years. But there are questions: Jack says the car has some details that are not standard for Ford. The exterior paint color is not a stock 1951 Ford color (but it was painted at the factory in Long Beach). Its got a continental kit and a lot of extra chrome. I think some of the trim pieces are not standard stuff and there are other things that Jack says don't match up. He wishes he had quizzed his uncle more about it when he had the chance but his uncle was a very quiet man and didn't talk about himself very much. We think that these discrepancies might add some weight to the family legend that he bought it off the Ford display at a big car show. We have speculated that it might have been part of the Petersen Autorama show but that's a guess on our part - which is why I'm turning to the wise gurus of the HAMB. Here is a picture of the 51 Ford and its owner in 1951 - the babe in his arms is now 70 years old and the owner of the car. The California tag on the front of the Ford is 2B 68 800. The car is sort of a light tan and we plan to get it running and back on the road within a year. I'll get more details from Jack about the discrepancies he's noted from a stock version and why he thinks it may have been a special build for one of the car shows. I'll also get some current photos. The Ford's nickname is "The Whale". Some more recent photos of the car from the late sixties when it was Jack's high school ride - he says the wheel covers and tires were all he could afford back then.
Nice 51, big drawback is the auto trans but the continental kit shows it was loaded. Trim rings maybe correct but the caps aren’t. From my memory the skirts had 3 embossed lines in them like yours. Real spotlights lend to the loaded car also.. Convertible seats were also flat like this too. Good luck. My 56 came from the same ***embly plant.
Thanks for the reply, Jack did say he changed the caps - but he probably kept the originals knowing him. I'll get some current photos this week after its had a good bath. Its a cool (but really slow) car.
that's a "Whale" of a tale - yes, it certainly needs some TLC - but, nothing too wild - do not think that a later transmission for better drivability would affect the cl***ic history
Do you have a paint code? I had a customer that had a 50 or 51 Mercury that was a light tan like that, Ford used the color again in the 60s. It was a pain to match because it faded lighter, the mercury only had 16k on it it was like new. Casino Cream was a special color...
Don’t sweat the Fordomatic. It can be a really good transmission. The big issue with those early transmissions was they were air cooled. The vents could clog up with debris and the parts could get dirty causing them to overheat. If maintained, they can do really well. For this car, I think it needs to keep the Ford-O.
^^^ however they are an absolute dog with them. You can start in the “L” position and shift to Dr at about 15mph to help it along..
Ford had a pretty long option list, I don't really see anything that couldn't have been ordered. And with the regional ***embly plants there was some differences depending on where the car was built. Plus any variations that could creep in if the option was dealer-installed.
Jack told me he's found that the color was a late addition to the available choices beginning in April 1951. This car was manufactured in May, 1951. He's trying to figure out which dealer in the Long Beach area his uncle may have bought the car from. His uncle was a radioman in the US Navy in WWII and joined the Merchant Marine after the war ended. Apparently he came off his last ship in Long Beach, bought the car and then drove cross country to his sister's house in Indiana.
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