When I was quite young I found myself drawn to the look of the 49 - 50 Fords. I think it was the overall style, clean lines of the body, but maybe more than anything it was the chrome bullet nose. Kind of like a cherry on top of a cupcake. The movie "Thunder Road" may have had something to do with my love of that particular car. Anyway, about 3 years ago it dawned on me that if I wanted one of those cars I better get off my *** and get one before I was too old to enjoy it. Easy task I thought, Ford made more than a million of those cars in both '49 and '50 (at least according to numbers I've found). I started my search, I wanted an unmolested car that I could pretty much get in and drive. It had to be a Flathead V/8 and as time went on I decided it had to be a '50 and of course a Tudor and not a coupe. Just my preference. As luck would have it, early on in my search an acquaintance said he had a friend that had a car that might fill my want list. He said it was as good a car as I'm likely to find. Not so much ! So the search went on. I did find a couple of what looked to be pretty good cars, but long distance posed a bit of a problem when trying to buy the car before someone more local could look at the car and buy it before I could make arrangements to look at the car myself, or even find someone to look at it for me. This past summer I did find a really good looking car that had been for sale for about a year, off and on. It was 600 miles away but I managed to go look at it. Diff. was noisy. Transmission was poor and the motor had bearing noise when warmed up. Underside floors were quite rusty (expectable, but not what I wanted), floor supports rusted out and rockers filled with foam and painted over. Still a nice looking car, but I declined. By the middle of October I was beginning to think my search was futile. Then one Saturday afternoon I came across an ad for a '50 Tudor in BC. I phoned the people selling it and the same old story. Someone close by is coming to look at it and two others in line to look as well. I asked if they would call back if the lookers didn't buy, because I was really interested in the car. As it turns out the people looking didn't buy. I got a call saying so and after almost an hour of checking the car out with a video chat I asked if they would hold the car until I could get there with a truck and trailer. So when I got there I looked the car over and drove it about two miles. I bought a really sound, virtually rust free car with 67,000 miles showing on the odometer. A friend and I took most of 5 days and drove about 2600 miles to bring the car home. I guess it pays to keep after your dreams and not give up. I'm glad I didn't.
That’s the way it was with the car pictured in my avatar. Looked for one for years, off and on. If I could afford it it was a hunk of junk.... if I liked it I couldn’t afford it! Even bought a same model station wagon that I liked , to pacify me while looking! Three months after buying the wagon my brother-in-law calls... am I still looking for that two door? He found the car in my avatar 20 mikes from my house and an XL to boot! Cheap! I looked like Matt Dillion .. drawing my wallet! Now I have two ‘65s..... but that’s ok. Really like your car, looks great! Bones
I was born in 1950 and daddy bought a new Ford. I have been involved with many of these cars. This one is my keeper
The Jalopy Journal
