Original 40 Ford Coupe, Buff it or leave it alone?

lightly Buff it give that old lacquer one more time to shine! Great car! i bet it will come back real easy.

 

leave it alone. if you want to wash it, use a dry wash and you don't have to worry about it. I can give you some info on the dry wash,if your interested give me a hollar

 

What a great find. Beautiful car. Congratulations! I had a 56 Chevy that has not been waxed in 30 years ( red and white). About 10 years ago at a Goodguys meet in Rhinebeck,some guy who was selling car polish talked me into dropping the car off at his vendors spot and he would buff it and wax it. And this would be a great advertisement of the product(s) he was selling. I will say the car/paint looked much better cleaned up. And it still had that 30 year old paint look to it, and a few weeks parked out side with the sun shinning on it, the rain raining on it, etc, it quickly returned to it's un-touched look. But what it did was better protect what was left of the paint, and although I was saddened by how good it looked on the drive home from NY, I was very happy with the results a month later. As long as you don't strip and paint the car ( and that's 100% OK if that is what you want. The finest cars start out with ones like yours is now), you are not going to ruin the patina.
Look forward to seeing more picture, which ever way you decide to go.
ps Dropped axle, big and littles, some red wheels/56 F100 caps...my 2 cents.

 

Leave it, there's something magical about the way it looks when first discover it.

 

BEAUTIFUL!!!! leave it as is.

 

Thanks everyone for all the suggestions and help! Sorry I have not posted up anymore pics yet, I work overnights and haven't had a whole lot of time to mess with it yet. I am off after tonight for the next 5 days so I plan on getting some things done starting in the morning. I did wash it today, I know some of you said not to wash it with water but this thing was filthy! First thing I am going to do is pull of the wheels and get the tires dismounted because they are junk and one is flat on the front. I am going to sandblast the wheels and paint them and get my other tires put on. My dad and I are going to start rubbing out the paint tomorrow also. I will post up pics tomorrow for sure. Thanks everybody!

 

Wow. As said before here, I'd hand polish and wax it to protect what's there. No need to worry about leaving it as is since you will be washing it and such at some point.

 

I like it as is. Cool.

 

dude...thats a nice damn car

 

Me personally. Id blast and paint the wheels gloss black. put a dropped axle under it. and lightly clean the body. Its only like that once, so don't go overboard!!!!! You got somethin that can't be reproduced!

 

Amen brother, thats exactly what I am going to do. I am painting the wheels black and run the stock deluxe caps and outer trim rings with red crowns. I polished the door today to see what to expect and it looks alot better, puts a nice sheen to the paint.

 

I can't begin to tell you how disappointed I am in a lot of the responses. Why would anyone want to perpetuate neglect? Grow up. If he buffs it out and doesn't like it, but I think he will, it'll eventually fade back to what we see anyway if he leaves it alone

 

Wash it down with 1 qt kerosene 2 gallons water to clean paint .Then rewash it with dove dish soap rinse ,,,Presto instant original paint

 

The hardcore asshole in my personality fully agrees and knows the reason for a lot of those responses. The enthusiast side of me tells the asshole to remain silent and keep it to myself

 

It's really quite simple - do you want a car that looks old and neglected as if you did not give a damn, or a genteelly aged and loved car, where the love and care shows?

 

No turning back now!
Larry T

 

If this car was neglected, it was in a junkyard 50 years ago.
Leave as is, I love it, it's beautiful.
You can't buy patina

 

Well I got half of it done today, what a job! I got my tires dismounted off the wheels and in the process of getting them prepped for paint. I will have the whole thing polished up tomorrow and the wheels and tires on, still waiting on my hubcaps though. Let me know what you think so far.

 

Looks more respectable...but what do I know


forgot to say in my first reply that that was a great find. you are very fortunate.

 

very nice...

 

Looks great!!

Amazing what some time and hard work can get done.

Looking at the areas of peeling paint, I might be inclined to change my idea about what I would do with the car.

I would want to protect that metal with some paint.

Not sure how bad the area where you are is, but where I am those areas would rust even in the garage.

Way to nice and cool of a car to let it go down hill now.

 

looks great!

 

Excellent!

 

Love it either way! 40's are great! Nice find.

 

There, now don't you feel better?! Hahaha! Looks great.

He'll be fine if it's garage kept here in the midwest. Over the last 4 years, yeah, I've lost some more paint on the drives to Texas, Ohio, Wisconsin, but not like the car is rusting into the ground now.

I would suggest making sure the interior is watertight. I chased leaks in mine for a long time. And we finally got the rear window catch basin rebuilt with a hose, so no more leaks anywhere.

 

XLNT! I like it (I hope you do too). I think I'd step up to new running board rubbers. I did it to a 36 Ford that was in about the same shape as your car and looked pretty good. I was afraid the new rubber would overwhelm the rest of the car, but it didn't

 

I like it cleaned up, with new tires and maybe a dropped axle you will have a winner.

 

Yeah, if you compare the 2 pics of my car that I posted, the '07 pic has the original running boards. The current pic, it's a different set of running boards, with the stainless trim. I resisted swapping them out, but in the end, it looks much better.

 

That looks great!

 

It seems like the fenders and the body color match a lot better now, thats a nice car, I think you did good, enjoy it.