A picture of this 3/W showed up on the "33-34 Coupes" Thread,.. I remember seeing it at a event years ago,.. followed closely by a feature in a short run magazine called "1001 Custom & Rod Ideas" ,..... Any of you guy's remember that one ????? I do remember a couple details about this car but very few. Always hated the appliance wire basket wheels,... But the rest of this car looked dead on. So do any of you have any more pictures or details ? Here is the Coupe in question.
Not really short run. I have issues dating from the mid sixties through the late seventies, so they were around for better than 10 years anyway. Think they were under Argus publishing, same guys who did PHR in the sixties/seventies. no pics of the coupe though. One of the issues i have had a REALLY nice '32 highboy with cragars and a 4:71 blown SBC.
Your most likely right, I beleive I have like 25-30 issues,.. but not a complete set,.. they were hard to get around the metro Detroit area back in the day. I always enjoyed the magazine,.. but they had cool stuff as well as some real turds featured. As well as cars that just flat-out profiled !,... just like this 3/W,.... alright, somebody has to remember it.
"Baron" Just posted this information on the other thread,.... "Kelsey Martin built this car are in 1978. It was the first 34 glass body from Ai Fiberglass. It came with a 3 inch chop, and Kelsey took two more inches out of the top. This was just an empty glassbody..no wood,no steel, nothing. Ton of hours went into building this car. He put steel fenders ,hood, deck lid,splash aprons,etc, and louvered every panel that could be louvered. He named it the Ventilated Ford. Sold it not long ofter this picture was taken at Jolly Jorges(home of the rebirth of the Wednesday Cruise Night ). It went through a couple of owners, and while at John Silver's (designer of the Maco Shark) shop being re-done, John passed away. Bob Rotondo,another member of the Strokers, bought the car a few years back, finished the prep work on the body, and repainted the car black and had the new red leather interior installed. The chassis (6 inch Bell dropped frt axle/Corvette rear end) still has the same paint ( and pin striping) that Kelsey put on it back in 78! Here is a picture in its current rendition taken at Rhinebeck recently." I would still like to see any other pictures of this Coupe,... What do you have ??
One of the things that gave this car a nice profile is the chop. Ai pulled the mold off a 34 that had been chopped by leaving the windshield posts in there stock position and lengthened the top to align the a-pillars. When Kelsey took 2 more inches out of it, he laid the posts back. This way you get a real nice roof line, and take away a little of the Bonneville look and /or the long top look. Doug Thelan's chop on Billy Gibbon's 33 Coupe was done in the same manor (top split and A-pillars layed back,although not chopped as radical as this one). I just sent both Kelsey and Bobby emails to see if they have more pictures of the 34. Hopefully I'll get more pics.
I remember the car very well as I did the original striping on it in 78. It wasn't called the Ventilated Ford for nothing;there were nearly 900 louvers on the car including a bunch of them in the removeable belly pans.The striping was done over a period of about a year starting with the frame rails. I spent a whole day striping them inside and out.I have some color slides around somewhere that Ed Murray took while I was doing it. The only pic I have on my computer is the back cover shot from the 1001 Custom and Rod Ideas book. I have more in one of my picture books and will try and dig them out. One of the funniest things about the car was that the deck and and lower panel under the deck were steel and louvered.Everyone that knew it was a glass body couldn't figure out how the panel was louvered.Kelsey;being the wise ass he can be used to say he found a guy with a press that could do fibreglass. Even better was the front fenders;Kelsey started with a set of NOS 34 fenders that were quite pricey even in 76.There was a guy in a neighboring town who used to come down the shop occasionally and owned a 34 phaeton.He came down the day Kelsey was laying out the pattern for the louvers and couldn't believe Kelsey was going to louver them.The guy was almost in tears.
Wow Dennis. So he took a 3" chopped glass body and chopped it more, and then ran it with fenders. Hmmmm sounds like your car! Get those bloody doors finished!! Cheers, Stewart.
I think if you check the other post on 33-34 Fords you'll see a front and rear shot of it.Kelsey also built that one.The striping on the rear pan resembled a bull which was meant to symbolize Kelsey's demeanor sometimes;like that of a bull in a china shop. BTW Baron the only time I ever signed Otto Graf on one of Kelsey's cars was the maroon 34 roadster that Fish George wound up with.
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