Time to tell the story of a 1936 Ford 5-window Coupe. Purchased new off the lot, $555 handed over to the car salesman, Joe and Mary proudly drove their pride and joy back to the farm. For 20 years they drove it to town, to church on Sunday, even to the “big smoke” from time to time, until the day that the engine started rattling, it started blowing smoke, and Joe had to put it off the road. It was towed around behind the barn and covered up, with the intention of pulling the old engine down at some stage to fix her up.
Years passed and it never happened. The cover deteriorated, the cancer of rust set in, the kids and grandkids started out by climbing over it and inside it, then started pulling parts off it, and even using it for target practice with the old pea-rifle. The glass disappeared, the fabric inside rotted away, grass and shrubs grew up around it and it faded from memory hidden behind the barn.
For almost 30 long years it sat, chickens and mice nesting in it, cattle and horses rubbing up against it, paint virtually all gone, metal parts being eaten away, until the day grandson Joe Jr was at the farm and asked Grandpa Joe what he wanted to do with the old wreck out behind the barn. He was starting a mechanics apprenticeship and was thinking about finding an old shell to tinker with and restore.
Together they cleared the build up of debris, dragged the ’36 onto the back of the truck, gathered up the parts that they could find strewn around the place, and took it into town to it’s new home in the workshop.
15 years of tinkering and learning, cutting and welding, removing, cleaning up and replacing parts, searching through wreckers yards and swap meets, agonising over interior fabric and body paint colours, then came the day that Joe Jr could drive it out of the workshop and out to the farm to take Grandpa Joe for a ride in the car he bought new off the lot 64 years ago.
That is the story I want to tell here. I’ve had one of these kits in the stash for years, and the “Blue Oval” group Build was going to give me the motivation to finally build it, then up popped 2 more kits on a buy/swap/sell site with minor starts and parts missing, very cheap as the sellers just wanted them gone from the to-do pile. I didn’t need much contemplation time, I could clearly see a great little display in the making here with a clean original on one side, a rodded-up version on the other, and a rusted shell vignette right in the middle. They are simple kits with a low parts count, and test-fitting at this stage shows no real issues, so I am looking forward to putting some focus on this project once I get a Chevy (or two) off the bench.
Cheers, D
