This was E-mailed to me, thought I'd pass it along. 1936 Stainless Steel Ford- This is the 1936 Ford Tudor Sedan built for and owned by Allegheny Ludlum Steel. This is 1 of only 4 in existence and is the only one currently in running & in road worthy condition. The car is in exceptional condition, with the interior and even the frame looking great. All 4 cars each had over 200,000 miles on them before they removed them from service. These cars were built for Allegheny as promotional and marketing projects. The top salesmen each year were given the honor of being able to drive them for one year. The v-8 engine (max 85 hp) ran like a sewing machine and was surprisingly smooth and quiet. I thought this was a much better looking automobile than the Ford Thunderbird that visited us last year. FYI, the car was insured (we were told) for the trip to Louisville via covered trailer for 1.5 million dollars. We were also told that the dies were ruined by stamping the stainless car parts, making these the last of these cars ever produced.
My girlfriend's Dad just saw one of these in Pleasanton, I think, he showed me a picture. He's too old for a digital camera otherwise I'd share it here. The guy that owns it now says he'd been after it for decades. Apparently, according to my girl's old man, Henry Ford gave most of these away to those salesmen the original poster was talking about, but gave the one he was looking at to a dentist who had just pioneered some technique for using stainless steel in fixing kids' teeth. The dentist died, gave the car to his kid, who died and gave it to his kid, who finally sold it to the guy that has it now -- it took him three generations of the dentist's family passing away before he got rid of it. The guy's like 75 but he finally got that stainless '36! Anyone else see one of these at Goodguys Pleasanton?
Leo Gephart the classic car dealer owns it and showed it at Hershey this past October at the AACA fall meet.
the car is amazing i would love to get a real close look at it and see if the stainless has much for stress cracks or any repairs that were done or need to be done, what type of stainless. When was it stammped that has to be some wear and tear on the dies. Rex
yes, it's been posted many times before...but it is always interesting to see. i understand form other posts that even though the outer body was stainless steel , the floor and inner structure , and the frame was still regular steel
In the early '70s I read an article wherein it was stated that Ford built SIX of these in '36. Also, that was not the last time Ford built a few stainless-steel cars, either. I think they did so at least 3 times -- another being a few of the 2nd-gen. T-birds.
True, only the outer body panels of these cars were stainless. Only one of the six cars was in private hands and was in a carriage house for many decades in southwestern suburban Chicago until early 2009 when it was sold. I knew that car since grade school around 1960 when I first saw it but could never strike a deal with the inheriting son of the man who had owned it down through the years. Are you sure the Gephart car is actually stainless??? I think it is a steel car that has been painted with maybe the Alsa Corp. chrome paint product. I don't think the stamped stainless is of a quality that could be brought to that super high luster like SS trim. The original cars when stamped were simple brushed sheet SS quality. Since Allegheny Ludlum was the original stamping company on this project, I surely expect that they retain ownership of their '36 two door. There were also other stainless bodies built including two '60 Thunderbird coupes, a '67 Lincoln 4dr convertible. See the article at http://www.alleghenyludlum.com/pages/companyinfo/stainlesscars.asp