Art & Inspiration Tall T Lawn Ornament

Last year I picked up the carcass of a very rusty late 26 T coupe. The story is that the previous owners grandfather bought it new, and in the late 30s his grandmother was learning to drive in it on the farm, she forgot how to stop and rolled the car into a ravine. The car was stripped for parts, before spending over half a century laying on its side. The property was recently sold and the yard was being cleaned out, and I hate seeing old stuff get scrapped, so I ended up with the remains. I was storing it in the back lot of the shop I worked at until spring...well in February the shop went out of business, and my previous boss came into the back lot on a weekend with a forklift and started clearing everything out, he decided it would be a good idea to ram a forklift through it and then tore off the drivers side fenders and drove over them. Fortunately I was able to get my trusty car hauler started in the dead of winter (around -30 celcius) , and rescued it from the scrapper for the second time.
I was able to salvage a few parts for my T touring project, unfortunately the only usable metal on the body was portions of the passenger 1/4 panel, and passenger A pillar, rather than cut it up I decided it would be a fun little project to make it into a lawn ornament, so I cobbled it together with some crusty leftover A and T parts I had laying around, patched up the major holes, and rolled on some tremclad paint(rustoleum). It still needs a roof insert and windows of some sort, but I needed it out of the garage so its "done" for the time being. Eventually Id like to track down enough pieces to splice together a good T body using this one as a donor, but thats not a priority at the moment. Anyways here are a few pictures of the "dramatic" transformation from junk, to junk that has been reassembled in the shape of a car.

 

Thought it was going to be a race car with all the lightening holes. Bet you'll get tired of people stopping by to buy it from you!
-Dave

 

Damn! That looks buildable.

 

You have repaired the body enough to make a driver out of it, looks a lot better than my yard art. HRP

 

That looks cool there , HRP .

 

Don't sell yourself short...mine lacks the structural rigidity of a tree growing through it haha, even a short trip around the block could be catastrophic!

 

Nice chicken coupe

 

There's no way I could sell this heap of junk to someone and still sleep at night haha. Not many are interested in the old stuff around here anymore. Its kind of sad that people are willing to pay more money for a rusted hulk to use as yard art , than a good buildable body.

 

haha Im already getting dirty looks from my neighbours, raising chickens in it might be pushing my luck a bit too far!

 

There is not one single piece of structural wood left in the old 4 door body, it's held together with bailing wire & cloths hangers. HRP

 

That body don’t look bad. And the chop looks sweet


Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.

 

I remember seeing "street stocks" race on a quarter mile oval out in Denver years ago. Most of them looked like they were held together with bubble gum and bailing wire.
-Dave

 

I see the previous boss is an understanding sort of fellow. Must have pissed him off once.

 

What kind of "dick" runs a forklift through a model T? No matter what the condition was...

 

Hell, a little buff out, a bit of wiring, the right stance, and a bullshit story mentioning some TV builder and it's off to Barret Jackson for a Sat. night monetary raping. Can hear the announcers now, "Wow, you only see 'em like this once, great piece of history well bought by the new owner, congrats'..."

 

oh I'm sure I did more than once haha. Although he didn't mean no harm by it, years of recreational drug use may have affected his judgement. I don't hold any grudges, and I should have known better than to store it there in the first place!