History The Jimmy Summers 1936 full fadeaway custom rescue and resurrection

I'm going to share this restoration of the Jimmy Summers fadeaway 1936 Ford Coupe story here on behalf of Jim Bobowski aka bubba67, the owner of the car.

I have been in contact with Jim during the restoration of the car and have shared some information about the restoration on my Social Media and on the Custom Car Chronicle. But since the car was discovered here on the HAMB it makes total sense to have the Full Restoration story here as well. The text is written by Jim, so the "I" in the text is Jim, and not me .


This incredible saga starts on May 11, 2009 when Carlos started a thread called “Any old California guys know this car?“ and attached ta series photos of a 1936 Ford chopped coupe with fade away fender remains rusting away in a field in Ohio.
All Carlos knew about the time was this "The story I have on this car it was Summers built in 1946 and was sold to a GI on his way home from Korea and driven to Ohio in 1951 . Was Maroon in color" He was looking for some more information on the old Custom.






I immediately recognized this car was the Jimmy Summers built 1936 Ford coupe from the very early 1940s. Only a very few photos of this car had been shared back then. A few in the old Dan Post publications, and a very nice photo in one of the Don Montgomery books. But the car was so distinctive with its unusual full fade away fenders and raised rear fender. That even with the whole front ent missing the car could be positive identified as the Jimmy Summers restyled 1936 Ford Coupe.






I immediately set out to reach Carlos to see if he had any contact info own the current owner of the car, to try to find out if the Coupe could be bought. I would love to be able to put this historic Custom back into how it used to look in the early 1940's.
After many attempts unfortunately it seemed like the owner would not part with it….

More coming soon...

 

Subscribed!

 

x2! Thanks, Rik.

 

@Rikster - Thanks a ton for starting this thread for @bubba67 … Much appreciated! … I’m along for the entire journey!

 

Neato.

 

Incredible story! Thanks @Rikster.

 

Fantastic. Thanks Rik and Jim!

 

This will be good, looking forward to seeing the resto pics.

 

Following.....

 

Thanks in advance for sharing the history @Rikster and @bubba67

High praise for the respect given to past excellence...

 

Subscribed. Can’t wait for the story. Snowman ⛄️

 

Wow that thing was fancy in back in its glory days !!

Can’t wait to see the resurrection

 

This going to be good, methinks.

 

I'll be watching!

 

From Jim...

So just to wrap up the fast recap, after unsuccessfully attempting to purchase the car and never even receiving a response from someone, I read a posting on the Hamb thread as well as on the Custom Car Chronicle in April 2010 that the car was sold!

These are the pictures that were posted of the car finally being drug out of the field by the new owner and delivered to its new home.









To say I was completely disappointed would be an understatement.

It was good to see the new photos though. The new photos were a bit larger than the super small snapshots posted in 2009, and they showed how much body rot there was on the bottom of the car from sitting in the field for a good number of years. It also showed a bit more of the "missing" parts as the front fenders and fade away fender section that were supposedly stored inside the car. And the new photos showed that very well might be the case. The car looked bad, but salvageable, if handled by the right people.

Then in 2016 I saw an ad on the Custom Car Chronicle that the new owner had decided to put the car up for sale.
I reached out to the owner but he was very hard to get a hold of and it did not really seem like he wanted to sell the car at all.

Almost a year later, in 2017, after trying numerous times, I was finally able to strike a deal…

 

I am looking forward to this...

 

I need more! I really want to see how this came together. I'm so glad it did, but I want to see the details of the restoration.

 

From Jim...

One of the concerns I had was probably the same concern that many Hamb members, as well as custom car historians had, which was if the Summers hand made front fenders, etc. were still with the car. Or if they were stolen like had been reported.

When I had finally contacted the seller he sent me these never before seen crappy cell phone pictures showing all of the parts that came with the car after he had pulled from the field.



After carefully looking at these pictures I realized that basically all of the original parts, front fenders, hood tops, hood sides, bumpers, fender skirts, garnish moldings, etc. were still with the car. I became excited to make the purchase.

The question as to how much of the original car remained, was answered, basically the car was in bad shape, but complete.

On a sidenote, the chrome garnish moldings must have been stored indoors because upon pick up we noticed that the chrome was still in very nice shape.

The car was picked up in Ohio and brought directly to Schuchart Customs in York, PA to assess what we had just acquired…

 

Jim,
Good find and restoration. It was very nice to be able to see it drive out of the building upon wrap up of the GNRS.
Kudos to you for having the foresight to see this iconic Kustom through.

 

Looking at this pic, I suddenly feel the need to check my records to make sure my tetanus shot is current.

I can't imagine anyone even thinking "hey, I can fix that" ... well, maybe Jeff Spicoli since he has access to his fathers tools but this is WAYYYYY beyond anything I would ever consider tackling.

Seeing how it turned out is nothing short of stunning ... I am turning in my tools and will never stand to pee again

 

Beautiful that the original parts were there!
Having said that....
I congratulate all involved in the saving of this important custom.
Not for the faint of heart.
Torchie

 

Wow! Glad to see the car was saved and am looking forward to following along with the rebuild. I remember seeing the pics of the car as-found and was sure glad to see pics of in done at the GNRS.

 

From Jim...

We were very happy to see so many of the original parts still being there that when the parts arrived at Schuchart Customs, we decided to loosely bolt everything included together.
Not only because we wanted to see exactly what we had, get a good visual of what the car originally looked like and set a starting baseline. Plus we also thought it would be cool to let people see it all in one piece for the first time in over 60 years.

 

From Jim...

After enjoying the bolted together remains and dreaming about how it would look all finished it was time to get really started. The Custom was disassembled, and off to the sandblaster she went !

 

What a challenge you accepted! Great job

 

Brave!

 

Incredibly Kool!!!

 

I commented on this car earlier. Jimmy Summers was a highly talented body man. I feel he would have a gleam in his eye knowing that his talent is still being sought out today.