Back in the early 70's, I had a guy hanging around my shop that expressed interest in building a hot rod (sorta like one of the cars seen in my shop at the time). He said he knew of a Ford panel truck up in the bush north of Edmonton, Alberta, and that it was for sale. A week later, and a bottle of pretty good whiskey (yep, those deals really did exist), and the new owner and I, had the car loaded on my trailer headed for home. As you can see, the car was a sedan delivery, and it had been used for a decade or so, as the local school bus!! The roads in the area were terribly muddy all year, and the little sedan delivery traversed those roads hauling 6 kids to school, sporting a set of tire chains! The roads were that bad----the chains leaving only the bottoms of the rear fenders intact! The new owner set about installing a rebuilt 283 Chev engine, Powerglide tranny, and a Chev rear end. He ran out of enthusiasm shortly thereafter, then put the car in the basement of his newly built home on his acreage, where it would sit quietly for over 30 years. I had tried to buy the car from him over the years, but his standard comment to me was "no, it isn't for sale"!! Well one day, the phone rang---------and---!!! If there's any interest in the rest of the story, let me know and I'll finish it. Pic is of the car in this guys basement, buried amongst some of his other treasures
Did the car come with any rear taillight brackets that were extra's? My pop's has been looking for them for a couple of years now. Chris Nelson Kansas Oh yea, finish the story...........
So the guy with the delivery calls me to tell me that he had recently suffered a heart attack, and was attempting to clean out some of his treasures. I knew of a young fella who had indicated to me that his dream car was a 33 or 34 Ford delivery, but due to their rareness, he figured he'd have to be satisfied with just that----dreaming about one! I'll never forget the look on his face when I told that I not only knew of such a car, but that car was in an old guys basement, and that it could be bought!!! I arranged to have a look at it for the young guy and his dad, and needless to say, it got bought on the spot! Enclosed pics are of the car being extricated from the basement and loaded onto the trailer for the trip to it's new home The pic of the old guy blowing the dust off the car is priceless. The dust is actually chicken feed dust, that accumulated as he was pouring the feed from feed sacks into pails (to feed the chickens) That was 2 years ago, the car has since had all the wood replaced, a metal finisher built all new lower sections of the car, ---new steel fenders, hood and grille shell have it almost ready for final bodywork and the paint shop Oh yeah, there's a new full house flatmotor almost completed. It'll hook to a 39 Ford toploader tranny, 4" dropped axle, new aftermarket frame, and of course some 40 Ford juice brakes. Ah yes, I think the young lad's got the right idea!! Last pic show the car with new sheet metal and grille
Besides it's really cold up there, you have to make a run for the garage and hope you make it before you freeze up solid. It's almost that bad around here.
I'm not going near the shop today.............. windy and snowing. Windchill up here this afternoon is -41C........... that's pretty well -41F for those of you not yet converted to metric.
Sorry about no pics being posted on the Ford Sedan delivery story started last Sunday afternoon! Living north of the border, the weather can sometimes get a little harsh! Seems at -45 degrees Centigrade, my server (Cruz Internet) had a major equipment malfunction, (associated I expect with this sudden temperature drop!) Anyways, they got it back working yesterday, and I'm now enclosing the pics of the old guy blowing the dust off the car after we had extricated it from his basement, second pic shows the car at Xmas time with new front sheet metal, etc.