Projects A tale of 3 chops and the revival of the 41 to 48 fords

I would say the scarc'est ones are the 42, grills and headlight rings were painted , this was so they would'ent get bombed and the goverment needed all the prime material's for the war effort, I'f I remember , production stopped in late january when ford started to manufacture jeeps, if any body has pictures , please post. I remember seeing a picture of the last ford made at one of the assembly plants.

 

You are correct, this car started off as a '41 business coupe, I removed the short doors, elongated the jams to accept long doors, removed a roof off a '47 two door Sedan, and added a '39 Ford rear split window. At the moment, I have reshaped the rear wheelwell openings, and making my own skirts. The rest of the sheetmetal and rear quarter window will be hand made also. I'm sure many of you will say I should have started off with a Sedan, I would agree with you.

I will share more pics, once more progress is made.
Max.

 

Thank you for that. I thought I was right but figured no sense in arguing the fact. Now he's got the correct answer right from the source

 

This quote made me laugh, I'm doing a full kustom on a 54, but have never been able to get the 41 Merc/Ford out of my head. So I just bought a 41 Merc business coupe, just waiting on it to arrive from shipping. After the 54 is done, it will be styled like Bob Tormey's The Titian

I've located the 48 to 52 p.u rear, does anyone know how much drop this will give you in the rear?

 

details man we need details ...that is one sexy looking chop ...

 

Well looks like I'll be missing my Santa Maria deadline, but the car is almost ready for paint, I was going to bomb it around in primer for a while but decided to go ahead and get the paint job done, the car is going to be candy apple red and i am using a dark copper orangy gold base coat, I don't like using a silver base coat because the candy apple red ends up looking kind of pinkish, we took the doors off and decklid so we could paint the inner trunk lip, door jams and inner door surrounds, and trunk gutters, with a candy, you have to shoot everything asembled and there is no time for detail work. I'll try to get grease machine to post some pictures next week

 

update on Miguel's

 

Has this got a Jag front end in it?

 

Great thread and builds! Way back in the 70's a buddie and myself did this 48 but never got to finish it. We used a 50 Merc 4dr roof we found rotting away in the woods, it seemed to work out real good but the car just couldn't make up its mind if wanted to be a custom or street rod it had a big block chevy about mid way with the carb inside the car and you drove it from the back. Wish I could find it or hear what happened to it.

 

If you guys noticed, we lowered the mounting whole for the rear tail light aboat three and a half inches, this changes the angle of the tail light housing so a section will have to be cut out to correct this and at the same time , you end up with a shorter and more sutle tail light, we also removed the trim on the top of the tail light, I dig the stock tail lights and with a little work , they can be made to look good and is a different aproach to the useall 50 lincoln tail lights or the 46 bumber guard ones, all three aproches were used on traditional customs back in the day.

 

A lot of good inspiration for my 48 convertible. Im just in the parts accumulation stage now for a fairly decent old ragtop.

 

please post some pictures

 

Nope, it has the stock axle set at ride height. It may be the wide garage wheels that makes it look like it has an independent suspension. It will have a traditionally set up front end, with a dropped axle and most likely a flatter spring.

 

Oh man this is awesome! Any other pics of it survive??

 

Not really, its to bad because it was a neat car although a bit radical on the chop but the rest of the car was also. Full power tilt front end BBC 4spd 12 bolt rear set up like nascar with truck arms and coils with adjustment cans. The rear end was to wide and we couldn't aford to narrow it so we built the rear fenders to fit the M50 15's on it. The rear seat was a T-bird wrap around and it had a tilt/telescopic/ swing away steering coloum. Alot of mods to that car that we learned on. All bodie mods were done with a torch and coat hangers.. Wish I could find it or whats left of it but lost track of it over 30 years ago.
Sorry for the hijack of the thread.

 

On the contrary, this thread is aboat promoting these cars and the different aproaches to building one, so If anyone is putting together one of these cars, please feel free to post, by the way, dig the wicked chop and radiused front fenders

 

update on Miguels 46. Turned out real nice!!

 

Was going to try to have it at our King of Clubs drags but just couldent get it done in time

 

very... VERY nice!

Looking forward to see it out in daylight with a nice full profile photo.

The whole front end of the car looks stunning. Well the rest as well, but I always loved the Olds grille on a Ford... if done right.

 

looks great!

 

Thanks Rikster, I think leaving in the original lower piece on the grill helps alot, otherwise , the grill looks too thin for the poportions of the front clip, the lower nose piece was made with the front section of a spare hood I had.
I too love the look of the olds grill on these cars, it gives them a bad ass attitude and makes them look like a piss off prehistoric fish. thanks again for the compliment for I value your opinion alot.

 

Miguel, I never really noticed it before until I looked at the painted car today and went back to see the primer version. But what was done to the front wheel opening? It looks like it was flattened. In a similar fashion as on the Jack Stewart Ford, but then with nice round corners.
Did you do that, or was that on the car when you bought it?

 

Rickster we filled the top of the front fender radius, this is an old custom trick that gives the illusion of the car being lower and matches the bottom edge of the rear fender skirts and yes we flatten the sides of the front and rear fenders a little and took out the factory bow, the front gravel pan is a mariage of 47 ford and oldsmobile. the rear inner fender supports were narrowed also so they would match the new contour of the fenders. Rear tailight pods were lowered and narrowed I'll get Grease Machine to post some updated pictures of the car, still trying to figure out how to mount the rear licence plate, your imput would be of much value to me.

 

more pics update.

 

These cars are so easy to fuck up, not so easy to get it right on the money. I hate when the drip rails are removed. I get it, just don't care for it. And I guess this is the place to duck tomatoes getting tossed at me for this.

Am I the only one not feeling it on the Jack Stewart? From the front, it could star in the next "Cars" cartoon. Down the side, the fade away gig runs an angle completely different to the "mean" profile angle of the car. I"m not saying mean as in badass, the prevailing angle from front to rear. It changes at about 2/3 up the front fender. I get it that it's a survivor, I get the history, but after that I can't feel that one. It has several wonderful ideas, but ketchup is good, ham is good, ketchup on a ham sandwich, not so good. Flame away, but it's what I see. I'm glad it was saved, but...

 

looks like some guys don't get the point of traditional customs...

It's not about building a restorod or wannabe streetrod...
Making a custom is not about bag it and call it done either!!

The Jack Stewart 41 Ford had big influence on automakers and custom designers back in the days!

 

Yeah, I believe you're a bit backward there. Guys like "Bob" Gregorie and "Dutch" Darrin were a big influence on the custom guys along with several others over time. Not every example from back in the day deserves going to your knees in total awe. There's a lot of great ideas on the car but it doesn't "work" 100%. When you step back and it all flows well, perfect, moves you, you nailed it. There's a dozen or more in this topic that do that but not every single one of em.

And I did say I'm glad it's still around. Glad because technique and inspiration is still there to see, but not necessarily as a whole. They all didn't get it right every time. The very 1st version of the R&C Dream truck was so much better than the last. The fins were a fuck up IMO.

 

To answer your question" why the fuss over the Jack Steward car" I would start with the man himself; Him and his club were ensencial in changing the public image of hot rodders and custom guys, back then they were not wellcome by police or sociaty , they organized car shows , drag races and other events to help clean up the image of hotrodders, thanks to them , we enjoy a good reputation today.
Back then, owning a hotrod or custom was'ent like "Happy Days" but was more like " Rebel Without A Cause " for the most part , hotrodders lived in the L.A.basin and custom guys live to the south and north of the city and they did'nt get along , so alot of customs never left their neiborhoods because of the turf wars. With the exception of movie stars, most guys could'ent afford a shop to build their custom and had to do the work themselves and for the most part, these cars never got viewed by the public, that's why they are very few examples of early customs or survivors. Shure their were some kids at Van Nuys or Hollywood High that had some mild customs but for the most part , you never saw any full customs. What Jack did was give exposure to the custom world by displaying his car. Last year , I was fornunate enough to view the car in bare metal at the Grand National Roadster Show, of all the cars at the show , it drew the largest crowds of any car there. The metal work that was done to the car is unreal and probably could not be duplicated today because of the cost. I talked to Jack and asked him what it was like to drive the car arround, he answered " It was'ent easy, I never knew if I was going to get shot or knifed and was the reason I sold the car,back then it was'ent easy to own a custom, they had a very bad reputation and you ran a big chance of getting mistaken for some one else .
Let's face it , a stock 41 to 48 ford is a butt ugly car ,especialy the club coupe, in it's design, the upper section of the body is out of proportion with the rest of the body and kind of looks like Charlie Brown with a tard helmet on, but that's my opinion and we are all entitled to one.

 

'gooz, I get every word you're sayin, and that's why I'm glad it's around. Looking at TRJ 59 and reading the story, all of the peripheral things I understand. I was raised with a Father who was a racer/kustomizer/restorer, still do the shit today, have some personal and fond memories of my childhood around the Detroit scene. Perhaps I'm just too picky about things. Loved the execution, the technique, the lead, but it's not 'all there'. I was simply wondering if I was alone in those observations. I don't wanna dis Jack Stewart or the Ayalas, and clearly there's other examples of their work that does it better, no? Just thought I'd get a bit more aesthetic about the topic. The core idea is improvement, right? Add a bit of restraint, some talent, inspiration and you get magic...just not all the time.

 

"The core idea is improvement, right? "

^my comment is not in reference to Miguel's car, but in general to answer your question/comment the answer is no, it seems hardliner traditionalists are more concerned about keeping to the standard whether it was right or wrong. I don't subscribe to that either- each is entitled to his own. Maybe they are right and I am missing the point.

Again Miguel nice work and craftsmanship- turned out great! cant wait to see it in person.