I've taked about so much vintage race car stuff on here that you guys likely don't remember that I own a '64 Ford Custom Tudor sedan. I bought Ellwood, my buddy named him, on eBay from a car dealer in Ellis, Ks in '03 and had him shipped here. He's a completely stock bare bones-er like a farm couple would've bought back then for driving to church and such. Other than having a crud filled leaky gas tank, the original 223/3 on the tree powered old guy runs like new. The body is basically solid, interior is shot, front end bushings car dry rotted but he's drivable as-is. I've had several plans as to how to build it...a 460 powered sleeper, a 5.0 EFI powered cruiser just to name 2, but every time I gathered most of the parts, another cool idea came along and my plans changed. With my going back to racing, Ellwood kinda got back burnered in a corner of my driveway. With money always in short supply I decided to sell it along with all of my '64 parts...and I have a bunch, a month ago. Last weekend, I moved it to take pics for eBay/Craigslist and the minute that I slid behind the wheel and fired the 6, I started to grin. Selling that beat up Ford became the furthest thing from my mind as I remembered the fun times I'd had driving this one. So after thinking about it most of this week, I've developed "non-plan" What I'm going to do after my race car is prepped for '08 is to install a good gas tank my buddy offered to me for free, install one of my two pot M/Cs, buy a new battery and drive him. Whenever I have some free time and am in the mood, I'll add some of the 'good junk' lying around my garage like a Hurst shifter, better rear springs, an un-bent grille, a set of underdash gauges, a T-Bird disc brake conversion and gawd knows what else. The point will be to keep him as close to driving condition as much as possible to keep my enthuiasm up and by using my parts supply spend as little as possible. My buddy offered me free storage for the winter tonight and he wants to peck away at a kink in the right rear quarter. If so, cool, if not, no big deal. Ellwood won't be a rat rod, but just a neat old driver. Most of y'all at least seem to have a definite plan for your builds. Has anybody just gone with the way the wind blows and done a car this way? Jan
The Jalopy Journal
