why aren't original 32 roadster bodies for sale?

when was the last time you saw one for sale and how much was it. I thought Brookville re-popping them was going to make it easier.

where did they go and why do you suppose they are all gone? I mean, I have been searching for a while and they are simply gone.

what gives?

 

There was one at Turlock two years ago... sold for 7k and was a cobbled together piece of shit.

Don Dillard bought one... but it was more of a complete car... in pieces.
Sam.

 

Last bare '32 roadster body I saw was at Hershey about 4-5 years ago. Gutted, doors welded closed had been channeled at one time. Sold for @ $2,500 I believe. Oh, I did see two rough bodies in a guys garage, but they are going to be built someday.

 

Weren't very many to start with. I think the production numbers for 32 roadsters were less than a fifth of Model A roadster total which of course had the advantage of a four year run. In spite of the novelty of the flathead V8 production for the whole 32 year was not very high since the Depression was coming on strong at the time.

 

granted, but for what we call "not very many" there were still a bunch made and it just seems to me that a few years ago you still saw them for sale. Like in the last two years I havn't seen one. Not even on Ebay.

 

Supply and demand
There are more 32 roadsters registered and on the road in California than Henry even made.
The one at Turlock is the only one I have ever seen at a swap meet.

 

The Briggs-bodied roadsters sold by Ford in 1932 totaled a little over 12,000 sales and the cabriolet with roll-up side windows only sold less then 6,000 cars.

No wander GLASS 32's are pretty hot for the average guy.

 

So out of 12,000 bodies built... you know more than HALF are gone... maybe even 2/3erds of them.

That only leaves several thousand... and that ain't many.
Sam.

 

There probably aren't more than 2000 gennies remaining in any condition. I don't know where I got that, pulled it from my rear. But prove me wrong.

Anyhoo, one of my friends has 2-3 for sale in various states of condition. 1-2 are bodies only, one is a project that is 2/3 complete and was featured in Street Rodder several years ago while it was under construction. It is slated to be finished as a 1940-correct hot rod, with nothing newer than 1940. All are for sale, none are cheap.

 

Most of them probably get bought and sold without ever getting to a Swapmeet or Ebay.
Just like the nice 3W Dashes...

 

Are very hard to get here also. I suspect they are not advetised, but more a word of mouth thing, that is how I ended up with mine and that was around 6 years ago, it came right out of left field at me. I didn't have to think about the deal! Geoff aka Whodaky

 

Do you ever think about how many roasters were ruined in the roundy round circuit?

 

....or how many were melted down for the war effort?

 

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There are more 32 roadsters registered and on the road in California than Henry even made.

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More than 12 thousand reqistered and on the road in California ???

I find that hard to believe..............

I know of 7 Deuce roadsters (all steel original bodies) in the state of South Carolina..........mine included.

I saw 4 or 5 For Sale (original) at the LA Roadster show in 1991 or 1992.

I have had mine 25 years and sold one to get the one I have now......

 

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Most of them probably get bought and sold without ever getting to a Swapmeet or Ebay.
Just like the nice 3W Dashes...

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Bingo...

I bumped into a guy that I knew had 2. I asked him if he was ready to sell one. He said he was thinking about it. I wasn't ready to buy one, but I did. I bought it before anyone else knew it was on the market. Just dumb luck. If I wasn't ready to pay his price, he had plenty of contacts in the hobby to move it without having to advertize it.

 

Gooch,
The reason the 32 isn't "available" any more is the fact that during the 50s, 60s, and 70s, Hot Rod magazine, Hop Up, and about every other publication out there so glorified the 32 that people across the nation went scouring neighbor's garages, barns, and ditches for any remnant of the 32. It is also a "one year car", that was mentioned earlier. 32 stuff will not fit on 33, 34, or any Model A stuff.

How many people have you spoken with that have a mindset that "if it ain't a 32, it's not a hotrod". Maybe not on this discussion board, but at some rod shows.

The popularity (real or artificially created) of the 32 was why Brookville started their stamping presses in the first place. Just imagine the untold thousands invested in the dies for stamping out new metal. I work at GM, and 300,000 for tooling a door and fender is pocket change.

Last, it is true. There are more 32s on the road now than were ever produced. Metal ones. And, in the states of Pennsylvania, Michigan OR Ohio, there are more registered 32s than in California.

I guess my take on it is that they are nice cars (were), and the gennie stuff is 70+ years old. Finding any original metal is going to be pretty rare. Not impossible, but definitely rare. PLus, do you really want what everyone already has?

Just my 2 cents.

 

I bought mine about 4 years ago from a friend who had it stashed away for 30 years. He didn't have to advertise it, there was line several guys deep waiting to buy it. I was fortunate enough to be the first in line. He gave me a smokin deal, $15K for the whole car.

The only other one I've seen for sale lately was a stock 4 cyl car at the Long Beach swap about a year ago. The asking price was $45K.

 

I sold a steel 32 roadster body to buy my cabriolet body. That was about 25 years ago. The roadster might still be in Indy.

 

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...or how many were melted down for the war effort?

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Quite a few I'm thinkin'...

 

I got a whole stack of them in my back yard, want one?

 

sorry deuce it may have been in the US not Ca.cant remember.
anyway you get the point.

 

I traded a steel '32 2dr that needed to be totally restored for an origional '32 roadster that was in SAD shape. When I got it home I realized I didn't have the talent to do it justice. It sat for a few years and I traded it for all of the body work and top chop on my '32 2dr. The guy who got it has it completely cherried out and ready to go together. You'd think he had an outlet to the Ford factory in 1932 if you look at the pieces. If Brookville had their '32 roadster body while I still had it I might have bought some pieces and put it together. As it stands the body has been brought back with origional Henry metal, it doesn't get any better than that.

Frank

 

It isn't a new problem. Here's an article out of Hot Rod Magazine.

 

If you check the date, it's the September 1952 issue.

 

Gooch ..If you REALY want one , then, they are plentyful !! It is all about the $$$.

 

Yeah--early HRM's contain many wanted ads for '32 roadsters. I'd guess they became worth more than original new price at the end of WWII, and have been going up ever since. They also probably had an extraordinarily high survival rate, since they were coveted rods even before WWII in times when other early thirties cars were about as valuable as Yugos are to us.
Their survival problems had more to do with horrible incompetent modifications or gutting for race cars rather than the scrapyard...
Mine became a collector's car in 1952, when I was four, and has seen little use since then--it was painted in about '56, restored a bit in the early sixties...
It was a well known car in Pennsylvania, and not really for sale--my wife sneaked off, found the guy from overheard bits of rumors at Macungie, and had him skinned and cleaned in 15 minutes without my knowledge. Women are dangerous and untrustworthy...
32 thousand for a "B" with perfect body, ancient failing black paint, and 10,000,000 spiders on the bottom. The guy thought he did all right, I thought I did all right.
Except for light surface rust on flooring and dots of rust at lacquer failures, body is as perfect as a Brookville. I still don't quite believe I have it.
My Brookville body ( I had collected all parts for a Brookville bodied but otherwise all Ford standard roadster JUST before we found the original) is body 51. I asked the Brookville guy at York where they were now, and I believe he said about #550--so they're a few years away from eclipsing the original numbers. It looks to me from the mainline magazines that Brookville has pretty much supplanted the glass bodies for expensive cars, though.

 

Just got wind of a guy near me who is supposed to have 2 roadster bodies, a 3W and a 5W, I don't think any are for sale, but I hope to at least take pictures.

 

Yeah, take pictures of that.

 

Also, the bodies were crazy valuable for restoration a few years ago, and have been crazy valuable to rodders for decades. The huge growth of the various old car hobbies means that the great majority (along with all the decent fenders and three window dashes and...) have been assembled into expensive high quality cars. The few that are still loose bodies are in the hands of crazed speculators and profiteers. NONE are in bad enough shape to be cheap, as even the purchase of a nearly complete set of Brookville panels to reatore a gutted and rotted hulk is perfectly reasonable given the value of a body that has even a minimal original basis.
I think most high dollar streetrodders who insist on a really good original body have to get one by purchasing a finished car and parting it out.

 

It's funny ten years ago it seemed like everybody was piecing together roadster bodies,then brookville came along and the craze shifted to 3w's now with them making 3w's I guess it's gonna be 5w's .