[37 Coupe]

When I was a kid before I could drive I knew what most old Fords were by building AMT model kits.The '37 Ford coupe was never popular enough back in those days to have a model kit produced like the '32.'36 and the '40. I knew the '37 coupe because a neighbor kid 3 or 4 years older than me drove one to high school. His coupe was at this time 23-24 years old but pretty beatmnechanically he was always having ignition problems ,don't remember if it was the sixty or 85 hp.One issue he had was the windshield and the windshield frame was really detiorated. The local Ford dealer took in a really clean gray '37 coupe and it was on there back lot back row,towe bad engine. He heard about it and couldn't believe what a nice car it was but they would not sell it to him said it was spoken for. The service manager had a deal with a local friend / stock car racer to pull these cars and not sell them to anyone but his friend. Guy had an engine that he would put in his latest and run as long as the current Ford body would last.Nothing unusual from anywhere else in the country,I imagine. The neighbor kid couldn't even get to the front widow frame until it was sledged hammered out. Years later I became a co-worker and old car friend to the stock car driver and he lamented over the early Fords he wrecked and especially that gray coupe which was the nicest.He thought he never paid much more than $45 a car but that could have been the "finders fee" to the service manager. While at our local car show a few years back someone asked me if my '37 was the neighborhood kids coupe now restored. After telling him no he said well it is still in town sitting since 1961.Hard to believe it survived and the mint one met its fate in one weekend.