Awhile back a good friend of mine said he was visiting an old friend of his who had an old Ford in his basement. He invited me to come check it out and see it. So I went down to check it out for myself.
The first thing I saw when entering his basement garage...
This car is in beautiful shape, covered in about a half an inch of soot from the owners oil burner. The place it was stored was also only a bit larger than the car, so I couldn't get many good pictures of it as it was.
Very little has been done to the car over the years. Les,the owner, had told me he had bought the car from the original owner in the late 1950s/ early 1960s. The man he bought it from bought it new very shortly after converted the car into a make shift pickup truck with a wooden bed in the back. The spare tire as well as the decklid and rumble seat were hung in his barn and he proceeded to use the car/truck to haul milk to to town with it through the war into the 50s. An added benefit to the car being considered a truck during the war was it received more gas during the gas rations. He then sold it to the Les who fit all the parts back together and had the car repainted shortly after he got it in the early 60s. While he was having it painted he had the engine rebuilt back to specs by Ford. He put around 1500 miles on the car up through 1975 when Pennsylvania started antique auto licenses. Then after getting the antique tags on it he drove it 78 miles, then parked it. Periodically he would come down stairs and crank the engine over and make sure it wasn't stuck. He started it again in the early 90s, but didn't drive it.
Looking over the car it really blew me away how well it was preserved. Zero rust anywhere on the body and a small amount in the trunk floor where the wooden bed started to rot it up. That in itself is basically unheard of in Pennsylvania.
A couple shots of the original interior still in place...
We talked a bit and he had expressed to me he really wanted to get it out and get it running again. I told him that I would be more than happy to help him with it. We decided to set something up for the spring to get it out and get it going again.
Fast forward to about a month ago, he decided to get the car out and he wants to part with it. I can handle getting it running but the cash end was out of my league.
First time the car had seen daylight in almost 40 years...
We fooled around with it for awhile and discovered the small resistor and fuse. So we jumped straight from the battery to the distributor. After that it started right up and ran like a champ.
I apologize in advance, the video is sideways and I don't know how to change it.
http://vid736.photobucket.com/albums...psdxmxtrfp.mp4
Another shot of the car...
Anyway, my dad ended up making a deal for the car. So it came home with us. The previous owner was really broke up (understandably) to see the car leave, but we will be in touch to get him to drive it around in the future. Had to snap a picture of them when we got it running and driving.
We will be messing with it and getting a couple small things sorted, mainly boiling out the 20+ year old gas out of the tank.
For now some parting pics of the car when we got it home...
