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The theme of this car should be "with a little help from my friends"
Well my project car has been just that for about 20 some years. I purchased the car from Bob Abrew, a local chopper builder and former Hot Rodder. He did some extensive bodywork to the car several years before I ultimately ended up buying the car. Bob sectioned, chopped, rounded corners, roll panned the car and did several other modifications. Some I liked and others I did not, but the price was too good to pass up and I have always been intruiged with sectioned cars and the chalolenge they pose in terms of proportiones and just making them look cool. There really aren't too many sectioned fords that I have seen that I like. Anyway once I purchased the car the first thing I did was change the frame out, Bob had a late model Camaro clip on the front that put the wheels out too wide for what I was looking to do. So I managed to get an original chassis out of a wrecking yard and proceeded to cut the front end off and replace with a Fatman Mustang 2 frame stub, also adding a Maverick rear end at the same time. Then came the tri angulated four bar and the firestone air bags on all four corners. In order to get the car to lay frame we had to build the tranny and rear end tunnel to accommodate the lower stance. Once that was done we did some light body work and shot the car in black primer. Then it was off to my good friend Kent Langendorf’s house where he worked on making it a runner. We put a late model fuel injected 5.0 motor with AOD tranny, fast reliable and air conditioned. I really struggled with outing this drive train in the car as I was torn between traditional custom and modern convenience. You can tell which way I ultimately went. I do not regret my decision but still have a big appreciation for flatheads and strombergs. Anyway Kentand I (mostly Kent) worked on the car feverishly trying to get it ready for 2003 Billetproof we fired it up the night before and made it to the show (see pic). That is Kent on the left and I’m the squirrelly looking guy. From there I started to work on the interior. While I was happy with the car in general there were some things that I really wanted to change about the car. The first was the grill shell and roll pans. To me the car needed bumpers, but putting bumpers on a sectioned car is a tough one because many times they just look out of proportion. I tried many different choices, Pontiac, Desoto, Karman Ghia, but in the end we decided to go with the stock bumpers just turned upside down. Another good friend of mine Danny Angel helped me at his shop, we spent a couple of late nights and managed to get the bumpers mounted and the grill cavity reworked. Still some final touches need to be sorted out but you get the idea. Finally the last couple of modifications that I want to make to the car are being executed by Gilroy Chop Shop’s Eric Limones. When I took the car to Eric the first thing he said was we needed to re chop the car and I agreed, so check it out. The car has a completely different look than before. I knew I wasn’t happy with the chop but really was not sure how to go about getting the look that I wanted. I knew I wanted the back glass to lay flatter and wanted more of a stretched look. I had seen several of Eric’s chops already and just gave him the green light to do his thing and I’m convinced he fixed my car. I really like what he has done so far and we have agreed on some other modifications to the car and I will keep you posted.
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