Trulyvintage Posted July 25, 2019 Share Posted July 25, 2019 I visited the Early V-8 Ford Foundation Museum in Auburn, Indiana on Tuesday. I was dropping off a car & afterwards took a tour with Joshua Conrad. The (19) vehicle exhibit of Ford 1936 Models valued at more than $7,000,000 was the highlight. I watched “ Stainless “ go around the turntable for quite awhile - it was ...... mesmerizing to say the least ! Fascinating story is here: https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2017/05/24/stainless-steel-1936-ford-part-of-17-car-collection-donated-to-early-ford-v-8-museum/ Jim 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearsFan315 Posted July 25, 2019 Share Posted July 25, 2019 Very Cool !! thanks for sharing, i have been by that museum right off 69 north of Fort Wayne, when visiting family and the guy i got my 1929 Chevrolet from. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stvaughn Posted July 25, 2019 Share Posted July 25, 2019 Thanks for posting. Another reason to go to Auburn. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Restorer32 Posted July 25, 2019 Share Posted July 25, 2019 Saw this car many years ago at Carlisle. It, along with several other makes were done in stainless as advertising for a steel company, Allegheny Ludlum if memory serves. As I remember the floors were regular steel rather than stainless. Would be interesting to know how they would have held up if used as regular transportation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Restorer32 Posted July 25, 2019 Share Posted July 25, 2019 I seriously question that they were driven over 200k miles. Three of the cars were displayed at Carlisle in the early 1980's and I read the accompanying poster with interest stating that the floor pans were not stainless. If there is any area stainless would be good it would be in the floor pans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rusty_OToole Posted July 25, 2019 Share Posted July 25, 2019 3 minutes ago, Restorer32 said: Saw this car many years ago at Carlisle. It, along with several other makes were done in stainless as advertising for a steel company, Allegheny Ludlum if memory serves. As I remember the floors were regular steel rather than stainless. Would be interesting to know how they would have held up if used as regular transportation. I recall reading about these cars years ago. 6 were made after regular 36 Ford production was finished, as an experiment. They were displayed for a few years and then put into regular service, I think some clocked up over 200,000 miles on the road. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trulyvintage Posted July 25, 2019 Author Share Posted July 25, 2019 Two more links: 2008 Swap Meet Ludlum Steel Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Harwood Posted July 25, 2019 Share Posted July 25, 2019 There's no way they would have been polished like that when they were first built. It looks spectacular, but I suspect the guys who built it originally to showcase stainless steel would have scoffed at the polish job which now makes the stainless high maintenance rather than zero maintenance. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevin1221 Posted July 25, 2019 Share Posted July 25, 2019 I saw one of these several years ago at the Arthritis Show in Columbus Ohio. It was really a beautiful car that drew a lot of attention. Kevin 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trulyvintage Posted July 25, 2019 Author Share Posted July 25, 2019 4 minutes ago, Matt Harwood said: There's no way they would have been polished like that when they were first built. It looks spectacular, but I suspect the guys who built it originally to showcase stainless steel would have scoffed at the polish job which now makes the stainless high maintenance rather than zero maintenance. Agreed If you read the article in the link - It took 1000 hours of polishing to achieve that mirror finish. Just like vintage airstream trailers that are polished to that degree - you are removing metal to achieve that look. Though not practical - it is stunning. Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mercer09 Posted July 25, 2019 Share Posted July 25, 2019 can you imagine one of those coming down the road on a sunny afternoon? gives new meaning to "blinded by the light"! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xander Wildeisen Posted July 25, 2019 Share Posted July 25, 2019 I wonder if there is any bondo/body filler under that polish? 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesR Posted July 25, 2019 Share Posted July 25, 2019 Thanks for the pics. Very interesting, but I think I prefer the painted versions. My neighbor has a '36 sedan street rod. I might show him this pic and see what he thinks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
46 woodie Posted July 25, 2019 Share Posted July 25, 2019 Not to be a "doubting Thomas", but I have to agree with Restorer 32. 200,000 miles and not a ding or scratch? You can't drive a week on Long Island without some sort of ding, scratch or stone chip. Fixing a dent in stainless is really tough, if I remember correctly there were only a handful of shops in America that could repair a S.S., Delorian body. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Restorer32 Posted July 25, 2019 Share Posted July 25, 2019 And you can't put any DO NOT TOUCH magnets on it at a show. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StillOutThere Posted July 26, 2019 Share Posted July 26, 2019 I know this exact car going back to Palos Park, Illinois in the 1960s. A schoolmate's father, Dr. Jerome Vlk, had owned it for several decades, possibly having been the original driver to have had the car from A-L to test. The car had in excess of 200,000 miles on it when I saw it in their carriage house at Wolf Road and 123rd Street. House and outbuildings still there as of last summer. Mr. Vlk was a renown dentist having several patents. He had a small car collection. I now own the '52 Spohn Custom ("Spohn Palos") that he had. Father died I believe in the '70s. Mother died age 99 about 10 years ago. Son, Geary, died 2 years before I found the Spohn with a following owner. Yes, the car body did have a few (not many) minor bumps and scratches when parked. Put on blocks in the dirt floor carriage house having already acquired bad rust in the floors and enough scale in the Chicago area -driven frame that the car had to be unsafe. I was in contact with Geary many times regarding the SS Ford but a Chicago collector talked Mrs. Vlk out of it for significant money. When Mrs. Vlk died, a collector who had lived nearby and done assorted home repairs on the property was given the car. The Ford most certainly is incorrectly, non-authentically restored. IMO it would have taken a very good rust free original or restored '36 Tudor with which to mate the SS body to do the job. I'm glad I didn't get the SS Ford due to the restoration involved. And believe me, the Chicago owned /driven Spohn Palos is also taking a life savings to restore, this time AUTHENTICALLY. Yes, somewhere in a buried box from 50 years ago I do have a pic or two of the exact same '36 Ford in the carriage house. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Dobbin Posted July 26, 2019 Share Posted July 26, 2019 I saw an oriignal Ford COBRA at a show in Sarasota FL that had the paint stripped off and the aluminum polished to that degree. AWESOME! i wish I could find the pictures. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trulyvintage Posted July 26, 2019 Author Share Posted July 26, 2019 1 hour ago, StillOutThere said: I know this exact car going back to Palos Park, Illinois in the 1960s. The Ford most certainly is incorrectly, non-authentically restored. IMO it would have taken a very good rust free original or restored '36 Tudor with which to mate the SS body to do the job. I'm glad I didn't get the SS Ford due to the restoration involved. And believe me, the Chicago owned /driven Spohn Palos is also taking a life savings to restore, this time AUTHENTICALLY. Yes, somewhere in a buried box from 50 years ago I do have a pic or two of the exact same '36 Ford in the carriage house. Your opinion is based on memories from 50 or more years ago ... Based upon those memories - you draw a conclusion about the quality of the restoration ? Without knowing the specifics of who did the restoration ? Sure .... That sounds ..... reasonable. Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trulyvintage Posted July 26, 2019 Author Share Posted July 26, 2019 6 minutes ago, StillOutThere said: YOUR OPINION MAY VARY. I'll stand by mine, sir. Your opinion is not factually based: The Restoration Details Here Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Man Posted July 26, 2019 Share Posted July 26, 2019 I know I saw the three of these together somewhere? ACD Museum? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Harwood Posted July 29, 2019 Share Posted July 29, 2019 Stop digging, yo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xander Wildeisen Posted July 29, 2019 Share Posted July 29, 2019 (edited) Speaking of digging, still waiting Idaho. Edited July 29, 2019 by Xander Wildeisen (see edit history) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Restorer32 Posted July 29, 2019 Share Posted July 29, 2019 Lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chistech Posted July 29, 2019 Share Posted July 29, 2019 I can attest by my own experience, no woman would own one of these polished SS cars. I can hear them now, “look at all the damn fingerprints! Take it back, I don’t want it! If you think I’m cleaning this thing every day you’ve got another thing coming!” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Moskowitz Posted July 29, 2019 Share Posted July 29, 2019 Ok, I think you have seen I tried to delete some posts here. Interesting thread but it got too personal. You guys go to neutral corners and then duke it out in private. Just not what we want to see here. By the way, I was a DeLorean dealer and it was not THAT big a deal to handle the stainless. We handle a few jobs in our body shop. We never had any shined up that brightly that is for sure but did have one painted for the local Bud distributor who wanted in in Bud red! My best friend who has a restoration shop in Beecher, Illinois put a show stopping paint job on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trulyvintage Posted July 29, 2019 Author Share Posted July 29, 2019 Yesterday I picked up this 1930 Belly Tank Racer with a Ford Model A powertrain ... It was a (6) year build done in the period manner - it raced at TROG last year in New Jersey .... To achieve the weathered patina - Kevin ( on the left ) used Easy Off oven cleaner. One of the more interesting vehicles I have hauled ..... Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FLYER15015 Posted July 30, 2019 Share Posted July 30, 2019 You should bring this out to the "Dirt Drags" in Monte Vista, Colorado next May and run it against the 2 others that show up. One has a "Y" block 8 with 3 ,97's, and one has an Ardun head on a '30 "A" 4 cylinder with a 2 hole Weber. 1/8 of a mile on dirt. Starter lady has a great set of gams !!! Mike in Colorado Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trulyvintage Posted July 30, 2019 Author Share Posted July 30, 2019 Hi Mike, I don’t think the new owners are gonna be taking it to any tracks. If it does go to a race track it will be for some company promotion I would imagine. Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John348 Posted July 30, 2019 Share Posted July 30, 2019 (edited) On 7/26/2019 at 3:44 PM, Graham Man said: I know I saw the three of these together somewhere? ACD Museum? Maybe at a trade show? I had worked at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in NYC in the 90's and I also had seen all three together.I was a the foreman of a crew that assembled a rather large booth for Allegheny Stainless for a chemical processing trade show. The cars were part of their display. It was some time ago, but I would have remembered if they were polished to a high gloss. We had installed theatrical lighting to highlight the cars, and with a high polished surface the lighting would have been to reflective and counter productive. I had asked about the cars, and who owned them. I was told that Allegheny had owned the cars and were used for such displays at trade shows and also displayed at their corporate office. Edited July 30, 2019 by John348 (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Restorer32 Posted July 30, 2019 Share Posted July 30, 2019 As I mentioned before several of them were displayed in one of the buildings at Carlisle some time in the 1980's. I remember reading the accompanying plaque which said owned by AL and mentioned that the floor pans were regular steel. When I saw them they were definitely not polished and in fact looked a bit shabby. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Restorer32 Posted July 30, 2019 Share Posted July 30, 2019 Maybe the plaque said "Built by AL" rather than "Owned by AL". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now