The maroon lacquer with red pinstriping exterior was reportedly repainted several years ago. It features a 4-piece hood, chrome bumpers, a chrome grille, dual headlights with body-color buckets, and a tilting windshield.
It rides on black steel wheels with V8-logo center caps, trim rings, and whitewall bias-ply tires.
“The bench seat, interior trim, and door panels are upholstered in brown vinyl,” the listing states. “Features include a tan vinyl floor mat and a floor-mounted manual shifter. Additional features include a keyed steering wheel lock, an original AM radio with a speaker, a body-color steel dashboard with a simulated woodgrain fascia, and a brown 3-spoke banjo steering wheel. The seller notes that some seams on the base of the driver’s seat are coming apart.”
The Flathead Ford is still the engine of cool for traditionalists in the Hot Rod & Custom Car worlds. Here on the blog I always like to feature items and articles that spread the Flathead word & its storied history. This article from Ryan at the Jalopy Journal is from 2006, and is excellent!
As we learned in our flathead Ford V8 story here: www.torqtalk.com/home/ford-flathead-the-first-performance-v-8, the Ford V8 was not initially a performer. Out of the crate in 1932 the 221 ci produced only 65 bhp and even by the end of its life in 1953 the 239 ci ‘flattie’ only produced 110. Note: The ’53 255 ci Mercury did make 125 bhp—still no big deal.
To make the Model A/B four bangers go faster several outfits had produced overhead valve (ohv) conversions it seemed obvious therefore to build something similar for the V-8. Enter brothers Zora and Yura Arkus-Duntov and the Ardun Mechanical Corp., New York. By 1945, their mainstay military contracts were dwindling and Zora approached Ford about an ohv conversion for the V-8 that over heated and was under powered. Ford showed no interest and so Zora went ahead anyway buying a couple of V-8s and designing his own heads with the help of engineer George Kudasch.
Rather than have the middle pair of exhaust ports asthmatically ‘siamesed’ into one, the Ardun, a contraction of ARkus-DUNtov, breathed better through four equally spaced ports. It was also compatible with the Ford block and valvetrain, used the stock cam, and had hemispherical combustion chambers and large intake valves for improved performance. Interestingly, the Ardun had short intake rockers and long exhaust rockers and was similar to the 1951 Chrysler Hemi but preceded it by four years when it was introduced in 1947.
The downside was trifold: The assembly was 12-inches wider than stock, it weighed an additional 60 lb and it wasn’t cheap being cast from heat-treated, 355-T6 Alcoa aluminum alloy. However, the heads produced between 25- and 60-percent more power depending on tuning—the original had but a single carb. According to Zora, “I had about 230 hp on gasoline by 1949.”
Zora might have been a tad optimistic with his figures. After almost two years and more than 1,000 hours of testing on his own GE dyno, the Ardun-headed engine put out only 160 bhp. ‘Build it and they will come’ was Zora’s philosophy and he attempted to market complete engines and conversions. A ‘racing’ version was said to produce 200 bhp at 5,500 rpm. The conversion sold for a hefty $500 and installation took six skilled hours. Two thousand inquiries resulted from a feature in Popular Mechanics but few sales materialized.
Restoration expenses once again far outstrip the value of the finished product
If there’s anything that owning a “project vehicle” has taught anyone, it’s that restoration work almost always ends up being much-more expensive than originally anticipated. And while it’s rewarding to be part of an extreme makeover, sometimes it means taking a loss when it comes time to part ways and offer that vehicle up to the collector marketplace.
Many classified listings these days include some variation of the phrase, “You can’t build it for what I’m asking.” And that statement rings painfully true in many cases
A private seller on ClassicCars.com in Longview, Texas, is offering an 80-year-old custom Ford at a fraction of the investment that it took to restore. The Pick of the Day is a red 1941 Ford Super Deluxe two-door coupe complete with receipts totaling $100,000 and a selling price that is significantly lower.
“The price to build was right at $100k,” the listing states. “Invoices are available which will list all of the individual components plus the shop labor hours.”
The rebuilt Jasper flathead engine alone, now having accrued only a few hundred miles since installation, reflected an expenditure in excess of $10,000, according to the ad.
A classic, elegant cat that shows sophistication and yet has a mean streak underneath the hood of the car.
Ford is a car brand that has been around for a very long time. The Ford Model B range changed the look and feel over the years. We will be taking a look at the history behind this classic car as well as how it turned into the iconic 1932 Ford Model B which was not a good seller back in the day but nowadays, people cannot get enough of it.
The Ford Model B is a better version than the Model A. They took everything that was right with the Model A, removed all the problems, and thought it would be a good idea to add in a 4 cylinder engine which was a first for Ford.
Ford Motor Company produced two different models with the Model B name, Ford Model B 1904 and Ford Model B 1932.
In 1904, Ford introduced the upscale touring car. It had polished wood and brass trimming. It was built at the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant. It was Ford’s first car to use the front-engine layout that had a large 24 horsepower 4-cylinder engine positioned at the front of the car behind a conventional radiator.
It was a 2-speed transmission and the engine was a 283.5CID.
It was priced at $ 2 000 which is equivalent to about $ 57 000.00 today. It was a high-end car that was produced for three years. The sales of the car were slow due to the price of the car and it was replaced by the derivative model K in 1906 which was cheaper for the consumer.
Ford’s Flathead V8 is iconic in the hot rodding world because it was the first V8 that was affordable for the average Joe.
And for the time it was very innovative. We’re taking a deep dive into the Ford Flathead on this build by Keith Dorton of Automotive Specialists (https://www.automotivespecialists.com) who is putting together a period-correct Flathead with extra stroke and compression to bump up the horsepower.
PLEASE NOTE: In the video when the engine is on the dyno the valve ticking is pretty noticeable. In person in the dyno room you could barely hear it. I suspect this is an artifact of the shotgun mic I use on my camera.
It really seems to accentuate sharp sounds like that. Thank you. Some links that may help your build: Engine Builder — Automotive Specialists
How to spot a Ford pushrod V-8, from flathead to 460
Let’s say it’s your lucky day, and you’ve found an engine laying around in the back of a garage with an unknown history. Or maybe you’re trying to discern which engine was swapped into a car, and all of the aftermarket parts between the fenders are muddying the waters. In any case, the first step is always to identify the engine
Determining precisely which engine you’re looking at under the hood can be difficult. Heck, sometimes a brand produced more engine families in the same decade than you can count on both hands. If you’re pretty sure you’re looking at a Ford V-8, the following guide will help you make the proper ID of your engine so that you can dive deeper into the ID.
This article, focusing on Ford passenger car V-8s, isn’t a full history on engine tech or applications. It’s intended as a primer to help you narrow things down and, in turn, enrich your gearhead knowledge. We’ll focus on the biggest visual keys to look for when you come face-to-valve-cover with eight cylinders of Detroit metal.
After sticking with its well-received previous model through model year 1948, Ford completely redesigned its namesake car for 1949. Save for its drive train, this was an all-new car in every way, with a modern ladder frame now supporting a coil spring suspension in front and longitudinal semi-elliptical springs in back.
The engine was moved forward to make more room in the passenger compartment and the antiquated torque tube was replaced by a modern drive shaft. Ford’s popular 226 CID (3.7 L) L-head straight-6 and 239 CID (3.9 L) Flathead V8 remained, now rated at 90 hp (67 kW) and 100 hp (75 kW), respectively.
The 1949 models debuted at a gala at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City in June 1948, with a carousel of the new Fords complemented by a revolving demonstration of the new chassis. The new integrated steel structure was advertised as a “lifeguard body”, and even the woody wagon was steel at heart.
The convertible frame had an “X member” for structural rigidity. From a customer’s perspective, the old Custom, De Luxe, and Super De Luxe lines were replaced by new Standard and Custom trims and the cars gained a modern look with completely integrated rear fenders and just a hint of a fender in front.
The new styling approach was also evident in the 1949 Mercury Eight and the all-new Lincoln Cosmopolitan.
There aren’t many cooler parade vehicles on this planet than vintage fire trucks. Everybody loves to see an old Ford fire truck cruising along at slow speeds, showing off its impressive equipment and timeless charm for kids of all ages to soak in. Perhaps with a little bit of candy, of course. But this 1941 Ford fire truck that’s up for sale at Marshall Goldman is apparently good at more than just making people smile at parades.
That’s because instead of filling the bed with a bunch of fire-fighting equipment, this vintage Ford has been transformed into the coolest motorcycle hauler we’ve come across in some time. Right now, the truck is carrying around a mock-up of a vintage Indian two-wheeler, but we’d certainly replace it with the real thing if it was our truck.
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