Tag: 1947

1947 Ford Super Deluxe Packs Ford Racing Surprise Under The Hood, Oozes Restomod Swagger – Benny Kirk @Autoevolution

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Without further delay, this is a 1947 Ford Super Deluxe. And no, it does not come with curly fries. In fact, in fast food terms, this 1947 Ford’s underpinnings were the equivalent of a wayward fried cheese stick that fell under your seat the last time you went through the Arby’s lord knows how many days ago. In the frankest terms possible, it was warmed-up technology from before the Second World War.

The basis for which this 1947 restomod finds its basis made its debut six years prior in 1941. Why? Well, it was at that time that the United States decided to join the Second World War. Suddenly, factories building cars and trucks for civilians started building tanks, airplanes, and artillery pieces instead. In their day, the 1941 Ford series of cars and trucks came sporting either a 90-horsepower L-head straight six engine or the ever-present Ford Flathead V8. Service engines in their day, but what Roseville Rod & Custom of Roseville, California packed under this one’s hood dwarfs any engine from the 40s.

It’s a modern Ford Racing engine, a 302-cubic inch (5.0-liter) X2302E Boss V8 rocking goodies like forged steel pistons, connecting rods, and hydraulic roller camshaft and Ford Performance cylinder heads similar to those found on a GT40 LeMans racer. Needless to say, it’s packed with technology the average engine designer of 1947 would call witchcraft. Getting everything to work harmoniously required a nearly full body-off-frame job, stripping the car to its bare body shell without its quarter panels and just the bare frame remaining underneath.

From there, Ford Racing 302 V8 is ceremoniously fastened with custom motor mounts to the stock chassis. Don’t be fooled. This isn’t another Art Morrison frame with a classic body on top. There’s even a chassis number you can look up for yourself. With that sorted, a four-speed Ford AOD transmission was paired to the engine. Why? Because as Brian of Regular Car Review once said, “some call it archaic, I call it durable.” Safe to say, an engine this nice deserves a durable gearbox. This leads to a Truetrac 9-inch diff and 3.78:1 gearing

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Pick of the Day: 1947 Mercury 114x, a Canadian model in preserved condition – Bob Golfen @ClassicCars.com

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*The Mercury still wears its original coat of factory paint, the seller say*s

Canadian snowbirds are plentiful in Arizona this time of year, but this rare and unusual Mercury 2-door sedan seems to have roosted in the dry, warm climate permanently, judging by its remarkably original survivor condition.

The Pick of the Day is a 1947 Mercury 114x, which still wears its original 74-year-old paint and shows just 48,000 miles on its odometer, according to the Tucson, Arizona, dealer advertising the car on Classiccars.com.

The Mercury 114 was built by Ford of Canada for the home market as a more-affordable model, compared with the slightly bigger Mercury 118, the numbers noting the 114-inch and 118-inch wheelbases. The 114 was basically a rebadged and dressed-up Ford, although with a totally different grille treatment.

This sedan coupe, as Mercury called the 2-door configuration, is a rarely seen upmarket Super Deluxe version, designated by the x in its numeric name. It is therefore wearing some nice chrome accents and powered by Ford’s famous flathead V8, which in this model produces somewhere between 93 and 100 horsepower, the dealer says in the ad

Only a tiny percentage of the 10,393 Mercury 114s built for 1947 were Super Deluxe 114x models.

“The 1947 Mercury 114x offered here is one of only 34 produced for US and Canada, as noted in Jerry Heasley’s ‘The production figure book for U.S. cars’,” the seller says. “It remains largely original with only 48,000 original miles since new.

“The car is completely rust free and retains all of its original panels and floors. The paint is largely original and still shines very nice. It has multiple chips, dings, and scrapes from over 70 years of service. Both front fenders have had touch ups, but I cannot find anywhere else that has had paint work on the car.

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1947 Mercury Eight Is Flathead V8 Greatness With Rare Paperwork – Daniel Patrascu @Autoevolution

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Although probably not as many as rival GM, carmaker Ford has its share of skeletons in the closet. One of them is Mercury, a brand that has been around for about seven decades before being sacrificed to the altar of money-saving

During its time on the market, Mercury was responsible for making vehicles that, in some cases, are still sought after by collectors today. One such vehicle is the iconic Eight, a mid-range machine that came with that irreplaceable feel of classic design, seen on the cars made in the 1940s and 1950s.

The Eight was one of the brand’s heavy hitters and was made in a variety of body styles and rather large numbers. It’s unclear how many of them survive to this day, but if you’re lucky enough to stumble upon one in great condition, expect to pay a fortune for the privilege of owning it.

Lucky or not, we found one, sitting on the lot of cars of a dealer called MaxMotive. It’s a 1947 example, meaning a second generation, and it’s offered, in exchange for $60,750, complete with a very rare and collectible Operator’s Manual.

The car is a convertible, sporting a power-operated burgundy canvas that falls over a gray body and burgundy leather interior with a woodgrain dash.

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Pair of Wagons from Edsel Ford’s Collection Up for Auction – Tom Comerro @Hemmings

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Craig Jackson, Chairman and CEO of Barrett-Jackson, announces the sale of two wagons once owned by Edsel Ford II. Both are to be sold at no reserve by the grandson of the brand’s namesake during the Scottsdale Auction at WestWorld in Scottsdale, Arizona, on March 20-27.

The 1958 Edsel Bermuda wagon features recent restoration work and a transmission swap (from manual to period-correct automatic) carried out by Roush. The rear axle has new seals, bushings, and brakes, while the interior was updated with heat shielding, new carpeting, and seals to make the car more comfortable and inviting. Roush also replaced the original column-shift assembly, while keeping the stock steering column. The proper two-pedal system for automatics of that time was installed, and new control linkage was built.

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From the designer of the Mighty Mite came the rear-engine, front-wheel-drive 1947 Gregory – Pat Foster @Hemmings

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Gregory was a hardcore front-wheel- drive enthusiast. In fact, he was such a fan of front-wheel drive that when he designed a rear-engine small car for the post-World War II market, he made sure it featured front drive.

You read that right, the 1947 Gregory has a rear-mounted engine driving the front wheels, making it the most bass-ackwards automobile ever to hit the road.And yet its story is compelling. Gregory was an engineer with a passion for automobiles. Between 1918 and 1922, the Kansas City, Missouri, native built a reported 10 automobiles, all utilizing frontwheel drive.

Some were produced as touring cars, some as race cars, and reportedly all of them used a variation of the de Dion suspension. They were usually fitted with conventional engines mounted longitudinally in the frame, but with the flywheel end and transmission up front.Gregory barnstormed dirt tracks and county fairs for a few years, sometimes performing as a stunt driver.

His favorite car was one of his front-drivers powered by a Hispano-Suiza aircraft engine. He was that sort of guy.After WWII ended, Gregory, probably sensing greater opportunity in a car-starved market, returned to designing and building automobiles. In 1947, he unveiled a new small car with the engine—reportedly a horizontally opposed, air-cooled Continental four-cylinder producing 40 horsepower—mounted out back.

From that mill, a long driveshaft ran to the front of the car, where the three-speed Borg-Warner manual transmission and differential resided. Why Gregory chose this particularly unusual chassis layout is unknown, although it was noted that the rear-engine layout placed noise and fumes behind the passengers. The car was designed for easy servicing; in fact, it was claimed that the engine could be removed from the chassis by one man in less than an hour.

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Rarities, oddities, and Full Classics from the 1971 Hershey car show and car corral – Matt Litwin @Hemmings

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Digging into my Hershey memory bank led me to the discovery of another series of photos my father took of the AACA Eastern Fall Meet in October 1971.

Veteran Hershey-goers will quickly point out that the car show was still held within its original location inside what is now Hersheypark Stadium, which not only hosts summer concerts today, but remains the home of the town’s high school football team.

It’s also where the vintage race cars are now paraded in front of their class judges, and where the entertaining high-wheeler race is held during Meet Week (weather pending).A closer look at the pictures, however, reveals that some of the subjects captured on Kodak were not only rare examples, but also vehicles for sale on the east side of the stadium’s exterior.

Regardless of whether these images were cars on display or up for grabs, I couldn’t help but wonder where each of them ended up in the ensuing years. Enjoy this entertaining albeit brief look back in time.

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Ford Pilot 1947 – Not American I know, but a Flathead with a built in jacking system!

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Not American I know, but a Flathead with a built in jacking system!

Related – The Life Cycle of the Ford Flathead V8: 1932 – 1953

Not American I know, but a Flathead with a built in jacking system!

Ford Pilot @Wikipedia

Featured image from Wikipedia

End of an Era – 1947 Cadillac – Jeff Koch @Hemmings

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A pair of 1947 models from the extreme ends of Cadillac’s immediate postwar lineup

Cadillac’s 1947 lineup was the end of a chapter – one that began in the prewar era. Starting in the 1940s, Cadillac focused its energies. Gone after 1940 were the successful junior-division LaSalles nibbling away at the bottom end of Cadillac’s market share; so, too, the mighty range-topping, if slow-selling, V-16-powered models that were banished to the used-car lots of history.