Early Ford V8 Meet Lake Tahoe 2013 preview 1936 Ford Towncar Delivery

Lake Tahoe will be the location of the 50th anniversary Early Ford V8 meet in June 2013. Larry Hove and I plan to display his 1936 Ford Custom Coachwork Towncar Delivery that we have been building for six years or so.

I have been very privileged to have had the opportunity to work with Larry who has a degree in art and a natural talent and passion for automobile design.
I guess his experience in wood working in the home remodel business has proved to be very valuable in the design and execution of the rear (cargo area) of this fabulous Custom Coach.

This project started out, as I mentioned, about six years ago or so with Larry's vision of using the convertible parts from one of his convertible sedans, and the remains of the Seibert Custom Coach that he had acquired years earlier, to create this 1936 Ford Towncar Delivery.

Larry and I have done some other things together over the years as well. Larry had design input on the 1958 style hot rod 1936 Ford Cabriolet that I built for Phil Blodgett. We also built a custom bodied 34-35-36 Convertible Sedan.

Larry also has a Mullens trailer that we have done a lot of restoration work on. He plans to equip it with some eleven spoke Clev-Weld wheels to match the wheels that will be fit to this car eventually.

Here are a few preview images of the 1936 Ford Towncar Delivery.

1936 Packard Hooper Bodied Limousine Coach

Doug,

We, Don & Judy, bought a 1936 Packard that had a custom Hooper Coach Builders Ltd. aluminum body, that had a body made in England.  The steering wheel was on the right side. We sold it to a man on Mercer Island who owned a travel agency business in 1968 because we were moving to Arizona and couldn't keep it.

Have you ever seen it?

We bought it for $1,500 in 1964 and sold it for $1,475 in 1968.

A WWII American Army vet in Bothell, WA was friends with a WWII English Army vet.  There was a large estate sale in England in 1963 with five classic cars, which included the 1936 Packard, one or two old Bentleys, and old Jaguar and the fifth old classic car that I can't remember the type.  They shipped all five classic cars over on a ship and sold them from the front lawn of the man who lived in Bothell, WA.

From the wind shield forward it was Packard, with a Packard engine and running gear, but from the wind shield back it was a custom Hooper Coach Builders Ltd aluminum body.  When you opened the back doors, there were brass plates above the running boards that said "Hooper Coach Builders Ltd, Coach Builders to her Majesty the Queen"  A wealthy Englishman had two made and, reportedly, one was destroyed during the bombings of WW II in London.

The turn signals were lite arms that popped up between the front and back doors.  It had a "Jack-all" system, with built-in jacks behind each wheel and you could dial "front-back- or all" from the engine area and it would jack up each area.

Don & Judy

Don & Judy,

Thank you for visiting my site RestoRodsToGo and submitting your "Ask Doug" inquiry. With the help of a friend and former chair person for the Pebble Beach Concours d' Elegance Glenn Mounger, we located an ad for the car you are inquiring about. There wasn't a specific link for the ad itself on the Packard Club site, so I placed a copy of the ad with a link below, to the Packard Club advertisement for the 1936 Packard!

Doug

Packard Club

Car Show at the Sequim Balloon Festival

The car show featured a mix of restored classic cars, street rods, vintage cars and resto rods. The majority of them were street rods from the 1930s to the 1960s.

There was a pretty good turnout on Saturday. I'm guessing that there were about 200 cars.

Awards are supposed to be a $500 photo shoot for best in each class for each of the days, Saturday and Sunday as I understand it. Also included in the awards, was participation in the reflections ceremony after dark when the winning cars of the car show lined up along the pond amongst the hot air balloons.

It was the first Sequim WA balloon festival/ hot gas and gears show.  The live music was great as was the weather on Sunday evening. Unlike the evening before, the wind was calm enough Sunday evening to allow the balloons to inflate.

1941 Cadillac Convertible rust repair sheet metal reconstruction

1941 Cadillac Convertible rust repair sheet metal reconstruction

Rust repair using sheet metal, formed, and welded, to duplicate the original construction of your classic car, hot rod, or muscle car, is one of the most important aspects of restoration. It is like the foundation of the automobile. Care must be taken, all the way through the process to insure that the desired results of fit and long lasting protection against re-occurrence  are achieved. Sheet metal rust repair is sometimes very involving in a high end restoration project.

1936 Chevrolet Manufacturing Assembly

1936 Chevrolet Assembly Line
This is fascinating to watch these guys work around these massive pieces of manufacturing equipment without any modern safety measures, only common sense. Everyone is aware of what is going on around them and maintains their own margin of safety.

General Jumbo Restoration Cleveland Welding Wheels

Hello Doug,


I ran into your website after doing a search on General Jumbos and I was wondering if there is a possibility you can help me or
guide me in the right direction.


I have what I believe to be a set of Cleveland Welding Wheels aka General Jumbos, two of the wheels have some bad pits on the outer wheel and I would like to restore the wheels so I can run them on my old Chevy. The pits are pretty deep but have not gone through the wheel itself. They are on the inside area of the wheel, possibly the tires held moisture.


I was wondering what would be the best way to either change out the outer or if there is any way of fixing the pits. I have contacted
Stockton Wheel and they say they can change the outer but they want to weld the spoke to the outer. Do you think that's a good idea?


The wheels I have are a 15 inch 10 spoke and are a 6 lug, they do fit my Chevy. I would like to restore them like the set you have pictured, chrome inner and black powder coated outer with the caps being chromed also.


I have included a couple of pictures of the set of wheels I have. Thank you for taking your time to read this and any information would be appreciated.


Regards,


Gerardo

Gerardo,
I don't know which blog post you were reading on my web site. If you were reading about the Chevy 9 spoke wheels and saw the picture of the one that looked finished. That was a process called Cosmichrome. The process was a failure. There may be someone in your area that is capable of applying the material properly, but of the 4 wheels that I had done, only one had reasonably good adhesion. The other three pealed when I pulled the masking tape. The absolute accuracy of application is extremely critical, and unfortunately, the guy that did mine, failed to meet that critical accuracy.

If you have access to someone capable of applying the Cosmichrome, it would be acceptable to weld the centers to the rims and then do your finishing.

If you plan to chrome the centers and paint the rims, I would advise you to put them together with insert nuts in the spokes, as I did with the 11 spoke wheels. Do your fitting  with the insert nuts in the spokes, and countersink your fasteners into the rims. That way you can chrome the centers a lot less expensive than doing the whole wheel and then painting the rims after.

Either way you go with your restoration project, it will be an expensive and complex process. Reaching your goal will be very rewarding with some very attractive and unique wheels.

Doug

1964 Corvette Coupe Restoration Part 2

1964 Corvette Coupe Restoration Part 2.

Restoration of a 1964 Corvette Stingray requires some different skills from restoration of a metal classic car, or muscle car.

Dealing with rust is a challenge on the Stingray as well, but it is limited to the windshield aperture and chassis etc.

The windshield opening structure was rusted and released from the fiberglass, and had to be cleaned, treated and re glued to the fiberglass. This was accomplished fairly easily in comparison to what it might have been, years ago, when we didn't have the modern products. Now we have POR15 to encapsulate the rusty surface and provide a solid substrate to apply urethane body panel adhesive to. These adhesives are used in place of welding at times, on body panel replacements, in the collision repair industry.

I actually brought this car to a much higher level of fit and finish than it was from the factory originally.