Vintage Rod: 1936 Ford 5-Window Coupe

In it’s prime, this 1936 Ford five-window coupe hot rod pictured above must have been one of the coolest cars around. With deep-dish aluminum slotted mag wheels, a “Corvette” V-8 and “big-n-little” tires it carried some serious street cred! We’re told the picture above was taken over 30 years ago. Now, after being owned by only two families all its life, the seemingly well-preserved car is up for sale here on craigslist in Santa Barbara, California with an asking price of $16,995. Thanks to Ikey H. for steering us to this vintage find!

We’re not told exactly when the car was first turned into a hot rod, but the seller does state that the current engine was first installed in June of 1966. Wow! The body looks remarkably solid, but strangely the seller provides few details and they “haven’t put in the time to check out the vehicle’s condition.” I think that’s a lot of money to be asking for a car you can’t be bothered to check out further.

I’m guessing the color on the bottom of the trunk lid was the color of the completed hot rod, but it looks like the paint has been partially sanded off at some point. I was trying to decide if the body had been chopped or channeled at all and I couldn’t decide. Can any of you tell? If so, it’s pretty subtle.

Using this shot as a gude, it appears that the body is in pretty nice shape; again, take a look before proceeding (which the seller says they will let you do if you send them an email). I wonder if the chrome is just dirty or pitted?

Obviously a custom job, the pleated interior is presumably vinyl. While it was nicely done for the time, it’s starting to show it’s age near the edges of panels. Would you leave it alone or start over?

The dash is another area where the age of the work done to the car is showing. It looks fine from a distance, but if you look at the close-up shots, the paint finish has many cracks and flaws. Again, this becomes a question of preservation of history versus state of appearance. It’s one thing if the car were remaining in the family, or had some great historical significance, but how do you feel about preserving someone else’s history? As a side note, I found out through research that Hawk tachometers from the 60s were well-thought of

The seller states that they are sure the car no longer runs, and since it’s been stored for at least 20 years, whoever ends up with it will have to be careful with their preparation before starting it. Perhaps the selling family knows why it was taken off the road in the first place? There are many questions to be answered about this car – do you think they are worth exploring?