MTFCA Forum

Just for fun lets see some pictures, what is the roughest car you or a buddy has restored back to its former glory?

I don't have pictures available now( pre digital), but my '22 was purchased after it was in a barn fire. All the wood in the body had to be replaced, along with the upholstery and top. No glass survived. The body was repairable, along with the wood in the wheels.

Here is what I started with and how it turned out 13 years later.

My '27 touring, Dixie

Project began with sad body only, missing right hand doors, and a bunch of body sheet metal, had to find fenders and other pieces, plus find a chassis, engine, drive line, axles, wheels, top irons, etc,!



Was missing seat risers and pans and front backrest metal, so Howells came to the rescue; had to patch the hinge areas were the original ones had been cutaway with a torch! and then find doors and hinges.


After some fun....finished as our favorite tour T.

My most difficult restoration was a 1907 REO Model B. Sorry, no pics. It was for the New Braunfels Conservation Society and was about 35% complete. Vic Groah in CA made the 4 wooden fenders, Gary Hoonesbeen turned 30X3 clincher rims into 28 x 3s and Johnson’s of OK RESPOKED THEM. Took me 10 years...

Not Model T but a 1924 Rollin restored 1997 to 2000
Before and after pictures.

1923 Runabout

My 1925 Indiana Truck found in the loft of a barn when I was 16. I only found the wood cab and sheet metal for the body and later got the rear half of the frame from the woods in the next county where it had sat for years. Took me over 20 years just to find part of a frame from another Indiana that I welded to the rear section I had so I could restore this truck.
1980
2012 First time out won 1st place and another award and ended up on the cover of a magazine. Only took 32 years from start to almost finished.

Here are some before and after pictures of my original Model T dirt track racer that lay in an open field from 1946 to 2010. I was able to salvage and use about 90% of the original racer.

1925-ish with a 27 engine and transmission. 2 1/2 years. The pictures are out of order, just wanted to point that out so you didn't get the impression the restoration didn't go the other way. LOL

My 1921 centerdoor.

I bought a 19 Star when I was 16 that someone had totally taken apart and then the garage burned down. After I got it home my mom made the seller, George, come and take it back while I was at school. George did put it together and turned out to be beautiful a year or so later. George was a Buick man and had some beautiful better than factory cars. I still have the owners manual for the Star if someone is interested. Frank

Not a Ford, and not a car, but -

Almost 14 Years ....... and still counting.

( ‘Life’ happened here .... )

(What the hell was I thinking ?)

One of the most phenomenal rebirths is my friend Joe's 1903 Rambler. Joe was in the middle of a 1908 REO resurrection when he found the Rambler chassis. He thought he could use it for trading stock to get a REO engine. He had an incredible knack for tracking parts down on the telephone before there was an internet. Finding a cylinder head for it sparked his desire to restore it too. Amazingly he found a body that had been reproduced 8 years prior and never purchased. He built a radiator which was a brass box with a zillion air tubes running through it. Within 5 years he had it running. The REO was a monumental task but reached completion that took 40 years. His energies certainly kept me interested and inspired. He built the entire body from a pattern on loan. I had the honor of hauling both cars from their previous homes. I covered the tops on each of them too.

Found in 2012, near to Reims France. It was a 1922 Model T with paper work.
It became a 1922 "Woody"

Andre
Belgium

Dan B wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 15, 2020 4:35 pm

Here is what I started with and how it turned out 13 years later.

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Mine started out worse than that. Took me 13 years also.