Old School Cool: 1936 Ford Deluxe Coupe

In the pantheon of old Fords, the ’32 coupe and various Model As are always favorites with hot-rodders and collectors. As the ’30s wore on, perhaps the popularity wore off a bit. But, how about a 1936 Deluxe Five-Window Coupe such as this very blue subject? It has a lot of style though maybe not a lot of operational capability, let’s look further. Calling Oakridge, Oregon home, this cool coupe is available, here on eBay for a BIN price of $25,000.

Ford was still BMOC (Big Man On Campus) in ’36 with 930K copies of all different body styles and earning themselves the number one domestic production slot. The Coupe, be it Deluxe or Standard, a three or five-window variety, knocked out 129K units – the five-window Deluxe version, such as our feature car, was responsible for 30K of that total.

The seller claims no rust, but that’s not the case with scratches. This one’s maybe a twenty-footer, maybe more, it doesn’t look bad but the finish shows like it has had run-ins with other garage objects. My guess is the paint job is a redo, probably from some time ago. The listing images are stilted, and not very revealing but the body, and the prominent grille show well.

Here’s a refreshing item for all of you Ford fans, this Coupe is still sporting its 221 CI flathead V8 – no stinkin’ Chevy needed here! The listing is confusing though as it states, “Rebuild Mere Flathead bigger version > 60hp“. Huh? The original was good for 85 HP so are we being told that due to various improvements, it’s now 60 more? Search me fish, an inquiry will need to be made. What would give it another 60 HP? The seller adds, “Headers and new exhaust, Dual point distributor ( not working ), new potronics (sic), not installed but included with sale” Nope, that doesn’t add up, and to add insult to injury, this one’s a non-runner. The original three-speed manual transmission is still in place, the brakes are from some version of a ’40 Ford, and jolt-wise, we’ve got twelve volts via an alternator conversion.

There’s one small shot of the interior. In, is a new seat cover and custom steering wheel, out are the door panels – not really needed on a hot rod, right? The good news is that it’s a compact environment and needs little attention.

The appeal of a car from this era, as we have discussed before, is probably limited. I’m getting to be an old guy (some would tell you I’m even beyond that) but I think the attraction here is for a group of more senior enthusiasts than me, so that limits the potential pool. There are a lot of things one could do here, getting it to start being job one. But then, maybe just some cosmetics and refreshing would do the trick. Super slick paint jobs look great but having an aged one, that has suffered a few foibles, has its attraction too – you know, what me worry? Anyway, those are my ramblings on the subject of this 1936 Ford Deluxe Five-Window Coupe, what are yours?