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$300 1957 Ford/Meteor lawn art sega begins

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    $300 1957 Ford/Meteor lawn art sega begins

    Despite my best judgement, I picked up what is left of a 57 Ford Fairlane (or Meteor, not entirely sure which it is. Has a meteor grill and taillights, but Ford side trim) for $300 to eventually be a law/garden ornament.

    I found it on kijiji about an hour and a half away, and after a quick phone call, my wife and I (yes, she was in on this hair brained idea) went up to have a look.

    Super nice guy selling it who bought it for the engine and inner fenders for his own 57 Ford project.

    We have been looking for a 40s or 50s car or truck, or old tractor for a piece of lawn art at our property (using . A couple years ago I got fairly hot on a 64 Cadillac for $400, but we decided that was just a little older version of the road going cars we already had (86 Crown Vic, 89 Caprice Wagon and 80 Chevrolet C10), so I passed.

    Anyway, this car has a fairly complete body (missing the header panel between the grill and hood leading edge), all the glass, both bumpers, apparently all (so likely some random pieces) side trim, taillights (although broken), a steering wheel, guages, front and rear suspension kind of held together by a REALLY rusty frame (itself held together with chains) and that is about it.

    We paid the $300 and agreed to remove the hulk within a week.

    I was going to tow it myself, but after confirming a U-Haul car hauler weighed 2100lbs, a complete 57 Ford weighed about 3100lbs, and upon discovery that the Flex has a 4500lbs towing capacity (I thought it was 5500lbs), I decided against that plan (I had visions of the whole works either a. upside down on the side of the highway in three feet of snow, b. the rear suspension of the Flex separating from the car, and/or c. a transmission rebuild). I was going to rent a U-Haul truck, but the millage added up REALLY quickly. I finally found a towing company willing to do the job for $250, so I jumped on that deal and arranged a pick up.

    The next day I met up with the seller who had collected all the random pieces that were part of it (the grill, bumper, trim etc...) and piled it around the Ford and had moved it about 20 feet with his tractor to be more accessible. He had also chained the weakest part of the frame together so it didn't split in half. We quickly threw everything inside the Ford (except the hood as the steering wheel and seat were in the way), but it JUST fit in the back of our Flex and the tow truck arrived right on time. In no time, it was loaded up, I put a couple extra ratchet straps around the doors and trunk lid (to hold things together) and away we went.

    The tow truck arrived at our property with the car intact and we were able to unload it after a bit of screwing around (the TOTALLY flat rear tires, seized axles/rear wheels and crap dragging on the deck meant it didn't roll off. But we chained up the Ford to the truck's hydraulic lift on the back and were able to slide it back on the deck far enough to allow the rear bumper to drag on the ground as the truck drove forward with the deck up. All that enabled the car to be unloaded just fine in the barn for now.

    The plan (in the spring/summer) is to weld some extra bracing to the frame so it can actually be moved without requiring chains to hold it together and allow the front wheels to be somewhat parallel to the ground and in line with the rear ones. I thought about trying to swap the 57 body onto the 85 frame but: the wheelbase is 2" longer on the 57 (so the wheels would look really weird and in the wrong spot), and I don't have a hoist meaning I'd have to lift/jack the bodies up REALLY high to swap frames. Sketchy shit at the best of times and the body of the 57 is also REALLY rotten and I don't think would survive a lift, especially on jack stands/a homemade lifting frame. Then I'll weld the front clip back into some semblance of a car, hit it with a wire brush on an angle grinder, give it a Tremclad paint job and boom done! I'm also going to swap the rims and tires over from the 86 part car prior to junking as they hold air (for a few months anyway) and the current 70s/80s fat rally wheels look weird on the 57. A generally matching set of steel rims and tires that sort of hold air will look better than totally flat and disintegrated tires and mismatched rally wheels.

    After all that is done, we'll set it longitudinally on a couple railway ties and plant some flowers/bushes etc.. around it. That will have to be done after we tear down a severely tilted old barn as that is where a garden/fire pit area will eventually be. So, lots of projects in the works apart from constant car repairs.

    The random picture of the truck in the field is the vision for the 57 Ford. Not a shrine, but also not just an old car in the weeds. That sort of thing.

    So, I think for $550 all in (so far) I got a pretty good deal. If all else fails I have a cool steering wheel, guages, full set of glass, a usable (for someone) gill, a bunch of trim, $100 worth of scrap metal, a cool (to me) story and some memories with pictures.

    The other issue that has now come up is dreaming. 57 Fords/Meteors were never on my radar, but now that we have this heap, I've found myself paroosing ebay and Hemmings for 57 Fairlanes (that don't need the frame chained together, have more than 70% of their sheet metal remaining and actually have an engine and transmission). Although the skyline retractable hardtops are VERY expensive (and full of extremely complex, expensive and finicky servos and motors), the soft tops are more reasonable with hard tops (real hardtops, not post sedans) quite reasonable for very good drivers. Damn, another old car to add to the "maybe" list that wasn't there 2 weeks ago.

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    Last edited by Kaysboat; 01-09-2022, 12:57 PM.
    sigpic

    #2
    "You could save that" -my friend (probably)

    It's super cool, whatever it becomes.
    1985 Mercury Grand Marquis LS, "Maisa"
    1995 Chevrolet Caprice Classic STW, "Sally"

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      #3
      Definitely a good idea for that machine. Much better than being ground up and turned into a bridge beam, fridge, or a Kia.
      1990 Country Squire - weekend cruiser, next project
      1988 Crown Vic LTD Wagon - waiting in the wings

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