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Fifties Forty
John Corbett and his wife, Roma, courted back in the ‘50s, while John made really good time between the street lights in Azusa, California, in his ’40 Ford coupe.
Like many ‘50s rodders, John had to sell his last hot rod, another ’40 Ford coupe, in 1971 in order to keep up with a growing family. He couldn’t stay away long and built himself a sweet Deuce road- ster, but the roadster just didn’t fill that burning in his belly for the rod he drove in his youth. John and Roma had no choice other than to sell the roadster and go looking for a ’40 Ford coupe. John wanted to build a clone of his rod from the early years he could drive, drive, and drive the wheels off. He wanted to start with a car that was similar to what he found back in the ‘50s. He found an unrestored, but clean, black ‘40 Ford coupe in a collection from Virginia and shipped it to his home in Ridgecrest, California. for sound, a fake alternator, custom wire looms), but he just couldn’t find a pair of Evan’s heads so he went with a pair of home-polished Offys. John had planned on running around in the car stock for six months or so, but the years of non-use changed his plans (the car was well stored and dis- played, but not driven regularly). A rusty fuel system quickly led to doing a full rebuild.
He wanted to build the car like he had in the ‘50s, but still wanted a safe and reliable ride so some modern chassis parts made the grade. The front suspension is a full Chassis Engineering setup with a CE dropped I- beam, CE front transverse leaf, the stock steering, disc brakes, a CE antiroll bar, CE shocks, and CE rear parallel leaf springs hanging a Ford 8-inch. Back in the day, John was known for his crazy flat motors (like a 331ci beast with a monster crank), until he slipped in a small-block Chevy for the first time. John decided to go back to his flatty roots for the ’40. The car’s 59a flatty looked good, so John took her to his local machine shop and got her swinging 260ci with hardened valve seats installed. John topped the engine with home-polished Offy heads, an Evans three-pot intake, a trio of 97s, an alternator in a generator body, a Mallory unilite distrib- utor and a set of Red headers. A T-5 five-speed manual with overdrive was mated to the old Ford block to keep the flatty peppy, but highway friendly. Once John got all the mechanicals right, he filled all the holes in the firewall and slathered the under- side with a nice coat of flat black for the chassis and shiny black for the sheetmetal. The ’40 was delivered with really nice paint on it from the ‘60s but it had some flaws on the upper passenger door so John re- sprayed the door.
The rest is the old paint, which gives the rod the right look. John took off some god-awful bumper tips and re-chromed a few NOVEMBER 2010 33 things, but the rest of the outside is basically stock. Tan is the accent color of choice (the steelies and interior), because back when John was just out of junior high school an auto body shop he worked at gave him a large supply of tan paint. John painted everything (engines, wheels, dashes, etc.) tan to keep the tradition alive. Sadly, no one was giving him the paint this time around. John knew three things before he started on the interior; the original ’40 seat was staying and he was stitching the interior, and the window frames would be chrome. John painted the dash infamous tan (and black), added an old three-gauge pod, and kept the factory steering and cleaned up/replaced the knobs and trim. John also used to run his rod on alcohol (a switchable system), so he faked the old system with a pressure pump in the interior and uses John stitched the tan Ultraleather and tweed interior around the stock seat, interior panels and headliner.
The stock radio in the dash looks good, but tunes come from an ipod compatible unit in the glovebox. The last luxury touch is the factory rubber floor mats. It’s pretty much a given that everybody here digs old cars or we wouldn’t be street rodders. Like many rodders, John is drawn to street rods from a life spent on rodding. Almost every car guy has great memories of their first rod, and we all spent a lot of time dreaming about what it would take to make that rod perfect. Sometimes we get our perfect rod right off the bat, sometimes we wait until we are older and have more cash, but if you’re like John and Roma you get your dream rod back then and now you have a sweet clone. Sounds like street rodder heaven to us.
