Spent the last week pulling this out of a barn. '55 Customline 2dr, 272 3spd with overdrive. It had sat in there for about 35 years. So long that the barn had settled enough that I had to use a chainsaw to cut the bottoms of the doors off to get them open. Groundhogs had sunk the floor, but the car was originally sitting on thick oak planks....which had all but rotted away. Since it was sunk pretty good, and all 4 tires were flat, I was pretty worried about the floors and frame, but I was utterly amazed at what I found. You'll see in the pictures below.
Rear wheels were locked up, so my old 8N was digging trenches to get it up and out of the barn. The rear wheels were just bulldozing stone, which was making it impossible to drag any distance with my small tractor. Once I got it out, I ended up having to make a cradle to put under the rear wheels just so I could drag it to where I wanted to.
It has some typical front fender rust, front and rear, and a little at the rear of the rocker and wheelwells. The doors don't sag at all, and you can close them with one finger. All the windows are smooth in their tracks. All the header panels, radiator core support, inner fenders and firewall are solid.
The car had mothballs in it for the longest time, but they had dissolved and mice had gotten at the headliner. Luckily, I don't see any damage anywhere else. Someone had put seat covers over the original seats, but the original coverings look to be in great shape. Not sure how long they would hold up though. Opening up the glovebox, it looked like new inside (NO MOUSE NEST!) and I even found the original Ford Warranty pamphlet. The rubber floormat is extremely brittle and just shatters when you push on it anywhere.
But here's where things got interesting. When I was finally able to craw under the car, I was surprised to see a thick layer of undercoating over the entire underneath. I mean over everything! The undercoating was still plyable, but once I got a finger under a spot I could just pull huge chunks off. Every single spot I pulled off, this is what I found underneath. Remember that this is a 100% original car, never damaged, never repaired, never repainted. Everything you see is factory paint.
The spare tire well, and a picture of one side of the rear trunk pan.
This is the underside of the front wheelwell, and a shot of the front panel underneath the battery area. For guys that know these cars, that is a bad rust area. Needless to say, I was just amazed!
The floorpans look the same...everywhere. I just couldn't get low enough to get a shot of them. The frame also has undercoating, so while it's surface rusted in a couple of areas at the rear, where the undercoating had recently fell off, the rest of it looks to be in amazing shape. Yes, I think I got the car out just in time!
The last time it was tagged was 1972. It ran and drove good when it was parked. Current plans, for the meantime, are to replace the entire brake system, get the engine running good (it wasn't stuck) and replace all engine rubber, put new tires on it and drive it the way it is, albeit not on rainy days. All the weatherstripping and rubber seals are in amazing shape, but I don't expect them to hold up once it sees sunlight. I'm really happy that it has overdrive, which has always been really hard to find for these older cars.
