Search the Community

https://www.stlouiscarmuseum.com/vehicl e s/28/1950-ford-f5-tow-truck

1949 to 1951 Fords are commonly referred to as “Shoebox” Fords mainly because of the flat slap sided look of the vehicles. I refer to this custom as “Satin Slipper” for obvious reasons. This vehicle began life as an AMT 1950 Ford Convertible “Nostalgia Edition” kit before I made major revisions to it. I had a roof which I removed from a Tamiya Lexus SC430 race car hanging around and I thought it could look pretty good on the Ford body….. which it did, but with one major issue. The roof was too short to look appropriate on the standard length car, but it would fit fine if the body was shortened. So I cut 14 scale inches out of the side just behind the doors and before the rear wheel well. Now the roof fit fine, but the body seemed a bit too tall for my liking. So I sectioned a scale 4 inches out from the side of the car to bring the proportions more in line with what I thought was right for a custom like this. You can see the two pieces of the body I cut out, and on the scale ruler, you can see the sizing issues. Next, I flared the wheel wells with a mild ridge, front and back, so to give the side a bit of a sculpture, which is in contradiction to the style of the “Shoebox” Ford. The body was shaved of all moldings and ornamentations. I grinded back the tops of the headlights and built up the bottoms and added rounded sloping headlights from the new Mini Copper. On the trunk, the license plate area was recessed in to the vertical wall. The doors and trunk were opened and hinged and the hinges on the hood were relocated and rebuilt. Inside the trunk there is a parts box spare tire cover, battery and tools from the old AMT ’49 Mercury kit. For the taillights, I omitted the chrome bezel because they appeared too chunky….. It looks more streamlined without them…..I think. In the interior, the inside door panels were lifted from a 1962 Thunderbird. The area behind the seats, which came from my parts box, has a new panel built in with 6 speakers with the amps being built-in behind that (if it were a real car). The windows are made from acetate. The engine is an old parts box Chevy small block 283 with 6 deuces and trumpets. Wheels and tires also were resurrected from the parts box and the car was dropped down as low as possible. The windshield wipers are photo-etched items I had made from my design when I had the Timbs’ Special photo-etched items produced a few years ago in Scotland. Finally, the body was sprayed flat black to give the vehicle a satin sheen, hence the name, Satin Slipper. see the google album below satin slipper