Antique & Classic Cars Blog

If you’re from the land of 11,000-plus lakes, you know how much amazing stuff is packed in between Canada and Iowa, Wisconsin and the Dakotas. Everyone else learns little by little.

Amazing cars are part of the treasure trove. A friend got me an invite to this private collection, which houses several of the best 1932 Fords on this Big Blue Marble. Among the jaw-droppers is this race car built by the incomparable Harry Miller for equally-well-known-guy Edsel Ford. The car has a saucy history, including subsequent ownership by a wealthy Detroit man who fell in love with a hooker, tried to buy her freedom for $5000, only to lose the money and his life in the transaction. Rumor is the bad men controlling the young woman and others like her cut the man up and spread his pieces around the city. His widow sold the car years later. Unfortunately it was hidden away for so long that all the people who could personally verify it was the Miller-Ford car had passed away when it resurfaced, though magazine articles exist showing Edsel at the wheel of a car identical to this one.

Ford built three of these experimental distributors. One is known to exist. This is it.

It wasn’t just Willys building Jeeps to fight the Axis Powers. Ford put its awesome manufacturing capability into that supply chain too. A few got stamped Ford.

Here’s another little treat: Offy-powered genuine Frank Kurtis midget. This car weighs maybe 800 pounds and has 250 horsepower to throw it around the track. Them’s good numbers–under 4 pounds per horsepower. No crumple zone if you hit something immovable–you’re the crumple zone.

Waste not, want not. Ford even turned the leftover scraps from the wood portion of his car business into charcoal. Henry knew business.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 29th, 2008 at 11:30 am and is filed under Car parts, Car stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.