A Brand-New Deuce -from Ford!

Some 75 years ago, as we all know so well,the Ford Motor Company introduced an all-new model: crisply styled and nicely evolved from the car it replaced, its biggest news was the V8 it carried under its hood. Today, of course, it's the quintessential hot rod, built both from increasingly rare original steel bodies, and from increasingly easier- to-find reproduction parts. But should you care to buy one, rather than build one, why not do as your father or grandfather might have done, and buy yours directly from Ford?

For a limited time -until they're all sold out -that's exactly what you can do. Ford has teamed up with Detroit Street Rods LLC to license 100 official 75th Anniversary models, which will be sold by special order through select Ford dealers in Canada and the U.S., and through Ford Racing Performance. The cars are a collaborative effort.

They're built and painted by Saleen Inc., of Troy, Michigan, the same folks who built the Ford GT, using steel bodies manufactured by Hot Rods & Horsepower of Connecticut, and brand-new Boss 302 engines from Ford. The cars start at US$165,000.

The first of the 100 cars, and the only one with fenders, was hand-built and then sent to the Barrett-Jackson Auction in Scottsdale, Arizona last January. It was signed by Edsel B. Ford II, whose grandfather Edsel headed up the design work of the original 1932, and it sold for US$330,000, with the purchase price going to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Edsel II's favourite charity. Ten of the 99 remaining production cars will also carry his signature, and come with a US$25,000 premium that will also go straight to the charity, but according to Jack Gerken of Detroit Street Rods, they're all gone.

"Of the twenty that have already been sold, the ten signed ones are spoken for," he says. The 99 cars will all be identical, except for their colour, and are being built as hiboys. They're currently in production, with the first Monday, May 7, 2007 -Old Autos -37 rolling off the line sometime in is committed to producing an additional 400 cars; while he can't yet While the Ford-licensed cars name specifics, he says that the are limited to a strict one hundred, cars will be tied in with companies Gerken says that once those cars or celebrities in honour of the are complete, Detroit Street Rods Deuce's anniversary.

story by Jil McIntosh