The Ford Barn - A bodied 32

The Ford Barn (https://www.fordbarn.com/forum/index.php)

- Early V8 (1932-53) (https://www.fordbarn.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=4)

- - A bodied 32 (https://www.fordbarn.com/forum/showthread.php?t=250138)

There is a supposed 32 ford for sale on craigslist that the seller says is a factory built early 32 with a model A body. He says that ford did not have the 32 bodies ready in time, so early 32's were built with A bodies. I never heard that story. The car is on Treasure Coast Florida Craigslist. What do you guys think. Rich

I have never heard that story either. Can you post the link to the ad?

Charlie Stephens

I'm in west palm . If it close I'll take some pics for you . I don't want anymore .

Ford made about 400 real model A's in 1932 from left over parts.
I had one many moons ago.

Were they titled as 1932 model year vehicles?

Pure horse %$#&. This audacious claim conveniently ignores that the '32 model Job #1 was delayed until March,1932 awaiting a production version of the V8 engine. By that time nearly 40,000 Model B engine and transmission assemblies had been produced commencing in November,1931 only to be warehoused as no Model B passenger cars would be built until April, 1932. The implication of this claim is that somehow Ford, Murray, and Briggs were unable to come up with '32 bodies despite being able to produce vast quantities of everything else require to build a complete car.

After seeing the ad, the claim is even more laughable as it claims that '32 model Fords were produced in January, 1932 when in fact, Job #1 was on March 9th. That is a well documented fact. Evidently the claim is based on the naive notion that model years and calendar years are one in the same.

Could someone answer my question? Pete? David? As I have said many times before, I'm an 8BA guy and don't know much about the older cars, but I am curious about certain things.

Nothing but a Model A Sedan hot rod with a deuce grill shell. Pictures 7 & 8 on Craigslist clearly show an A chassis, nothing like a '32.

someone build a rod and got a rebuilt title as a 32. doesn't make it one. looks like a 13 year old built it.

The grill shell is '32.

I,m sure he also has some beach front property in Arizona for sale too!

looks like a 13 year old built it.

Don't insult 13 year olds! ;-)

The Ad is laughable. It reminds me of a guy in our Ford club that had a 39 coupe that he had a 40 title for. His story was that Henry Ford shipped all the "left over" 39 parts to some assembly plant and they put them together and sold them as 40s. Yeah right!!
Imaginary urban legends.

tubman,

Whether or not a Model A either produced or sold new after December, 1931 was titled as a '31 or of the year in which it was sold would depend on the jurisdiction where it was titled. Today and for a long time, at least in the U.S., it is illegal to sell a vehicle as something more current than its actual model year, but there are examples out there that demonstrate that that may not have always been the case. In part it would depend on the honesty of the selling dealer as demonstrated by the paperwork that they provided to the buyer from which the title was obtained. Also, there were at least two major car market states (Illinois and New York) at that time that did not issue titles, only registrations which could add to the confusion.

Years ago, A good friend of mine encountered a great example of a dealer fudging model years to avoid a loss on an unsold prior model year vehicle. He saw a used 1954 Corvette for sale in the local paper and was interested in buying it and knew enough about the minor differences between the '53s and '54s to know that it was in fact a '53 sold new and titled as a '54. He bought the car and wisely wanted to have it re-titled as a '53. He started with the original selling dealer who was no help, likely because he did not want his malfeasance exposed. My friend turned to his state's title office headquarters and found little interest in righting this wrong even though the car's VIN was clearly within the range of published '53 Corvette VINs available from GM. He then appealed to GM directly and they proved helpful giving him all that he needed to convince his state's title people that the car was indeed a '53 and a new title was issued accordingly. I'm basically ignorant of stovebolts by choice, but not so much so that I was ignorant of the difference in worth between a '53 and '54 Corvette, even thirty years ago. (I recall that the original selling dealer ended up in a lot of hot water with both GM and the state title people.)

And then there are all those period examples of where model years spilled over into the following calendar years (1932 Fords were still being produced at one U.S. assembly plant in January, 1933 and abroad as late as 1936, for example).

In other words, I doubt if there is an all-encompassing answer to your question.

I remember hearing about motorshome having chassis older then the model year they were sold. Ran into this on a brake job. The story i got was the motorhome builder would buy up a large amount of chassis, then build off of the pile for a number of years.

This mess advertised as a model A 1932 ford is just a bunch of bs

Quote:

Originally Posted by skidmarks (Post 1666756)

That is how the duesenburg was assembled and sold.

I was just wondering if it was possible to have a very late built Model A that was officially titled as a 1932 vehicle. It sounds like it's possible, but it would still be a Model A. Just to add to the confusion, I had a 1000 gallon a minute pumper that was titled as a 1974 Seagrave. It was built on a 1973 Ford F900 chassis and cab.

Anybody remember the Jan and Dean song titled “Schlock Rod”? The builder of this thing must have taken that song to heart. What are those two ray guns bolted to the radiator supports? Even better, take a look at the second to last photo, this idiot takes shift boots to a new level.
Why anyone would waste time, energy and money on a POS rat rod is beyond me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tubman (Post 1666704)

Were they titled as 1932 model year vehicles?

Mine was. I was the second owner.