Grab a trio of ultra-rare stainless steel vintage Fords

It’s a good thing that Giorgetto Giugiaro’s design for the DeLorean DMC-12 is rather free of curves, because T302 stainless steel is not the easiest of metals to manipulate. Being an austenitic alloy containing 18 percent chromium and 8 percent nickel, this most common of stainless steels offers high tensile strength and corrosion resistance but is also harder to machine, let alone fix up. However, having shiny rustproof steels available at a reasonable costs was very new in 1935, and to promote its products, Pittsburgh-based Allegheny Ludlum Steel joined forces with Ford.

In 1936, this joint venture created six Deluxe Sedans, all of which were to cover at least 200,000 miles in the hands of Allegheny Ludlum executives until 1946. Four of these cars remain today, including the one displayed at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh and the one currently for sale, which was retained by Allegheny Technologies.

Ford and Allegheny Ludlum Steel continued their cooperation by building two stainless steel Thunderbirds in 1960 and three Lincoln Continental Convertibles in 1967. Allegheny Ludlu (now known as Allegheny Technologies) kept one of each, and it’s this trio that’s now going under the hammer during Worldwide Auctioneers’ Auburn Auction, held over Labor Day Weekend in Indiana on September 5, 2020. All complete with their original bodies and exhausts, offered at no reserve. Talk about the shining stars of any car show …