This Model A Ford mail truck could deliver your project-car dreams
If you are like many vintage car fanatics you do a little window shopping from time to time. You’re often held back from chasing project car fantasies by the distance between you and the hulk of a car you’re looking at, thanks the unlimited reach of the internet, and the likely limited reach of your budget.
Bit it’s fun to think of what could be with project cars. And the latest to catch our eye is one that promises to deliver your dreams—after all, it is a mail truck.
Found on eBay, this vintage Ford was originally listed as a 1932 but the seller has updated the listing, as the very smart Model A community has chimed in to assist in creating an accurate account. The difference between a 1932 Model B and a ’31 Model A can be subtle to the uninitiated, as most are used to 1932 Fords all being Model 18 cars which came with the flathead V-8. The Model B was instead equipped with an evolution of the 40-horsepower inline-four that was the only engine option from 1928 to 1931.
If the engine was not the first giveaway as to the origin, other clues like the firewall-mounted fuel shutoff and front sheet metal make it all but undebatable that this is not a ’32. Another thing that is undebatable is that this project has potential to be cool all get out. I don’t think anyone is going to be surprised at the wear and tear on the wood body, but with some careful work it wouldn’t be absurd to think this could turn a lot of heads at a cars-and-coffee meet if it was mechanically sorted, and the rest more or less left alone.
The seller is being transparent in the listing and the Pennsylvania location means if you were to drive and pick this project up after the Sunday end time, you could stumble a little further and find yourself at the Hershey AACA fall swap meet, where you can find enough parts to build a Model A from scratch. So finding what you need for this—no matter what your plan is—should be pretty simple. What would you create with this as the start of your project? Tell us about it in the comments below.
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Not sure “pretty simple” and wooden body should describe the same vehicle.
Large sections of the panel areas have been replaced by plywood –compare the side-to-side inside photos and you can see it should all be made with stacked planks. The plywood looks pretty moldy/punky so I question if the integrity of any of the wood is there. Tin patches over structural wood on the outside also warn you.
So now you have a neat model to take patterns from rather than a usable body. People restore old streetcars, train cars and such built in this manner so the skill is out there. An accomplished home woodworker could likely do it too, but the hours are going to pile up on this project.
Sourcing the 1931 tin and metal parts likely isn’t too bad (being a Ford helps with that) so I agree with the author on that.
Unless you modify the mirror setup, this thing has bad blind spots as well. Outside of parade use it might be a hairy drive amongst even the slightest of modern traffic.
But it is super cool. Odds are it gets a really nice restoration, done up in postal livery, and sits in a museum/collection hardly getting on a road ever.
Glad I saw this as we have one in California and would love to sell it. Dick Gladden Smerican Classics 1(707)9192838
The Post Office Department (POD) made 3 buys of Model A mail trucks: 400 in Jun 29, 500 Jun 31, and 500 in Mar 32 (plus 2900 AAs). These were still Model As. The POD titled them in lots of states so there are lot of titling issues. My 31 mail truck is titled as 1929 but is a late 31 model a chassis delivered in 1932. The large sections on the side of the body were call met-l-wood: metal on the outside over a “laminated piece.” Also, the small panels above and below the slanted side window are also met-l-wood. This truck has most of the original hardware which is very valuable. The mirror mounts are original, the round mirror on the driver side is probably original but the rectangular mirror on the passenger side is not original. The top windshield appears original but is missing weather stripping. There is a book that gives history and details and the Model A Restoration Guidelines has details. Visit postalas.org for more information.
^Interesting stuff Roger.
That’s definitely going to be a project. For sure.
Come on folks, you know if someone is going to put the money and time into restoring the wood body, they’ll drop a SBC into it, a tilt steering column, some sort of billet wheels and paint it with flames or metallic paint. Probably plastic fenders too.
Then it will look like all the other credit card rods out there.
There was a really cool off road rural mail carrier model-A way back when. https://bangshift.com/bangshiftxl/1930-ford-model-rural-mail-car-sale-amazing-history-even-video-action/
Sooo cool !!!!