1932 Ford Coupe - Wire-Wheeled Five-Window

Sometimes inspiration strikes in the most surprising way. Rodney Payne can attest to that. Back in 2004, Rodney was looking for a five-window coupe body to kick-start his next project. He found it in the form of the running, driving, and primered Ford before your eyes. Originally, he planned to tear the car apart and build a clean, finished car out of it, but the more he drove it, the more he realized how well the coupe was built. The fact that the car was built with traditional old Ford parts and performed as well as it did pleased him to the point where he decided to leave the car as it was.

That following summer, Rodney was bench racing with his friend, Butch Boyette, and the guys over at Dayton Wire Wheel at the NSRA Street Rod Nationals. They were discussing their new "old-school" wire wheel that they had introduced at the show and the guys mentioned they needed an equally old-school car to run a set of them for promotional purposes. It just so happened that Rodney had just the car. He suggested they make the wheels in larger sizes than a 15 so guys could run tall, skinny bias-ply tires on them. Departing the show with the seed planted, the Dayton crew returned to work on Monday to discuss the possibilities with their research and development department.

Turned out that not only could the R&D department pull it off, they wanted to do so before the following weekend's Shades of the Past show in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. They contacted Rodney and he agreed to donate his car as the guinea pig for their new wheel line. Coker Tire also signed on and donated a pair of their Coker Classics for the fronts and a pair of Firestone stickies for the rear. With only a few days remaining before the show, the guys at Dayton were able to design, build, and complete the wheels.

Meeting just two days before the show, local jack-of-all-trades Josh Shaw lent a hand in painting the weathered Dayton Wire Wheel logo on each of the coupe's doors. From there, the Dayton crew mounted the wires and it was off to Pigeon Forge for the newly transformed Payne-cum-Dayton coupe.

The car was well received at the Shades of the Past show, so much so that Dayton decided to produce the wheels on a larger basis. As for Rodney, he has no qualms about how his little coupe was transformed. Instead of tearing a bitchin' car apart and rebuilding it as a finished car, he's having the time of his life ripping around Little Rock and beyond!

Facts& FiguresRodney PayneAlexander, Arkansas1932 Ford five-window coupe