Colleyville, Texas, oil and gas financier Don Butler had always wanted to own a classic 1940 Ford coupe. Then one day while surfing around on eBay, Butler ran across an advertisement for a 1940 Ford standard coupe somewhere up in Oklahoma.
"The sale price of the car seemed to be ridiculously cheap," Don said. "The owner stated that the coupe had some body damage-apparently, a garage door had fallen on it during a big storm, but he said it could be fixed!"
Four hours later, Don and friend Mike Braswell arrived at the seller's house. The owner said he had been overwhelmed with so many e-mails about the '40 he didn't have time to answer all of them, much less pull the engine and transmission out of the coupe before selling it. He appeared to be a little frantic.
"The car was painted sea foam green with yellow wheels but had no interior. After examining the damage, we figured that it could be fixed," Don said. "Next, we asked the owner why he wanted to take out the engine. Once the guy cranked it up, we realized why he wanted to sell the car without it. That thing had to have had a fully built 500-plus-hp Chevy small-block underneath the hood!" Finally, Don convinced the seller to let him have the car as it was. "For the next two weeks, I had a ton of fun burning up the old set of tires," Don said. "There was no way to get the car to hook up-just a whack on the throttle, and I was John Force!"
At first, Don had intended to do a quick interior makeover along with adding some new wheels and tires. But that soon went out the window. "All of my street rod buddies wanted to give me advice," he said. "It almost evolved into a 'build by committee' project."
Luckily, Don listened to some of the "experts," one of them being Bill Rucker, owner of American Iron Horse Motorcycles. Bill was fortunate enough to have the talents of bodyman/painter Jeff Long on his payroll, who wanted to do the coupe for Don.
"That turned into a two-year project because of the regular work schedule at the plant. All the paint and bodywork on the coupe had to be done after hours," he said. "My 'posse' and I would show up about once a month at the plant and throw our two cents in-like peaking the hood, slicking the doors, smoothing the decklid, and eliminating the vent windows."
Jeff was finally able to spray the coupe in House of Kolor deep burgundy cherry and silver. With that done, he sprayed on a set of two-tone orange and yellow scallops, and airbrushed and 'striped them.
Next, Jerry Slover, owner of Pete & Jake's up in Kansas, recommended Don use Halibrand wheels, and also recommended Heritage, Missouri's Jack Huff to re-assemble the '40.
When it came to the interior, local upholstery talent Craig Ward stitched the coupe using Interior Supply (ISS) Ultra Tan soft leather with ostrich inserts on the ISS custom bucket seats, headliner, door panels, and trunk. Other items include a polished ididit six-way steering column, leather-wrapped Billet Specialties steering wheel, Dakota Digital instrumentation, a Hidden Audio/Panasonic audio system, and Vintage Air climate controls.
Last but not least, friend Charlie Dear finalized all the details on the car just prior to the 31st annual Fort Worth Rod & Custom Car & Truck Show, where the '40 won First Place Street Rod and Best Interior.