Well, I will be censored. I have a 94 Ranger, that I have been looking at doing the 36 Ford body on (Fiberglass kit, as I found an original body, but they were asking WAY too much, 10K). I had never seen the 40 kits for these. How is it licensed/titled? (assuming you checked into that, even though it isn't street yet)
Found several 50-52 chevy's last year, but I don't have a place to build it (hence my name), as the garage was built for a model T or model A.
Hi! I'm sorry I didn't see your post until now or I would have filled you in on the details of my truck, but now that you have my attention...here goes.
I had originally seen a body package from a place in Florida called US Body Source. It wasn't so much a kit as it was a body that could be fit to a Ranger or many other small pickup frames. Since I have wanted a 40 for years, I was really interested but as I investigated the product, I found they took a lot of liberties with the styling of the truck and it would be almost impossible to make their body package look like a stock 40 Ford. The one exception was the cab, it was spot on, except for the lack of drip rails. At the time (1998) the cab was 3900 bucks, kinda spendy but there aren't too many good 40 Ford trucks for sale up here in MA. The cab was molded with a Ford Ranger floor panel, so I found a dead Ranger, dragged it home and tore it apart. I sold off lots of stuff from it and ordered the cab. I had to fabricate perches to mount the cab on the Ranger frame and I used Chevy S-10 cab mounts. I stretched the wheelbase on the Ranger to 112" by flipping the rear leaf springs and re-mounting them. The trick was to mount the cab as close to the frame as possible so that standard S-10 mounts would work. Then I began hanging body panels off the cab. I fitted the hood, grille and front fenders and then fabricated what was needed to hold them in correct position to the cab. The fenders BTW are fiberglass from Wescotts Auto Restyling. They are really nice pieces. Then I ordered a repro steel bed from Northern Classic trucks. The doors, hood and running boards are original steel.
So as you can see from the pics, the whole thing looks pretty much like a stock 40 Ford and just about any trim and body part for a real 40 will fit on this one. My main objective was to get it to look like a restored 40. The interior is far more plush than a stock truck ( it ain't hard to do, these things were pretty spartan inside)
So, it's not a kit, it's not a street rod, I guess it's kinda a repro-rod. I purchased a title from a title company and they sent me the paperwork, bill of sale and a VIN tag for the vehicle. With that information, I secured a valid MA title for the truck. Now this was years ago and I remember the cutoff year for this type of certification was the 1984 model year. I'm not sure how the paperwork would be handled today and I'd be willing to bet that it varies considerably by state. The good news is that the NSRA and SEMA are instrumental in sponsoring legislation that has been adopted in some states that allows for a street rod to be titled as the vehicle it most closely resembles. I opted for getting the title for a 40 Ford even though I had a valid title for the Ranger because I was concerned that registration and annual inspection would be a PITA if the truck didn't look like a Ranger. And although, I have no plans of selling it, a sale might be smoother if it looks like a 40 Ford, smells like a 40 Ford and has the title for a 40 Ford.
I hope that helps, even though you question is a few months old now. Maybe I should have PMed this to you but I figured that some of the information might be useful to other guys on here. If you think I can help answer any other questions, PM me!
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