Hammer Time: Looking For an Engine Donor For Your ’53 Ford? Police Impound Auction!

Rich, the mastermind behind the Rocket Surgery Racing mid-VW-engined Renault 4CV, just got hired to install a daily-driver-suitable modern drivetrain in a '53 Ford coupe. The owner wanted to keep it all Ford, EFI makes for much better real-world drivability, and so a late 1980s or newer Ford 5.0 or 5.8 (aka 302 or 351W) V8 engine looked to be the best choice. Running donor cars and trucks that fit those requirements tend to go for four figures, so it was time to hit a Denver-area police-impound auction. Here's what happened yesterday. I used to buy cheap Civics, Sentras, and Tercels at the San Francisco towed-car auction, and the setup here is similar: the cars are lined up in a lot, none of them can be started, and most don't have keys. You get an hour or so to inspect them (i.e., try to guess which ones are runners and which aren't by sniffing engine oil, studying the paperwork inside to see if they were towed off after a DUI bust, warrant-check, or some other situation that indicated a functioning vehicle when it fell into John Law's hands). The star of this auction was a 1968 Chevelle 2-door hardtop. Lots of Bondo, trashed interior, generic-looking small-block engine, but not much rust. It went for $1,800. I was tempted to take a shot at this '07 BMW 335i, because its 302-horse twin-turbo six and manual transmission would have been a fun swap for my 1941 Plymouth project. However, the bidding got way into the thousands in a hurry on this car and I wandered off to go look at potential Ford Windsor donors for Rich. This '83 Signature Series Mark VI Continental had a 302, but it was equipped with terrible throttle-body Late Malaise Era fuel injection, so no dice. Meanwhile, some vehicles were selling for surprisingly good money, e.g., a '97 Volkswagen GTI with an obvious history of hoonage went for $1,900. A manual-trans-equipped Nissan Altima sold for $3,900. This Honky Chateau Econoline camper had some flavor of Windsor— probably a 302— but it was carbureted, plus the scrapper typically knocks off 1,000 pounds of value from an RV due to all the wood and other non-valuable materials within. Another friend was considering this Dodge RV, though he felt a little nervous about the prospect of driving it home with this sprayed across the back. So, the best potential '53 Ford engine donor of the bunch ended up being this 1991 Ford F-150. It was some sort of custom conversion, complete with door badges, done by the apparently-now-defunct Centurion Vehicles in White Pigeon, Michigan. "Sedona" badging, custom paint and stripes, not in great shape but pretty solid. The 5.8 liter V8 has the tall truck EFI setup, but the '53 Ford has plenty of engine-bay altitude. The oil looked good, and the truck was a confiscation victim, meaning the owner who was arrested with it would be prohibited from buying it back (and that it was probably running when it got towed off by the lawmen). There was no arrest paperwork in the truck, but I was able to find evidence of some interesting stories in other auction vehicles. Say, this impressive septuafecta bust. This truck came with a few full bottles of Negra Modelo (frozen, thanks to the 18-degree temperatures in Denver yesterday morning) and a fairly worn-out interior. No potential bidders seemed to be paying much attention to it, since the truck shoppers were mostly looking for ready-to-roll work trucks younger than 22 years of age. A $750 bid took it away. That would have been a lot for something like this, five years ago, but these days it's not a bad deal. The ignition key was on the seat, but the battery was dead. A quick jump-start and it fired up and drove home under its own power. Good engine, good transmission. Rich will yank the engine and transmission, keep the tires, and scrap the rest at $240/ton. from The Truth About Cars http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com

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