"Hybrid" Vehicle With An Antique Look

"Hybrid" Vehicle With An Antique Look FARM HOME Cars 30-1-4 Most people who work on old cars try to make them look like new. Paul Michener of Waynesville, Ohio, took a late model vehicle and tried to make it look old. "I combined parts from two Ford Explorers and other miscellaneous vehicles to make a 4-door sedan with a 30-in. trunk on back," says Michener, who recently sent FARM SHOW photos of his one-of-a-kind vehicle which is somewhat patterned after a 1934 Ford sedan. He started with a wrecked 2001 Ford Explorer with only 800 miles on it, which he bought at a salvage yard. The vehicle had been totaled in a roll-over accident only a month after the owner bought it, but the chassis was still in good shape. The front part of the body was damaged beyond use so Michener replaced it with the front half of a 1998 Explorer. He used the 1998 Explorer from the firewall back to the middle of the rear doors and spliced the two vehicles' roof sections and floor pans together. He was able to use the original rear doors on the 2001 Explorer as well as the back part of its cab. The 2001 Explorer's wheelbase was 14 in. longer than the 1998 Explorer, which required making some alterations to the floor pan. The trunk was fabricated from the bed off a 1988 Ford pickup, and the tonneau cover on it was fashioned from the hood off the 2001 Explorer. The hood was damaged some so he narrowed and shortened it to make it fit the 38-in. wide pickup bed. The rig's big side windows on back are off a 1999 Ford super duty extended cab pickup (he used the top half of the pickup's rear doors). The rear window in front of the trunk goes up and down automatically, as do all the door windows. "It wasn't an easy job to do, but I'm happy with how it turned out," says Michener. "My friends call it the Mafia Mobile, because some gangsters from the 1930's used to drive expensive cars equipped with dark windows and a narrow trunk on back. This car has the rear fenders from a 1934 Ford sedan. I worked on it part time for 3 1/2 years. If I wouldn't have had to use two different Explorer bodies, it wouldn't have taken nearly as long to build. I spent about $12,000 to build it. "I couldn't have done the job without help from my son Thom as well as many other people. I've driven it to three different car shows, where it gets an unbelievable amount of attention." The vehicle has two bucket seats in front and a kid's bench seat way in back. Michener says he plans to install another bench seat in the middle. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Paul Michener, P.O. Box 120, Waynesville, Ohio 45068 (ph 513 897-5142).

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