Tampa Style

 A few days ago I was turned on to the 12 o'clock boys documentary by Autoculture. Here's the link:http://autoculture.org/?p=1904. Anyway, yesterday I spotted this on interstate 275 by my house.  We do it here too.

Original Untouched Custom leaves the garage after 44 years.

We went to Rats 'n Rods this weekend and were blown away by the custom we saw right at the opening to the grass field. It was obvious from 100 yards there was something special about this car. So we took a walk over and started talking to the owner, Mr. Tom Sanders. It turns out Tom bought the car in 1955. When he bought it it was a stock 39 Ford Phaeton. He quickly customized the car and started driving and showing it. The car is a Florida car but spent most of its early days in New Jersey. It was even to an ill-fated exhibition in Puerto Rico and made multiple appearances in Magazines. Tom parked the car in 1966 and it never left the garage until this show. Incredible!  We spoke to Tom for about an hour, he had some great stories and let us take photos of his scrap book. He couldn't understand why people were interested in his old heap and felt like he needed to paint it. I hope we changed his mind. I hope the pictures tell the story.