1936 Ford Tudor Sedan

[willysjeep]

Here are a few shots of a 1936 Ford Tudor Sedan built for and owned by Allegheny Ludlum Steel.
It was featured in a local
parade with over 100 of our salaried, hourly and retired employees walking alongside.
This is 1 of only 4 in existence and is the only one currently in running & in road worthy condition.
The car is in exceptional condition, with the interior and even the frame looking great.
Al l 4 cars each had over 200,000 miles on them before they removed them from service.

These cars were built for Allegheny as promotional and marketing projects.
The top salesmen each year were given the honor of being able to drive them for one year.
The v-8 engine (max 85 hp) ran like a sewing machine and WAS surprisingly smooth and quite.
I thought this was a much better looking automobile than the Ford Thunderbird that visited us last year.
FYI, the car was insured (we were told) for the trip to Louisville via covered trailer for 1.5 million dollars.

People were told that the dies were ruined by stamping the stainless car parts,
making these the last of these cars ever produced.

[wwgkd]

Cool car. I've always liked the bare stainless steel look.

[henk4]

Originally Posted by willysjeep

People were told that the dies were ruined by stamping the stainless car parts,
making these the last of these cars ever produced.

can you elaborate on this, because I do not understand. Tks. (and for posting as well)

[csl177]

Originally Posted by henk4

can you elaborate on this, because I do not understand. Tks. (and for posting as well)

As I understand it, the story is the steel was the same guage as stock material and after several stampings the die edges were damaged from the more resistant stainless. Whether this is true or not is open to question... I've always thought T304 is relatively soft. It's more likely that they were effective marketing tools, so building a bunch would diminish that value.

The '35 Ford is remarkable, the SquareBird more so.

A thread on the Allegheny Ludlum Fords is on the Hokey Ass Message Board.

1936 Ford Model 68 Tudor Deluxe Sedan (stainless steel) - THE H.A.M.B.

[henk4]

Did not the DeLorean then suffer from the same problems, they made quite a few of them.

[csl177]

As I said, it's questionable that the dies suffered. I don't recall any production problems with DeLorean's body tooling.
Financing, employee, fit/finish and PCV engine issues, yes...

But not the body dies. Of course, the DeLorean is an origami shape compared to a '35 Ford!

[willysjeep]

There's a company here in South Africa that manufactures stainless components for the wine, food and medical industry, and they complain about the same thing. The dies dont last and cost a fortune.

[Knuto]

Originally Posted by willysjeep

There's a company here in South Africa that manufactures stainless components for the wine, food and medical industry, and they complain about the same thing. The dies dont last and cost a fortune.

This is a problem for stainless steel forming compared to mild steel. It has excellent stretching limit, but deep-drawing is a problem because of low degree of anisotropy. To account for this there is often some thickness reduction which demand higher loads. SS has higher strength befor forming, but also has a higher work-hardening during deformation which give higher loads.

In general there is also higher friction involved. Theres a limit in lubrication efficiancy due to lower thermal conductivity and better corrosion resistance. Theres also a larger chance for microwelding.

The higher loads and friction cause more damage to the dies and wear them out more quickly. If I remember correctly a pair of dies for a car door is a couple of million dollars. You also need stronger hydraulics/structure. Since this car is clothed in formed SS I can understand it got expensive for them.

[Pando]

As no re-post claims has been made, perhaps a mod could change the title to something more suitable?