Racing is serious business if you get hooked on the lure of hot, nasty speed. It can also cost you some serious cash if you find yourself “gut-hooked.” Getting started in any form of racing can quickly bring you to the point where peanut butter sandwiches are your only food group. This 1940 Ford coupe racecar for sale on Facebook Marketplace in scenic Orford, New Hampshire, may offer a budding Dale Earnhardt out there a chance to hit the dirt at a reasonable cost. How reasonable? Does $9,900 sound fair for a ready-to-run classic that harkens back to the early days of stock car racing? Thanks go to T.J. for yet another awesome tip!
For those of you not steeped in the mythology of stock car racing, NASCAR’s roots were established on dirt tracks all over the southeastern United States. Local hot shoes would pull an old coupe out of the junkyard and modify it to do battle at local tracks on Friday or Saturday nights. Fords, with their powerful for the time Flathead V-8s, were the weapons of choice for what eventually became the modified division when “stock cars” were brought in as the premier series. These modified coupes were perfect for this early form of racing. They were cheap to build, speeds were relatively low, and the tracks were so small that a driver with talent could still win over his or her deep-pocketed competitors. Yes, a few women raced back then.
Decades after the era of modified prewar coupes came to a close in NASCAR, racecars like this 1940 Ford are still making the rounds at local tracks that have managed to survive to the present day. In every area, there seems to be a series where these veterans can take to the track for exhibition races in cars such as this. You may not race every weekend, but there are plenty of opportunities over the racing season if you are willing to tow your racecar to a track in your area. Sometimes a real race manages to break out. The best part is that this type of racing is not a huge drain on your finances once you have your racecar ironed out. You don’t even need a hauler and a platoon of crew members.
While the ad doesn’t tell us much about this racecar or its history, the pictures reveal what seems to be an incredibly well-sorted vintage racer. Up front is a tidy 1965 Mercury 390 cubic inch V-8. It is backed by a three-speed manual transmission and a modified rear end with a quick-change housing to allow the new owner to tailor the car’s gearing for different tracks. The seller does tell us that it is equipped with a fuel cell, new gauges, and four new rims complete with tires and tubes.
You can see that fuel cell in the picture above, along with an obvious attention to detail shown by the builder of this coupe. The additional frame bracing and the welds holding that bracing together appear very professional in nature. Touching up the paint seems to be the only work needed here.
Up front, the engine bay seems a very tidy mix of a later model V-8 with modern features such as an alternator and what may be a flex-fan combined with an old school polished radiator top. The fenders and cowl show no signs of previous damage either. Once again, there is evidence that the builder knew what they were doing. Take a look at the remote oil filter setup next to the driver’s side wheel well. It is doubtful that this car could be built for the $9,900 asking price.
Would you be interested in getting into vintage racing with a car like this one? If not this car, then do you have a desire to try your hand at any form of racing? Please share your thoughts in the comments.
( crickets chirping) Obviously not much interest, and that breaks my heart, so I’ll try and get “it” going. To us gray/no hairs, this was as cool as it got. When Saturday night actually meant something. Sock hop, soda shop,,,, and auto racing. Racing was huge. Every block it seemed had someone building a race car, especially if their dad worked maintenance at one of the many factories. . I was lucky enough to live in a state where auto racing reigned supreme. Every county, it seemed, had a fairgrounds, and everyone featured Sat. night racing. The “Milwaukee Mile” was where the big boys raced, but the local fairgrounds was where Johnny raced his old ’40 Ford, with dad, gramps, and several friends. Mom kept the cooler stocked, and you know, I think we lost a lot of America, when race tracks were turned into “Pressboard Estates”, or a Menards( Hales Corners) and “NIMBY’s”, ( not in my back yard), spelled doom for this once rich pastime. You wonder why I’m upset. Sometimes I’ll see a fairgrounds and some overgrown racetrack. Once from the air, over eastern Co., I saw’r in the middle of nowhere, a long road that led to a figure 8, where these cars ran,,abandoned long ago.
This looks like a 70s build, as the originals would all have had flathead V8s, and “Johnny” didn’t have near the resources or the skills to create this, but what didn’t change, was the fun and I’m not sure you can have this kind of fun today.
Howard, you may have seen Hi Plains Raceway near Deer Trail off US 36, recently upgraded and expanded. Still runs with motorcycles, SCCA, vintage cars, even 24 Hours of Lemons.
Hi Mike, I think you-I mentioned this before. I believe it was more in SE Colorado, maybe even west KS., but from the air, it was clearly not in use. It was a direct flight from Milw. to L.A. and didn’t go towards Denver. Dale Earnhardt Jr. had a TV series,( 2020-2021) “Lost Speedways” I enjoyed.
I had 2 different Racers within a block of where I grew up. They raced modified at Milwaukee, Hales corners, slinger, wilmot, cedarburg and plymouth. Plymouth is a fast 1/3 mile clay oval and Slinger is a paved 1/4 mile now. The others are history.
I can’t imagine racing 6nights a week at 6 different tracks.
They didn’t have day jobs and I don’t remember seeing sponsorship on the cars.
Get a dirt track, a loudspeaker and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Saturday Night Special” blasting
Back in the 60’s in Vineland N.J. we had a asphalt track with type of cars racing.I still remember the favorite at the track # 16 j
driven by Elton Hildreth.
Used to do East Windser and Wall.
Didn’t Atco Dragstrip close recently?
I would do the minimum to make it street legal and have fun with it.
My thoughts exactly. How cool would it be to drive it on the street.
I would go a couple of steps further and totally rat rod it out!
Not me. I’d put some original parts back on it, put a license on it and hit the streets. This is a best-of-show winner!
There were many tracks in eastern PA when I was growing up, my favorite being the one at Reading Fairgrounds. In the late ’70’s, they demolished the track to build a mall….which was closed in 2018 and later torn down. The featured car was similar to the modifieds they raced there, it was a great way to spend a Saturday night.
What a cool car! While I know that the dirt ovals were pretty popular in the south, (and judging from the comments, apparently the N.E. also) there were only 4 or 5 in Oregon where I grew up so I didn’t have much exposure to them but I bet they were a blast. I have absolutely no idea what I would do with this thing but I would love to own it.
When I was a kid we had a figure eight track and this car is way more sophisticated than anything that raced there. Basically remove the glass, weld the diff locked, chain the doors……ready to race.
This looks very much like a car that I have seen at car shows in Manchester NH. If it’s from the same person that builds these he does a good job and is a very interesting guy.
The first time I saw him he drove into the parking lot for the show and the front end was so high compared to the back. He certainly made a statement.
Seams like a fair price. I don’t think you could build one much cheaper if you started from scratch. I’ve got a 36 Ford coupe here I was thinking of doing the same thing to but I do have a few too many projects.
Does anybody know anything about the quickchange rear end in this car?
It doesn’t look anything like the others I’ve seen. I have an early Halibrand V8 quickchange and it’s way different.
Are there places where you can race with a fuel cell like that without a metal can around it?
I live just around the corner from the Windsor RSL Speedway, which operated from 1949 to 1968. The ‘stock cars’ that raced at Windsor were based on English stock cars, with heavy external barwork – full contact ‘crash and bash’ racing! 1930’s Ford and Chevrolet coupes were the preferred vehicles, although there was someone who raced a 4-door ’38 Packard sedan!
When ‘hot rods’ were introduced to run next to the stock cars, they looked similar to the featured car, with just a nerf bar front and back and no other barwork.