Car of the Week… The story begins with Kevin Ulry @kevinulry and a 32 Deuce Tudor Sedan. The family had outgrown the sedan with having their third child on the way.
A friend mentioned there was another guy selling his 41 Willys sedan. Having at the time gathered 12 Willys including a coupe that had been upside down for 35+ years along with a 38 Willys pickup, Kevin’s had a vision to build a crew-cab Willys P/U merging the truck and the 4 door sedan together. Shortly thereafter, Kevin was at a neighbor’s house and began looking at their 40 Ford collection. He began to measure the doors and found that the 40 Ford Coupe door was 5-1/2” longer than a sedan door and “Decided to build a 40 Willys 2dr sedan and make it look factory built.” Kevin states, “So I utilized the 40 Willys Coupe doors on another 40 Willys 4dr Sedan I picked up, installed sedan door tops, made a template of the new window size, made a template and flipped it over and cut out 11” behind the rear door opening to make it a proportional Willys like the 40 Ford 2dr sedan down the road.” It all seemed easy until it was beyond the bodyshop’s skill set. The project then stalled for a year.
While at the chassis shop, a guy was hired and began talking to Kevin about the vision he had for the project. He could “Use the English wheel like it was his left hand.” The only catch was that most of the work that was done at the previous shop had to be cut out and reworked again. “He reshaped the sides, narrowed the roof, hand built the pinch-weld (drip rails) from front to back and installed them, reworked the rear fenders, and tailpan that Marcel’s custom metal shaping built, along with installing an inner roll cage.
Thirteen long years after, the project was completed and turned into what you see here. I would say the wait was well worth it. Congrats Kevin on a great build!