FIVE DECADE SLUMBER

Built in the ’30s. Forgotten in the ’50s. How a barn find 1933 Ford was resurrected as the Devil’s Coupe.

- Chuck Vranas & Tim Bernsau

Automotive journalist Chuck Vranas has written hundreds of stories about other people’s hot rods. Today, he’s telling the remarkable story of his own 1933 Ford coupe, a long-lost survivor from the pre-War era, resurrected from a half-century slumber and driven in preserved condition from hot rodding’s earliest years.—HRM

If the Devil drove a hot rod, it would have to be as nasty as this 1933 Ford five-window coupe. This is a car with a battle-scarred body that tells its story with an attitude, and with the accent of a snarling, hopped-up flathead V8 breathing through straight pipes.

It was fate that brought this car and owner together. As a hot rod photographer, I see plenty of wicked hot rods on a regular basis with some of the best stories being unearthed along the way. Typically, by the time I see them, the cars have already changed hands and moved on to their new owners. In the case of this particular coupe, the game-changer was a scheduled visit to Dave Simard’s legendary East Coast Custom in Leominster, Massachusetts. I was working on a photo assignment, shooting a build book for a roadster destined to compete for America’s Most Beautiful Roadster (AMBR). As I pulled up to the shop, I came face to face with the ’33 parked under an open-air storage area.