Photo: Mecum
In present day America, cab over engine (COE) trucks can be found mostly in cities, working as garbage trucks, for instance. This configuration, very popular elsewhere, has been replaced on the highway by trucks with the massive engine fitted up front, Mack-style. But it could have been different.
Way back in the late 1950s, Ford started making the C-Series, its first tilting cab truck that was meant to replace the F-Series-based COE. This line was to become, at the time of its retiring some three decades later, the longest-produced truck on the Continent (the title has been lost since).
For custom garages though, the big COEs of the 1950s are of no use. Luckily, Ford’s early platforms (read the ones it used to make in its first couple of decades) are so right for tuning purposes, that there is virtually no type of build that hasn’t been tried.
Making COEs out of old Fords is such a lucrative business that there are literally thousands of such builds out there. We’re not sure how many of them though are powered by a Corvette engine.
This one here, which sold last week at the Mecum Kissimmee auction in Florida, is. Under the shiny, Viper Red body, mounted on the custom chassis, hides a LT1 5.7-liter Corvette engine that linked to a shift overdrive transmission develops 365 hp.
This custom build is one of the best looking COE of recent times, and it looks just like something Ford ought to have built back in the day. Maybe it’s the narrow front windscreens (there are two of them one on each side, that can be opened individually), or the flowing lines of the bodywork, or the oak that covers the bed, but there’s something very appealing to this truck.
Or maybe it’s the interior that brings into the cabin the same shade of red as on the body, and mixes it with tan for maximum effect.
We’re not told how much the car fetched during the auction, but as it usually happens in such cases, it’s likely will get to see this car again at similar events in the future.
For custom garages though, the big COEs of the 1950s are of no use. Luckily, Ford’s early platforms (read the ones it used to make in its first couple of decades) are so right for tuning purposes, that there is virtually no type of build that hasn’t been tried.
Making COEs out of old Fords is such a lucrative business that there are literally thousands of such builds out there. We’re not sure how many of them though are powered by a Corvette engine.
This one here, which sold last week at the Mecum Kissimmee auction in Florida, is. Under the shiny, Viper Red body, mounted on the custom chassis, hides a LT1 5.7-liter Corvette engine that linked to a shift overdrive transmission develops 365 hp.
This custom build is one of the best looking COE of recent times, and it looks just like something Ford ought to have built back in the day. Maybe it’s the narrow front windscreens (there are two of them one on each side, that can be opened individually), or the flowing lines of the bodywork, or the oak that covers the bed, but there’s something very appealing to this truck.
Or maybe it’s the interior that brings into the cabin the same shade of red as on the body, and mixes it with tan for maximum effect.
We’re not told how much the car fetched during the auction, but as it usually happens in such cases, it’s likely will get to see this car again at similar events in the future.
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