Michael Cummings did not discover his Ford coupe; he bought it from the guy who found it. But when he had first seen it advertised in Hemmings Motor News, he had to have it.
When Cummings, of Cumming (what a coincidence!), Georgia, was stuck in the Atlanta airport with a delayed flight, he needed a way to pass a few hours. So he went to the magazine store and bought a copy of Hemmings Motor News, sat in the gate area, opened the pages, and dreamed away his layover. And though he had always wanted a 1940 Ford, a certain 1939 model jumped off the page.
Even though the car was a 1939 with windshield wipers above the windshield, it resembled a 1940 Ford, replete with Deluxe front and rear fenders, grill, dashboard, and title. What really got Cummings’s attention, though, was the mention of two items: “Oldsmobile engine,” and “moonshine runner.” The car reminded Cummings of the racing coupes that ruled the Modified stock car circuit when he watched as a kid at small racetrack near his upstate New York home.
Rocket Power! When police cars began to catch up with the flathead V-8 engines, many moonshiners installed this hot, new power plant: the Oldsmobile overhead valve Rocket 88 engine! MICHAEL CUMMINGS
If this coupe could talk, imagine the stories it would tell about hauling loads of mason jars filled with white lightning and being chased by revenuers through the back roads of South Carolina and Georgia! Ford coupes, especially 1940 models, were particularly sought after by early moonshiners because the cars were light, the trunks were large enough to haul liquor, and the flathead V-8 engines were easily modified with dual carburetors and high-compression aluminum heads. But when overhead-valve Oldsmobile and Cadillac engines were introduced in the early 1950s, the bar was raised as those huge engines were installed in the small coupes.
The same cars that had transported illegal liquor during the week were often raced on weekends on bull-ring dirt tracks carved out of a farmer’s field. They led dual lives, just like their drivers.
“I had just read the book, Driving with the Devil, and I had always been interested in 1940 Fords,” says Cummings, who is the principle of a motorsport financing business. “Apparently this coupe was used to run liquor until about 1969, when the moonshiner bought an El Camino to replace it.”
Michael Cummings found this former moonshine-running 1939/40 Ford coupe in Hemmings Motor News. The car is rough, but his plans are to keep the cosmetics as-is and restore it mechanically. MICHAEL CUMMINGS
Back in the day, the owner of the coupe installed a 303 cubic-inch Oldsmobile “Rocket” engine, which was the engine swap of choice among moonshine runners in that era. The engine is adapted to the stock 1939 Ford three-speed floor shift gearbox.
The coupe’s body has seen better days. And even though it is straight, the rain gutters are badly deteriorated. What’s more, the floor is rusted where mice relieved themselves over the years, succumbing to the kind of natural erosion old and abandoned cars suffer.
Cummings did some investigating, though, and discovered that the car had spent much of its life running shine in South Carolina before moving south to Georgia in 2011.
“I think I’m going to keep it looking like it does, and totally restore it mechanically,” he says. “I’d like to bring it to the annual Dawsonville (Georgia) Moonshine Festival, where there is always a huge selection of 1940 Fords.”
As to whether or not that field of Fords carries illegal moonshine in their trunks, Cummings will just have to wait and see.