Drake's Steel '40 Comes to Life
"The Old Car Project of the Decade"

The steel thickness of each body section including the fenders match
that of the original 19-gauge steel (.0347" thick). Bodies will come assembled and include roof, doors, floor pans, cowl top & sides, fire wall and deck lid.

The following are available separately; front & rear fenders,
front inner fender aprons, running boards, hood, grille and all related parts.

The front fenders fit nicely to the cowl and running boards. Our boards are
genuine rubber molded-to-steel, not polyurethane (plastic) with a hard,
thick surface. No exchange necessary.

Drake’s 1940 Standard grille was mounted in our first assembled
coupe for display at our NSRA booth in Louisville. Both the
Standard & Deluxe hoods are the only major body parts
in-progress and yet to be completed. The Deluxe
hood will be available first.

The very first prototype body looks beautiful,
now mounted on a restored, original chassis.

Dozens of brackets, braces and gusset supports are correctly
installed to match every detail of the original invisible inner body skeleton.

Extra critical tooling segments require die testing and fine tuning.
Bob notes minor corrections now completed to the headlight openings.

Our own Project '40 Chief Engineer, Michael, making final adjustments to the
‘40 Coupe roof and rain gutter alignment. Joining the huge roof skin to the
perfectly copied quarter panels, windshield posts and cowl sections,
the entire roof fits beautifully.    

Bob inspects the massive tooling required to produce the front fenders. 
Many hundreds of tons of pressure is needed to correctly shape the steel.

We started this body project with making first the deck lid and went forward
to achieve the amazing feat of having a complete body in just under two years.
Bob now gives a big thanks to his crew.

Drake’s Steel ‘40 during an initial test assembly,
being joined piece by piece in its body jig. Body sections
are being hand-fitted with no automated robots, to
assure every panel is correctly joined and secured in place.

Remembering his childhood and building plastic car models,
Bob now wonders what his father, Bev might say about his latest,
life-size masterpiece.

Bob was all over, inside-out and upside-down for days
while surveying our original 1940 Research Coupes.

Click on the image below to visit
the previous update page from January 2011.