1936 Ford Three-Window Coupe
“Jack Calori”

One of the most famous customs of the late 1940s was and still is this 1936 Ford three-window coupe built in 1947-1948 by Jack Calori, a Lynwood, California, motorcycle policeman. Its design artfully combined all the visual elements a head-turning custom “needed” at the time, including a three-inch chopped top, an extended “alligator” style hood that swept gracefully back from a 1939 LaSalle grille, 1940 Chevrolet headlights, teardrop fender skirts and 1941 Ford bumpers. A lowered, “tail-dragger” stance was accomplished with a dropped front axle. Power came from a bored and stroked, 267 cubic-inch, Mercury 59AB flathead V-8 with a Clay Smith cam, and polished, finned high-compression Eddie Meyer heads. Since the car was not a roadster, the Southern California Timing Association would not allow Calori to use it to compete at the dry lakes. However, the Russetta Timing Association did allow coupes to compete, and the car was timed at 114.50 mph by that sanctioning body in 1948. Its appearance and performance earned the car a full-cover appearance on the November 1949 issue of Hot Rod magazine, cementing its place in hot-rodding history. And, as if its pedigree was not already the stuff of legends, the Calori Coupe won Best in Class in the Pebble Beach Early Custom Class in 2005, as well as the Dean Bachelor Award for “Most Significant Hot Rod.”