Resplendent in Electric Current Red, Gary Hardinger's 1940 Ford 5-window coupe received a well-deserved `Fat Fender' award at last weekend's Good Guys car show in Kansas City.
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Mike Berry / The Wichita Eagle
Gary Hardinger's irresistible attraction to the curvaceous 1940 Ford DeLuxe began before he even began school. It finally was rewarded in 2004 when he bought his own 5-window coupe and finished it in old-school style, specifically as if a 17-year-old had built it in 1958.
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Mike Berry / The Wichita Eagle
A brass Walker radiator keeps things cool under the hood; Hardinger created the swirl pattern in the metal and sealed it under clearcoat. He also added the Ford blue oval to the stainless steel grille filler.
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Mike Berry / The Wichita Eagle
There was something about those `sergeant stripe' tail lights that just fascinated young Gary Hardinger, who walked past a set of them every day on his way to school.
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Mike Berry / The Wichita Eagle
The neat white pleats and red piping continue the upholstery theme into the spacious trunk. The panel on the underside of the deck lid began life as a headliner panel for a '49 Ford pickup.
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A closer look at the instrument package blends parchment-faced gauges into a billet aluminum surround neatly recessed into the steel dash board.
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The view from the other end of the dash board reveals the factory clock in the glove box door and the Southern Air air conditioning vents. A modern digital sound system has been blended into the dash, along with a polished aluminum instrument panel mounting Classic Instruments gauges.
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Driver controls consist of an aftermarket banjo-style steering wheel fitted with the correct Ford horn button, atop a tilt-telescoping Cadillac steering column. Shifting the Turbo 400 automatic transmission is a tall Gennie shifter.
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Attention to detail is evident everywhere on the car. Hardinger opted for smoothed Diamondback Classics, Wheel Vintiques steel wheels and '41 Ford beauty rings. He wanted the look of individual lug nuts and a bullet center cap, not the one-piece chrome `spider' more commonly seen in this type of wheel treatment.
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Mike Berry / The Wichita Eagle
Hardinger says his favorite view of his coupe is a 3/4 rear view, which shows off the Fords flowing fenders, roof and deck lid to best advantage. `There's just nothing better than that,' he says.
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Power is supplied by a 350 Chevy V-8 dressed out with a polished Summit intake, Southern Air A/C compressor and Edelbrock carburetor. The pinstriped air cleaner was an on-line auction find and Hardinger built his own radiator catch can by polishing up a spray gun cup.
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Hardinger's wife, Donna, gets credit for the idea of the bright white interior finished off with red piping. Eddie Evans of Cottonwood Falls turned her idea into reality using high-grade marine vinyl and matching red carpeting.
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Mike Berry / The Wichita Eagle
Riding on a 4-inch dropped straight axle and sporting original body lines and trim, Gary Hardinger's '40 DeLuxe coupe captures the look of a late-'50s hot rod down to the last detail.
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Mike Berry / The Wichita Eagle
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