When Frank Amato first laid eyes on a car that closely resembled his dream car in the 1960s it was sitting in the backlot of a garage in Beaumont, Calif.
He had always wanted a 1944 Ford Coupe, but he knew he’d most likely never be able to afford one. So, when he spotted a 1941 Ford Sedan Delivery, which looks close enough to his dream car, he knew he had to act.
Frank, now 74 and living in Gardnerville, Nev., decided to ask the owner if it was for sale. Frank took the car home that day for $250; however, he didn’t do much to it at first.
Before the 1941 Ford Sedan Delivery ended up forgotten in the backyard of a garage where Frank rescued it, it was previously owned by a lady who used it to haul produce from Banning, Calif., to Indio, Calif., about 45 minutes apart in Southern California. When she passed away, her children sold the car to the garage’s owner in order to pay for her funeral.
When Frank first got it, he didn’t do much with it. It mainly sat in his backyard.
“I used it for a while in its stock condition to set up mobile homes. I did that for a little while,” Frank told My Classic Garage. “It wasn’t until I moved to Nevada that I got really serious with it and restored it completely.”
After moving to Nevada, Frank, who is now retired but held a variety of jobs from dental technician to ceramist to cement truck driver to mechanic, went to work on restoring the car, leaving the outside pretty much stock everything.
Inside the car was a different story.
“I took the body off of it — a frame-out restoration. I worked one winter just blocking the body out and then I had the frame on a rotisserie and I got that all finished nice and painted,” stated Frank. “Then it was a matter of setting the engine in carefully, the transmission, the rear end, and then I had to have my driveline measured, cut and balanced.
“After the body was ready, I set it down slowly on the frame and started putting it all together. I painted all the parts and it took me from 2009 to 2013 to finish it.”
Frank did everything himself except the upholstery.
When it comes to upgrades and adding creature comforts, Frank didn’t scrimp. The engine has a 383 stroker kit, which gives it about 425 hp. He put a 700 transmission in that gives the car better gas mileage. He got a 9-inch bulletproof Ford rear end. He also changed all of the suspension, including adding a Heidts front suspension.
Other modifications include removing the speaker from behind the speaker grille and replacing it with a DVD and CD player, adding a back-up camera, running all the wires for a new air conditioning system underneath the dashboard, motorizing the air vents, fabricating a piece out of aluminum that keeps dust and stuff out of the engine compartment, hiding all the wires to the headlights in the actual frame of the car, installing seven interior lights plus two map lights, making a kick panel for where the air conditioning hoses come in and replacing the old fuel tank, which was positioned directly behind the front seat, with a larger stainless steel tank, eliminating the wheel well for the spare tire in the back of the car.
There was one last thing that bothered Frank about the car. He wanted something toward the back of the car because he felt it was too plain.
“I had to do something, but it had to be tasteful,” stated Frank. “We had a bottle of wine one night and the label read, ‘Unruly Red.’ I said, ‘You know what, that would look great on the back — ‘Amato’s Unruly Delivery.’
“So, I took it to this graphic artist and he designed it really nice and the lettering was perfect. It went with the era of the car. It makes it pop.”
After everything was done with the car, Frank decided to start entering it in different shows, including the 2017 Hot August Nights in Reno, Nev. This year was the ’41 Ford Sedan Delivery’s first time at Hot August Nights where it had a lot of admirers.
“It had a lot of people loving it, but it didn’t win anything at Hot August Nights,” Frank said. “I went two days, Monday, which was local day, and Thursday. Some people loved the color of my car. Some people just loved that I left it pretty much stock everything outside. There’s a lot of people that love Sedan Deliveries and I had a pretty good reaction.”
Although it didn’t take home any awards from Hot August Nights, it has won its fair share of awards and trophies even though Frank usually prefers to stay local and very rarely shows his car at shows outside of Nevada. His ’41 Ford Sedan Delivery won at Dayton Valley Days for Best Upholstery. It has also won a trophy at a car show at the Bunny Ranch Restaurant and an award at the OCD, a casino in Gardnerville.
Its biggest award, however, might be a certificate it earned at a car show at the Rancho San Rafael Park in Reno last year. The National Street Rodder’s Association was on hand to do safety tests on all the cars. They had out one certificate to the cars that they deem the best, which went to Frank’s 1941 Ford Sedan Delivery.
“That’s kind of a prestigious thing when you get that,” said Frank. “I had about five judges looking underneath the car, inside it, everywhere. They give you a framed certificate and a sticker to put in your window that shows you won. That was pretty nice.”
Frank didn’t do this alone. His wife was there every step of the way, supporting him on everything that needed to be done and exhibiting an extreme amount of patience, which is necessary in restoration projects this big.
Even though Frank has finished restoring his 1941 Ford Sedan Delivery, he’s not resting. He’ll continue to show it — he already has plans to make it back to next year’s Hot August Nights — and move on to his next project, his dad’s 1954 Chevy 5-Window Pick-Up Truck.
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