BOLD RIDE
‘Big wheels and big prices.’ That’s a fitting tagline for the incredible array of custom cars we saw at the recent Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale auction, and none were flashier…or in fact more expensive…than the custom work of one man, Boyd Coddington.
Last week we took a moment to sit down with his son, Boyd Coddington Jr., and he gave us some insight into one of the stars of the auction, his dad’s 1930s custom Delahaye Street Rod.
This week we followed up with Coddington about another one of the auction’s stellar builds – this 1940 Ford Pickup that sold for $374,000 – a truck that was almost never finished in the first place.
“We had the 1940 Ford for a while and it was being built for Ron Pratte,” remembers Coddington. “At the time when my pop passed away, it was about 75 percent complete – basically the interior, wheels, and some paint. Ron actually had a few projects we we’re working on: the pickup, a ’40 Woodie, a ’44 convertible, and a ’44 hardtop.”
“But there was some confusion as to how the business was structured at the time, so when he passed away, nobody really knew what was going to happen. Ron came over real quick and got the stuff he had there.”
With all the pieces just shy of falling into place, Pratte decided to have the truck completed before delving into the trio of Fords. He took the pickup to Squeeg’s Kustoms, one of Arizona’s most famous restoration shops, which is where the magic resumed.
All totaled, we’d say it came out quite nicely.
The discretely chopped and sliced body rides on a Heidts’ coil-over front suspension with former Coddington machinist Mike Curtis shoehorning a customized Corvette C4 rear suspension underneath the bed. Wilwood brakes accompany all four corners, which is handy, because the pickup is motivated by a 560 horsepower Roush 427ci crate engine. Gabe Lopez worked another wonder on the truck’s clean leather interior.
Despite its drippingly cool demeanor, Coddington noted the struggle of turning a profit on some of the high-end builds. “Most people don’t understand that 90 percent of the time when you build those cars, they don’t make any money. At that time, we were building between 15 and 20 cars a year, and the reason we were able to do that was because we had the wheel shop.”
Pratte’s truck, now with its new owner, showed a mere 200 miles on the odometer when it crossed the auction block. We’d reckon the new owner plans on ticking through quite a few more digits.
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