Words & Photos: John Gunnell
There were plenty of outstanding muscle cars and Corvettes at the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Ill., Nov. 17-18, 2017. Those were the dates of the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals (www.mcacn.com), and besides those types of cars, we spotted a couple of big Pontiac Bonnevilles, a prototype Ford “Boss” Bronco and a vintage Ford panel van owned by a local magazine. But there was only one real hot rod among the 500 cars in the giant hall.
It was Mike Shield’s 1937 Ford five-window coupe. According to Mike, it is powered by a 350-cid Chevy V-8 backed up with a General Motors 200R4 automatic transmission and a nine-inch Ford rear axle. The two-tone car has a fresh coat of paint set off with painted-on flames. The color combination blends a dark brown on the bottom with Mango Tango Tan on top. Inside the coupe is an all-new tan interior. The car also features a nine-speaker stereo system built into the interior and has disc brakes at all four corners. “It’s a very nice little car,” Shields told Hot Rod Hotline. “It’s not real, real fast, but it’s very dependable.”
Shields – who hails from Pontiac, Ill. – bought his 1937 Ford coupe 25 years ago in the state of New York. At that time, the car was in pieces. “We put all the pieces together and we finally finished it,” said Shields. “We had it done for 25 years, but just recently we decided to modernize it and we put the new interior in and painted it the brown and tan colors. As you can see, it came out looking very nice and just the way we envisioned it. And it took just four weeks.”
Shields said the shop that painted the car was The Custom Shop (www.thecustomshop.co) in Flanagan, Ill. The Custom Shop is owned by John Wargo. He designed the paint job and squirted the new finish on the car.
Shields said he lived in Pontiac – the home of the Pontiac-Oakland Automotive Museum (www.pontiacoaklandmuseum.org) – since he was six years old. He stayed there until 1982, then moved to New York for 23 years, where he ran stone quarries and his wife taught at West Point. “Then we moved back to Pontiac,” Shields explained. “We have 13 grandchildren and six great grandchildren, so I’m an expert on volleyball and basketball and football.” He also is an expert on turning a 1937 Ford coupe into one good looking hot rod!
