Car Of The Day: October 25, 2012

The 1932 Ford Vicky by Hot Wheels is the car for today.

The Model B was a new Ford automobile produced in model year 1932. It was a much updated version of the Model A and remained largely unchanged until the 1933 model year, when the updated Model C was introduced.

Strictly speaking the Model B was a four-cylinder car with a Ford Model A engine, but it was at this time that Ford began producing a very similar car with Ford's new Flathead V8 engine. The V8 car was marketed as a Model 18, though it is commonly called the Ford V-8 today, and was virtually indistinguishable from the Model B. Until this time, Ford had always produced only one basic car at a time.
There were two versions of the ’32 – a four-cylinder and the V-8 flathead. They came in two body styles, the "5-window" (two door windows, two quarter panel windows and the rear window), and the rare "3-window" Deluxe Coupe that featured front opening doors, also known as Suicide Doors. The Deuce was called Model 18, the “1” standing for “first” and the “8” for V-8. The less popular Model B was the four-cylinder model, a refined version of the four-cylinder Model A.

The ’32 Model 18 was the first successful V-8 in a low-priced car. The 65-hp engine was used in some models costing $460. There were 14 different body styles – like the roadster, coupe, sport coupe, two-door and four-door sedans, cabriolet and phaeton. Prices ranged from $460 for the roadster and the coupe's $490 to the $650 convertible sedan. Production totals numbered only 520 for the roadster and 28,904 for the two-door coupe. Nowadays, the roadster and coupe are notable, as these body styles are more used in making the models into streetrods.

Today, the 1930s Model B is a highly collectible car that people will pay thousands of dollars to restore to exact original style. During the WWII period, when they were first getting old, the Model Bs and V8s were frequently altered into hot rods. This continued into the 1960s on a large scale. Since the 1970s, 1932 bodies and frames have been expensive, which has reduced the number of "rods" being created. Those that are made, however, are quite evolved and often very expensive. A typical auto-show hot rod is a $60,000 proposition or much more, in a few cases.

Deuce coupe is a slang term used to refer to the 1932 Ford coupe, derived from the year of manufacture. In the 1940s, the '32 Ford became an ideal hot rod. Hot rodders would strip weight off this readily available car and soup-up the engine. They came in two body styles, the more common "5-window" (two door windows, two quarter panel windows, and the rear window), and the rare "3-window" Deluxe Coupe that featured front-opening "suicide doors."

Flea markets rock, esp for finding items such as this one carded for less than a $1. The venerable Vicky debuted in the HWs line in 1969 and was later recasted in 1994. The issue shown here is from 2002.