Craig Clark’s ’40 Ford Coupe Scores the Speedway Motors Traditional Homebuilt Heaven Award
Hot rodding is built on the do-it-yourself attitude of hands-on enthusiasts. Our hobby thrives because of gearheads who work diligently in their garages and backyard shops to build the cars and trucks of their dreams. Goodguys and Speedway Motors celebrate this spirit with the Homebuilt Heaven parking area and corresponding Traditional Homebuilt Heaven award bestowed at each event during the season. At the end of 2023, all of the year’s Traditional Homebuilt Heaven event winners were placed on an online ballot to determine the overall winner and this year the Traditional Homebuilt Heaven Champion went to Craig Clark and his 1940 Ford Coupe!
Sometimes the key to a successful project is knowing when to let it go. Craig Clark hit that point a while back with an old Plymouth he was working on. It wasn’t coming together the way he’d hoped, and he was losing motivation. So, he called his old friend and hot rod mentor, Ken Stek, to talk things through.
“Ken and my dad were best friends growing up,” Craig said. “I actually worked for Ken when I was in high school. Everything I know about hot rods is pretty much due to him.”
It just so happened that Ken was considering selling his ’40 Ford coupe, but he wanted it to go to a friend. Craig turned out to be the right friend.
The ’40 has seen many iterations through the years. In fact, it used to be a sedan! Ken built the sedan and drove it for years. The coupe body was one that he’d bought for $15 when he was 15, and then eventually sold. Decades later, the coupe found Ken again and he bought it back and swapped the body onto the sedan chassis!
That ’40 Ford chassis has a Mustang II independent front suspension, a four-link rear suspension, 9-inch rearend, and air springs all around. It rolls on 15-inch steel wheels wrapped in radial tires – fat 295/50s in the rear, which required custom wheel tubs as part of the car’s floor reconstruction.
Power comes from a DOHC 4.6-liter Ford engine liberated from a ’96 Mustang Cobra, complete with EFI and all the other elements that make it a strong performer. The five-speed manual transmission came from the same donor car.
The coupe body remains pretty faithful to the way Ford built it. The bumpers are gone, and the hood is punched full of louvers for more hot rod attitude, which is enhanced by the flat black paint. Craig says the interior is still a work in progress, but late-model bucket seats keep things comfortable, along with a Vintage Air system and a tilt column.
Those comforts are good because Craig and his wife Nancy drive the wheels off the car. They logged thousands of miles around Texas last year, and even drove to Iowa to hang out with Ken at the Heartland Nationals. The best part about all that driving is that Nancy is hooked now, too. She wants a roadster, so Craig is building a ’27 T. Isn’t it nice how things work out!
Congratulations to Craig and Nancy on scoring the Speedway Motors Traditional Homebuilt Heaven of 2023 Award! Craig will receive a gift certificate, custom jacket and prize swag from Speedway Motors, in addition to the satisfaction of knowing he’s helping to keep the DIY hot rodding spirit alive. If you’ve got a garage-built beauty you’d like to show off, look for the Speedway Motors Homebuilt Heaven special parking section on Saturdays at an upcoming Goodguys events.
Photos by Goodguys Staff and courtesy the Clark family
