1941 Ford Mechanix Illustrated Special Surfaces on Hemmings

By Arison Knapp - March 17, 2016

Who doesn’t get excited to see a famous piece of American automobilia? This 1941 Mechanix Illustrated Special with Ford power is now selling at Hemmings. As the ad in Hemmings says; this is one of eleven MI Specials in known existence. And what a fine piece of history. These MI Specials started as DIY instruction manuals to help out a nation of post-war handymen build their own sports car. These were hand built by many home workshop ‘engineers’ around the U.S. during the 1930s, 40s and 50s. MI Specials capitalized on the start of the sports car era.

While it looks like a plain Jane example built by the book, it is very clean and well-suited for future concours as it looks to be well-maintained mechanically. The ad states the car was hand built using speed oriented parts from the 1930’s and ‘40’s Fords to build the 100+MPH sportster. From the sound of the YouTube below the Flathead Ford V8 revs up smoothly sounding like an American mechanical symphony working beautifully in harmony. Every valve and pushrod works like a fine sewing machine of the era.

Hemmings made a fascinating point about the DIY interpretations of these projects produced, some mad and crazy examples. Some born for the race track and some for touring and this one looks like a toned-down touring model. I’ve seen other models with juiced up performance bits. Some with hand-cut body louvers like Jaguars, race-appeal and cooling enhancements which I think this car could use. The price seems to be right at its sweet spot. It’s not over or under selling from listings I checked recently. Very special.