SUBSCRIBE TO THE
MAGAZINE NOW
Facebook-f Instagram

1940 FORD V8 ½-TON PICKUP

Picking over the past – 1940 Ford V8 ½-Ton Pickup

12 February, 2026

Jim and Daphne Ledgerwood have been around Fords most of their lives. They love their Ford coupés and two door hardtops, while also making room for an occasional Chevrolet. Their Wanaka based ‘Originals’ collection, featured in New Zealand Classic Car’s July 2022 issue is headed by an outstanding time-warp black 1940 Ford Coupé, its original factory assembly markings and documents offering something of a nostalgia trip.
Jim’s early days in hotrodding in Dunedin were spent building up a number of early Ford pickups and he became a prolific builder of modified pickups.
“I had lots of early Ford V8s in those days and once I had finished them I often sold them on. I would run out of garage space. I had up to a dozen restored Fords at most times then.”

NZ Classic Car September/October 2023 issue 389, on sale now

21 August, 2023

Wolf in wolf’s clothing
In the September/October 2023 issue 389, we discover there’s much more to this cute 1973 Triumph GT6 British sports car, than meets the eye.
John Burke of Paremata is the owner of our stunning cover car but felt the car was somewhat underpowered and that annoyed him. So he took this pristine example of a 1973 Triumph GT6 and installed a V8 engine from a Triumph sister manufacturer, Rover. The resulting car is a restomod that really ticks a lot of boxes.
“In 1963, Standard-Triumph, as the company was then known, delivered a Mk 4 Spitfire to Michelotti’s studio in Italy and commissioned him to design a GT version. His design, delivered in physical form later that year, was a sleek fastback reminiscent of the E-Type fixed head coupé launched in ’61. It was also not too dissimilar to the Mustang Fastback of 1964, a profile that would become familiar on other American models during the sixties.”