03/06/2026
Just 39 years after winning best in class at the 1987 Detroit Autorama, Dan Kirby’s shoebox dream car won best in class at the 2026 Detroit Autorama!
Congratulations Dan! And thank you for letting us help your dream come to life!
Here’s a little glimpse into the story behind this build, beautifully written by his son Aaron who of course did the incredible artwork to display with the car!
Thirty-nine years ago, Dan rolled his low-mileage, freshly restored 1951 Ford Club Coupe into the 1987 Autorama like a proud father at graduation. By the end of the show, he wasn’t just loading up a nice driver — he was loading up a first-place trophy. That was all it took. The bug bit hard.
Instead of leaving well enough alone (as no true car enthusiast ever does), Dan started hunting down rare NOS dealer and factory options available for 1951. If it came in a dusty Ford box with part numbers from the Eisenhower era, he wanted it. The plan? Make his shoebox even sweeter.
A few years after Autorama, he decided to pull the engine to freshen it up and fix a couple of minor leaks. Simple, right? Just a quick spruce-up. Except we all know how that story ends. One bolt leads to another, and before you know it, you’re staring into the abyss. By 1990, his prize-winning shoebox was completely disassembled, body perched on a rotisserie in his garage like a Thanksgiving turkey. Then life did what life does — career, family, responsibilities — and the project paused.
For the next 30 years, the car sat. But don’t think for a second the dream stalled. Dan spent those decades amassing hundreds of NOS parts and accessories, refining his vision, hopping up the Flathead, and correcting every conceivable issue while everything was apart. If a bushing, bracket, or bolt could be improved, it was. As the parts pile grew, so did the ambition.
The real inspiration traced back even further. Growing up, Dan’s parents owned a 1950 Ford Woody Wagon that left a permanent imprint on him. That wagon planted the seed. Eventually, the question became clear: what if his ’51 coupe went woody?
There was just one small snag — Ford never built a woody coupe in 1951. They had offered the Ford Sportsman, but discontinued it in 1948. Still, hot rodders and dreamers live in the world of “what if.” What if Ford had continued the Sportsman line into the shoebox era? What would a 1951 Sportsman have looked like?
After conversations with Ford historians, Dan learned that a shoebox Sportsman prototype had actually been created — but information was scarce. His research uncovered a single publicly available photograph. One photo. For most people, that’s frustrating. For a car guy? That’s a blueprint.
The first call was to Mike at Nickels Automotive Woodworking, a respected expert in restoring rare wood-bodied Fords. If anyone could recreate factory-style woodwork that looked like it rolled out of Dearborn in ’51, it was Mike. His craftsmanship and knowledge proved invaluable in bringing a near-lost prototype concept back to life.
With the wooden puzzle pieces underway, Dan turned to his friend Bill, owner of Brothers Custom Automotive, to assemble the masterpiece. A meticulous restorer and Ford Flathead specialist, Bill was the ideal choice to finally bring the long-dormant vision into reality. Every panel, every trim piece, every detail received the kind of attention that only someone who truly “gets it” can provide.
Now, after 35 years in the making, what you’re looking at is a glimpse of a 1951 Ford Sportsman prototype that never officially existed — but absolutely should have. It’s part restoration, part tribute, and part rolling “what if” from an era when chrome was king.
Dan would like to thank his friends and family for standing behind a project that outlasted disco, dial-up internet, and more than a few life chapters. His biggest supporter, his wife Carol, was there from the beginning. Though she passed before seeing it completed, there’s no doubt she’d be smiling the biggest smile of all.
And to all the car “guys” (and gals) with long-stalled projects sitting under covers in the garage: keep the faith. Sometimes the best builds take a few decades.
