Les PoPo Photo Proofs
BOB CRESPO LES POPO
One of the wildest 1940 Ford Customs ever built. Bob Crespo’s Les PoPo photo proof sheets with photos by Dave Cunningham.
In Kustoms Illustrate Issue #32 we ran an article on Bob Crespo’s 1940 Ford ” Les PoPo”. The car had then recently been acquired by Mark Moriarity and the previous owner shared all the material that came with the car with the Custom Car Photo Archive. Included were two black and white photo proof sheets. Dave Cunningham, good friend with Bob Crespo had taken the photo’s. We ran 5 of them in the Kustoms Illustrated article, but ran out of space to show the other nice photos on the proof sheet. So now its time to show a few more of those Bob Crespo “Les Popo” 1940 Ford Show car.
The two photo proof sheets from photos taken by Dave Cunningham.
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Bob Crespo had Hal Hutchins section the 1940 Ford coupe. Hall perfrmed a rather large section on the body and in the process he molded the front and rear fenders to the body as well. But the rest remained relatively stock. In 1957, the coupe was involved in an accident which damaged the rear end pretty bad. Bob took the car to Bill Cushenbery’s shop. Bill removed the damaged rear end and replaced it with a rear portion of a ’39 Ford convertible. He then further customized the body at the rear with a roll pan and sunken license plate. He molded in hand made running boards and put the car in primer. Later Bob took the car to the Barris Kustom Shop where the complete front end was customized. With all the body work done Bob took the car back to Bill Cushenbery who painted the car in a brilliant Skyline Blue metalflake paint with Kandy Blue highlights.
Bob Crespo, on the right and Dave Cunningham with their radically restyled ’40 Fords.
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I’ve always liked Bob Crespo’s car. The shot of Cunningham and Crespo and their cars together is a classic.
When I was about 10 years old, a color photo of Crespo’s ’40 was in one of the hot rod magazines. I don’t remember if there was any text about the car. That image has stayed with me for almost 60 years. In 1962 the car came up for the Seattle World’s Fair. It was a feature car in the ‘Automotive Futurama’ car show. I still have the program. There is a B&W photo of Crespo and the car in that program. I went to that show with my Dad and my Uncle. Does anyone know what magazine (title, month, & year) the car was featured in. I always thought it was HOT ROD magazine, because my Dad had a subscription to it for years. I really didn’t have access to any other magazines back in those days. Anyway, any help would be truly appreciated. Thank you.
Doug Pratt