Ronn Ives' 1950 Ford

A photo of Ronn with his in-progress 1950 Ford custom taken in 1965. "I bought the car for $40 at age 14 and began customizing it," Ronn told Sondre Kvipt of Kustomrama in 2018. "Here you can see I'd made and installed nerf bars for the front end." Photo from The Ronn Ives Photo Collection.

A photo of Ray Moe, a good friend of Ronn, with Ronn's 1950 Ford. "At this point, I' had removed much of the front weight, raised the front, was shaving the body, had built by hand and installed a new, steel front floorboard, and was about to switch the 3-speed on the column to a Hurst 3-speed on the floor. I had also redone the interior in black and blue. I planned on the exterior being blue." Photo from The Ronn Ives Photo Collection.

A photo of Ronn with his in-progress Ronn's 1950 Ford custom. He was 15 years old when this photo was taken. Photo from The Ronn Ives Photo Collection.

1950 Ford owned by Ronn Ives of Denver, Colorado. Ronn bought the car when he was 14 years old. The year was 1965, and he paid $40 for the Shoebox Ford, his ticket to finally owning a custom car. It was a Flathead V-8 powered two-door, and Ronn began by shaving the body and raising the front; "My plans were for a fine shaved clean 1950 Ford. Nice inside and out. I was cleaning and de-rusting the undercarriage - painting it safety yellow! I knew people that were at the drag strips, and they offered to help me build the Flathead up, and, it was the fashion in Denver at the time NOT to LOWER it, but to RAISE it all the way around. I probably would've chopped the top also, but as a boy, I never reached that level of money." A black and blue interior was installed, and Ronn had plans for the exterior being blue.

According to Ronn, the trends in Denver were mainly affected by the influence of California. "By the middle to late 1960s, everyone interested in cars began switching to new muscle cars and left the older cars to die. At this time, you could have purchased just about any older car you wanted for under $100. And, in Colorado, with its dry environment, the cars were still in good condition decades later." The Ford ended up sitting undriven for years, so Ronn eventually decided to sell it to a friend who wanted to do more to it. "My tastes had changed. I wanted smaller, lightweight, good handling sports cars. I bought the VERY FIRST 1970 Datsun 240Z to be delivered to Colorado."