There’s something about an early Ford that makes it the perfect candidate for a custom hotrod. This one belongs to Dion Ligon of Poulsbo, Washington, and it’s been in his family for quite some time. It’s also made several transformations throughout it’s life.

Dion’s father bought this back in 1962 and he built a hitch for it. “This was a pickup at the time,” Dion explained. “We had it in my grandmas barn and I remember rocking in the bed when I was younger.” Dion’s dad sold the pickup, but Dion kept tabs on it and after he graduated in 1977, when he sought it out.

“I knew where it was,” he explained, “So I went over and talked to the owner and ended up buying it back for what he paid for it.” Then, Dion’s dad bought it back from him. It exchanged ownership a few times to say the least.

Dion’s dad started working on it and won a motor rebuild in a raffle. “The rebuild was from a shop in Montana,” Dion said. At the time they had a little salvage yard so when they won this engine rebuild, all they had to do was pick an engine, and so his dad had this 302 cubic-inch small-block Ford built. That was back in the late 1990s or 2000. The transmission is now a C4 automatic and it has an 8-inch rearend with 3.25:1 gearing.

Then Dion’s dad found a roadster body in Montana that he traded the pickup cab and bed for. “Part of the deal in selling it to my dad was that he had to fix it,” Dion said. Dion’s dad then ended up selling it to Dion’s brother where he traded the roadster body for a coupe body and got it running again.

Dion ended up with it again when he called his brother who had since gotten married and had a kid so the car was too small for him. Dion bought it back for the final time in 2002, and since then, it has stayed with him. “I put some time and effort into this and set it up so I could take it to shows,” Dion told us. “It’s got me to shows all these years. I drive it like this on purpose and at this point, I don’t know if I want to out fenders on it and finish it.” Dion has enjoyed it for so many years in it’s current state, he might want to keep it as it is.

“I don’t know if any of those guys with the high dollar builds have had as much fun in their cars as I have in mine,” Dion explained. And he has a good point. He really drives his car, he gets it out and takes it to shows. Dion and his dad are still close, but he can’t make it to shows anymore so Dion keeps a GoPro style camera that he uses to film the shows with video and audio so that his dad can still experience it with him. He even films the award ceremonies and everything for him.

Here you can see some of Dion’s markings from mocking up the interior door panel and getting the mechanics figured out for the power windows. He went with power windows because he said that system was easier to setup than going with a manual hand-crank system.

What do you think of Dion’s car? After years of driving it like this, would you ever “finish it,” or call it good as it sits and enjoy driving it? Let us know in the comments below, and if you have an All Out Custom build that you think would make a good addition to our series, shoot us an email with a couple pictures and some details, we’d love to consider it. Is your hotrod more conventional muscle? We’d love to consider it as a Street Feature.