Chopping down our list of Top 9 Cars To Turn Into Hot Rods and moving on from Tri-Five Chevys in the #7 position, next up is #6, the Ford Anglia. Like many cars that turn into hot rods, the Ford Anglia was cheap to buy. Lots were built but one of the main reasons it was an inexpensive purchase was its almost lack of usefulness in the real world. Very small and very under powered.

The Anglia was built from 1939 to 1953, then carried on as the Ford Popular until 1959. Originally a British car, Ford imported the Anglia to the United States around 1948. The 4-cylinder that came stock in the Anglia was a whopping 1172 cubic-inches and laid out an astounding ten horsepower. One magazine article review even described it as an “overgrown sewing machine.” It did get good mileage, however.

Being light and cheap, the Anglia made for a great racecar. The National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) had policies in place keeping the Anglias and others like it from competing. No foreign cars and no wheelbases under 94 inches. In 1963, the NHRA opened up the gasser race class to allow foreign vehicles to compete so long as they didn’t have more than a naturally aspirated small block engine but held on to the wheelbase requirement until 1968.

Tod Barker’s Anglia rumbles with a 427ci V8 and has run it down the track with a personal best of 8.68 seconds at 156 mph.

Over at the American Hot Rod Association (AHRA), it was game on. Anglias started filling up the race tracks. Teams like the Kohler Brothers and their 454 cubic inch powered Anglia named “King Kong” and Shores and Hess 6-71 blown Chevy big block Anglia started running rampant on the tracks.

After the NHRA lifted their wheelbase restriction, hundreds of Anglias took to the tracks. It wasn’t until the seventies when cars like the Mustang, Camaro, and Challengers started showing up that the Anglia began to lose the grip it held.

Stay tuned for #5 in our Top 9 list. The Blue Oval isn’t even close to being done yet.