The Famous Duct Tape Car

The Subject Vehicle:
1991 Ford Escort Wagon

I bought this car for $400 back in November, 2000 and it needed some work to make it pass inspection. The guy who sold it to me said that the 96,000 miles on the odometer was correct but based on the wear and tear, I'm sure it has rolled over at least once. It also had the distinct shape of a guardrail down one side. The car had some rust but it wasn't too bad. I drove it for 3 years back and forth to work (35-40 mpg), added some dents and made many repairs including all new exhaust, timing belt, water pump, etc...etc...etc...
The car would often sit for weeks waiting for repairs in my driveway. There were many times when I thought it was time for the junkyard but then it would breath new life. After a three month sit in the backyard, it was getting really rusty (this is New England after all) and it was time to make a decision on this thing. A friend at work suggested making it into a chicken coup. I wasn't offended but it challenged me to get this thing running again, which I did. But it wouldn't pass inspection with all the rust holes...

After applying plenty of Bondo and some scrap metal, I just proceeded to hide it all with duct tape. I didn't go cheap here, this was 3M Industrial Grade All-Weather duct tape which would later prove to be neither all-weather nor industrial grade. Coating the whole car took 3 people about 6 hours on a Sunday afternoon. Time well spent with the family. Although part of the family refused to participate...namely my wife.

The devil was in the details...door handles, door locks, side mirrors, etc...
Also, we discovered that duct tape doesn't stick to Bondo at all so you have to have plenty of extra tape wrapped around the edge of door panels to hold it on. There was also one MAJOR mistake made in the original taping...we started from the top down. If you're going to do this, start from the bottom up, this way the tape layers like shingles on a house so that water rolls off. Ours was trapping water behind the tape and accelerating the rusting process.

The Finished Product

That nice finish didn't hold up as well as we thought though. As I mentioned earlier, the "all-weather industrial grade" tape fell apart.

One Year Later...

As you can see, the silver was separating from the adhesive base. The part you see in the left foreground which is still intact was repaired with Duck Brand instead of 3M. The Duck Brand made it through the winter without coming apart. So eventually the whole car was stripped down and redone with the Duck Brand and it remains that way today

Many modifications were done along the way.
The best part about Duck Brand duct tape is COLORS, you can do anything with this stuff. And everything you see below is duct tape.

It was even featured in our town parade.

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Choose you this day whom you will serve...
as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
Joshua 24:15