Sadly, I cannot tell you these are before and after shots. The 1932 Buick series 90 above is in the back lot of a Southern Oregon home-based car restoration shop. Tom Carr has a team of restoration professionals who work from the home’s two garages. The side yard is storage for a variety of hulks, all waiting for someone to invest in their restoration. Continue reading
My passion is to locate old dead cars. Fortunately, I am not alone. So many are in salvage lots where they will soon be crushed for scrap; scrap metal and copper from the radiators being more valuable than parts. Maybe Jim in Eugene Oregon would consider selling his Nash to someone who can afford to love it. Continue reading
Too bad no one told me the difference between car polish and car wax. I polished my first car every week end until I noticed the primer was starting to show through.
I bought the car with my own money but was not allowed to drive it until I could replace the tires. Once that was done, I had the kind of freedom every teen-ager requires. Drive-in movies, cruising the beach and guaranteed transportation to school. Gas and burgers were 19 Cents! I was outraged when gas soared to $.21.
The car was easy to drive and I learned to double clutch, downshift. I also learned how to pay for a new pinion gear.
On the return leg from Long Beach State one afternoon I spotted a former high school classmate pushing his new red motor bike up H99. I pulled over and discovered he was out of gas. We put the motor bike in the back seat of the Plymouth and I drove him home. Now that’s a roomy back seat.
The car was dependable and easy to drive. I was really disappointed when the car was stolen. I hoped I would get it back in driving condition so I borrowed my older sister’s 1955 Ford. But that’s another story.
Dan’s XKE was purchased outright with cash from his trust fund. He was 20 years old, Gay and my closest friend. He valued my rough sense of humor because I was the only person he knew who wasn’t afraid to acknowledge he’d come out and love him anyway. Continue reading
As I loped along highway 99 in search of old cars with which to entertain my camera, I glimpsed a red flash from the corner of my eye. Dashing down an access road was a red Ford Hot Rod. This was truly a gift from the old-car-gods. I pulled off the highway and went in search of the car.
I lost site of it because the off ramp made me circle around in the wrong direction. But I am intrepid when it comes to my camera and an old car. I tried to anticipate where the car would be and trudged away. After about twenty minutes trolling the town, it was with true glee I spotted the car in my rear view mirror. I made a hasty detour to the side of the road directly in view of a police car. Unmindful of the possibilities, I let the rod pass me then pulled out directly in back.
I followed the car for about ten minutes, heart pounding with the prospect of landing my automotive prey. Up the mountain roads he led me until he motioned for me to pull over at a view spot. The driver had divined my intentions and accommodated my very wish.
John ‘s 1932 Five window Coupe is on a very slight rake, not so much that he couldn’t go over bumps and just enough to accentuate the lines. It turns out John was not surprised at the attention. In fact, he was on a Sunday drive specifically because he enjoys showing off his street rod. He has owned the car since 1941 and originally raced the Ford and frequently won. He stopped racing when “all that silly safety stuff with cages and roll bars made it ugly.”
I asked John how many miles he had on the car and he couldn’t say because he only installed a speedometer/odometer 300 miles ago. Since he raced the car for so many years, he never needed one. John said, “I always seemed to know how fast I was going and today, well, I just don’t drive very fast.” A brand new speedometer (in Ford years) was in the trunk so he finally installed it when he registered the car last year. He figured he needed it for insurance purposes.
John keeps his car garaged at his home in Medford and joins his buddies on week end car trips much to the delight of gawkers like me.
Old Cars Never Die 
