Terrible title for a story! But hang in there, it gets better. The story actually starts around the year 2011 or so. I found and purchased a 1931 Ford Model A 5-window coupe body. It had doors, trunk lid and misc. trim parts, but no frame or motor, glass, etc. With the help of Ray Yedding, I found a frame for a modest amount. Then I ran across a 1956 Oldsmobile. It was a 4 door, but complete and sort of ran. I paid only $200 for it. So now I had the makings of a hot rod similar to one that I had built back in my youth. The one from my old days was a 1931 Cabriole that I cut the roof off of to make it look like a roadster. It had a Olds engine and at the time it was considered pretty cool. Today it would be considered a Rat Rod. I traded it for a car with a roof when I thought I was moving to Colorado. But that is another story.
So, I started like most of my projects, hot and heavy. I rebuilt the engine, cleaned and painted the frame after boxing it. I cut and channeled the body over the frame 6-inches, installed a dropped axle and a 9” Ford rear end out of a ‘57 Ford. Then things took a turn in my shop. I took a job restoring a 1955 Ford ranch wagon for a customer from Sweden. My intention was to work on the customer’s car part time and continue on the model A part time. But that never works. Before I knew it, I was focusing on the Ranch Wagon and the Model A was moved into storage. Other jobs came up and there it sat until around 2020.
We all remember what was happening in the first part of 2020. The pandemic. Covid-19 became the overriding concern for all of us. We didn’t know exactly how this was going to affect us and the authorities were suggesting that we wear [face] masks and practice “social distancing”. In hindsight maybe some of the suggestions were overkill, but who knew?
As for my family, we decided to try to follow most of the suggestions and play it safe. My youngest son had just graduated from college and had moved home to get ready to look for a job. Because of the pandemic, we agreed that this was not the best time to be out meeting in public, possibly bringing home the virus to us “old folks”. So, we decided to put that off for a while.
At first my son and I used a lot of the time to cut firewood on our property. Soon we had a pile of cut and split firewood that ‘you could see from space’. We also took the opportunity to do many small repairs around the house. But it became apparent that we were running out of things to do.
One day I pointed to the old Model A project that had been on hold for several years and asked him if he would be interested in helping me finish it. He is not really a car guy, but he knows his way around a shop. I had a standing offer to sell the car to my Swedish customer and was tempted. My son said “Sure, why not. It’s almost finished anyway.”. I told him “No, it is nowhere close, and if we start it we are going to see it though”. No quitting until it is done. So almost by the flip of a coin toss, we decided to go ahead and build it.
– By Lanny N. • Stay tuned for Part 2 next month
