Well a lot of you know me and the history of my 34 but there is a unusual story I haven't shared about this car and me. I told it to a close friend recently and he said I should post it so here goes. BTW, I' m close to putting it on the road, possibly before the end of April. I'll be 77 y.o. on the 19th so this will be a fitting BD present to myself. Well this tale starts with the November 1958 issue of "Hot Rod", and me being 18 y.o. in the USAF living on base in Wichita and being so home sick and missing my little honey so bad I was ready to skip town and walk back to Seattle. I subscribed to the "rodders bible" of the times that being H.R. and picked my copy up at lunch at mail call. When going through it I came across the feature article on a "1934" 3 window Ford from Bellevue Washington, just a few miles from my home and my honey. Well that sure as hell didn't do any good to my juvenile loneliness and homesickness condition. I was a lovesick, homesick idiot kid, and pretty much forced myself on many of my AF car buddies, pestering them with looking at the mag, and the article, and bragging how we had as good a rides in Wash. as any place in Cali. and here was the proof. I bought another mag, tore out the article and taped it up inside the door of my wall closet(along side the ******* my honey had sent me earlier, but that's a story for another time.) That article stayed there until I moved off base with her in 1960 and I still have the issue of H.R. I got in the mail that day. So fast fwd. right about exactly 37 yrs., to me now at Boeing and working for them in the manufacturing division as a Manufacturing Engineer lead. One of my guys comes to me and says, "There's a '34 Coupe in the Trader this week". and hands it to me. (It is common knowledge that I was in the market). Long story/short, I head down to the shop, show my street rod bud and that night we head out in the worst wind and rain, (it rains in Seattle sometimes), storm ever, find the car, drive it, make an offer, negotiated a lower price, (17K for a steel 34 down from 25K ) and drive it home. Its in black primer, wire wheels, 302 Ford, upholstery painted black, and a 4 speed. Original gl***, good tires but real old, no rust as it had been a show car for most of its life after it was rodded by Jerry Berg and a pretty fair driver. It had a full tilt front end including the front fenders with a gwad awful lash up for the radiator hose about 3 feet long with a quick disconnect that was just plain ugly. So I stuck it in my two car, and started planning what to do with it. I had been subscribed to all the mags. of times and had over 1400 stored away and cataloged by years, so I pulled them out and started going through them to get an idea of period perfect. I came across the article in the 58 issue of HT that I had forgotten about and remembed the time in Wichita in '58 when I was a young punk and all. I get to studding the pic's, notice first the kerf bars are exactly like mine, then the radiused deck lid corners are like mine, then the modified radiator fill is exactly like mine. I hit the garage, turn on the lights and damned if it isn't true. So as Ironic as it seems, after a life time, I now own the car I first saw and lusted for almost 40 years ago. I call my buddy who went with me to get it and he comes over and he cant believe it either. There are articles in the little pages also of Rod and Custom, Car Craft and more. One of them shows Jerry at 18, gives his name so I get out the phone book and find five of them. Call them all, get the right one and some time later he comes over. Later brings his adult son and grandson also. He gives me the history of the car as he sold it, and the rest is history. So that's the story. Hope I haven't bored hell out of you if you read it all, now its off to the shop to finish putting her together again for about the 7th time I think.
Musta done a lot of "right" in his life for the stars to align for him...I would have gone out and bought a bunch of Lotto tickets in case the stars were going to stay aligned for a bit!!
Nice read, but Larry, where are the dadgum pictures, Larry? Sorry wrong, Larry, but pics would be nice.
That is a great story how you ended up with your dream car, not even realizing the one you bought was the one!
Well so sorry guy's I'll give it my best shot. I thought a lot of you's guys was familiar with my "34Larry posts there are a million on here. Maybe search "34Larry). Was able to get one pic to load and will keep trying. In case I can't get more than one, the complete history from day one with Jerry with pic's 0f when it was chopped in ' 56 (and tons more) is told on web site, "Jerry Bergs 1934 Ford". Google that and it will bring up, "Kustomrama" and the entire story. Here's a pic. of it a couple of summers ago. It is fully wired now, steering is in (new Grant banjo wheel and horn, park lights, headlights, taillights, dash lights, power doors, power windows, windshield wiper coming this weekend, all done by my best friend who has 4 cars under construction. Would love to show the frame I built and painted if I can get the file to load. See the web site I mentioned, it is there also. Well I didn't do to bad so I also included a pic of the day Jerry brought it home to his house in 1955 and a pic of it as the "Northern Star". There are more on Kustomrama including the gwad auful ugly purple version that the guy Jerry sold it to did. OMG!!!!!!! Quad head lights in a 34, and purple to boot????????????????
THAT is a great story!! Thank you so much for sharing it. Sometimes it feels like there are mysterious forces at work, doesn't it?
Did you buy it from the guy who bought it from Ben Sebastian? I remember that car being for sale at the Monroe Swap Meet around 1990. It probably had seen daylight for the first time in probably 15 years. Quad headlights, carpeted running boards, tilt front end, fuzzy interior and some hideous shade of pink/purple. The only thing it had going for it was the blown hemi, which was why Ben stopped driving it. The home made blower setup he put on it kept blowing gaskets. I wonder what happened to the hemi that was in it. Dave
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