Make you humble ... and mortal too ..

I have been working on the 3W some now that the heat has went down a little and this week I hung the doors and worked on the fit. I took the window regulators and door latches out today.

It occurred to me that the men who installed all these parts are most likely dead ... and have been for years. A Humble thought. You wondered how many went to WWII and never came home. How many men worked @ Ford and had families that needed the paycheck. I think about the outside vendors who worked and made parts for Ford ( Like Murray body Company )

We are just caretakers for this old stuff ...

 

and thats the exact reason I love a real henry body. not because I'd want to put someone down with a replica, but just because I like to think about what the car has been through and where the car has travelled in its life, thats all.

 

Cool post. Does make you think. Really makes you appreciate how long this stuff lasts too. Nothing like it today.

 

August 28, 2007 - Tuesday
Who has owned my car since 1934?

Sometimes I wonder who owned my 1934 Plymouth

It was near the height of the Great Depression. My 1934 Plymouth Business Coupe (PF or PG?) was one of the least expensive "new cars", so it was not bought by a rich man. Still, it would take a leap of faith by a brave soul to purchase this new car. Was it a single guy trying to impress the girl with the pretty smile? Was it some young salesman that needed to travel to feed his family? Did they have to sell it when just as the Great Depression seemed over, there was another unexpected dip in 1939? Did they keep it and give it to one of their children?

After WWII was it turned into a hot rod? Was it lost as parts of the next Hot Rod someone was going to build, but never found the time or money?

According to the guy I bought it from Delta, CO, he got it from a guy, who bought it from a guy in Denver that ran Circle Dirt Track Racers. That does explain the hand built frame. Maybe it finally became a hot rod in my hands. Would the previous owners be surprised, disappointed? happy? not care? think it was the "bee's knee's"?

There is no real way to know. The body tags that would have given me a clue are long gone, and the guy that owned it before me registered it with no previous registration record. I also wonder if someone in the future (after I have gone to be with the Lord) will think about this same question. The car has most likely out lived it's first owner, out lived the Plymouth division, and will probably out live me….

 

I think about the people who bulit my 30 when I'm working on it,I wonder what they would think about what they made.
It has lasted 77 years and as I told my dad,maybe I can help it last another 77.
I imagine that everyone of them who had a hand in building it is dead now, and it does make one feel humble and mortal.

 

This is a great topic, i have said to my wife on several occasions that you cant help but get a little wierd feeling when i look in the rearview mirror of my 40 pickup wondering how many sets of others eyes were there before you and on the drivers door there is a wear mark from the left knee of anyone who has ever driven that truck as well .i sold that truck and now have a 36 p/u that i have not yet drove but im sure i ll find some of the same .

 

cool post , i just bought a 37 pickup a few months ago and the wife has found out a few enteresting things about my truck , it was bought new in 1937 by a farmer in tupelo ms. and it appears it was a farm truck for some years it was not re-***led until 1960 by a man in clarksville ms. it was then ***led in colorodo then illinois on to tennessee up to ohio went back to illinois and i got it from a man in louisville ky.. i live 30 miles from tupelo ms. so the old boy made the loop and came back home sorta speak
i have owned several old rides that i had the same feeling as most of you its kinda cool and creepy at the same time ..

 

Hey Deuce, Good thread. You've done it again. Thanks.
I'm workin' on a '34 Ford 5 window coupe.
I often wonder about the people that built the car originally and how many of them it took to do it. Did one guy put the top insert in? Two guys load the body parts into the jig?
Sometimes when I'm at work I'm thinkin' of the coupe. What were they thinkin' of when they were buildin' it?
And that's just the guys that built it. How about the families that used it and the folks that worked on it through the years.
Have fun,Smokey

 

its those type of thoughts that I think is in alot of us hotrods. Its more then just 4 wheels and engine and a way to get to work...

 

I was watching a WW2 show on PBS a few nights ago and they showed some video clips of USA life during the war. I was looking at the age of the cars in those clips, and wondered how many 32's were already junked & crushed by then. It's pretty amazing to me just how many are still left....and showing up on ebay

 

I bought a Deuce taillight,license holder and arm at the New Braunfels swap meet. It was bent up and twisted. It has a Texas plate from 1951. The plate was attached to the holder with wire. The car was being used with the plate held on with wire and the arm bent all up. It was twisted but still semi pointed back. We look at these cars as wonderful works of art. They survived because they were hard to kill and people used them. Too poor to buy two 1/4 in bolts. That's poor. I started to take the wire off and straighten the arm. I stopped and asked what the hell I was doing. I will hang it on the wall. I have a section of front fender. The bead was welded three times in different places and a strap finally put on with bolts. They never gave up on them. Immagine the new cars with straps and wire holding them together.

 

Think how many cars were crushed to add to the war effort. It was patriotic and the law to crush non running cars. A guy by the name of Barnie Pollack (spelling) had literally hundreds of collector cars, this was the forties, and had to go to court to keep from having them crushed. They were hung from the rafters life meat on hooks. The ones that have survived were probably working and driving cars to escape being crushed. Real survivors.

 

My '34 is originally from South Dakota. I carry some original '34 Ford advertising brochures and photos in the car to show people some of the lineage of the car and its history.
I could never feel "right" in a 'gl*** car. No past. No nothing.
Hardly a week goes by with thinking that "in this car from 1934 to whenever it finally gave up, people in the midwest for many years cried, laughed, went to funerals and weddings, made marriage proposals, had good days and bad days, near misses and close calls". This car carried them to their daily destinations through sickness, health, hot, cold, snow, grief, and unbridled joy.
I like that feeling. I've experianced some of the same feelings like that in this car myself. That car has taken me, also, to weddings and funerals, hot, cold, etc., etc., etc.
Yes, I think about all who traveled during their life in this car before me.
I think about it all the time.

 

this is a good thread... i personally believe (as weird as it may sound) that all organic material has an "impression " left on it. rock, drywall, lumber, steel, etc. that is why you get a certain feeling when you go into someone's house... you get the same feeling (even if you are not a car guy) when you get in an old car. it in essence has a soul. think of how many first dates where in that car, or family vacations , or even funeral processions. all that energy negative or positive leaves a mark and we can feel it whether we acknowledge or not.

i have to go now my spaceship is leaving. ha ha lol

 

sorry mazooma. i guess i was typing while you made your post... i think we are on the same wavelength here.

you can take a ride on my space ship if you want

 

Hodaddyo:
Spaceship ride accepted.
I'll bring the tin foil hats and beer!

 

Its tough not to get in an old car and not get that feeling. My truck always reminds me that it was a work truck. It was owned by a farmer who used it for working and helping others with the crops he grew. Every dent is a story about a day when real honest work meant survival....for the truck ,the farmer and those who depended on them both. Farmers gone but the truck still survives to help someone another day.........

 

I get the same feelings when working on my old iron. I really dig seeing old writings that have been covered up for decades. While doing some minor repair work on the rocker boxes of my '57 Ford, I found a 1957 penny in a sealed spot that there was no way it could have just fallen in there. It had to have been placed there by someone at the factory. I wonder if he (she) was thinking it might be "discovered" some day. I leave little messages in hidden spots on all my cars I build so future owners can get the same kicks and sence of history.

 

I get this same feeling when I am involved in my other p***ion in life:collecting old knives.It never fails when I pick one of them up and wonder who else has held it in their hand and what it has seen. In my collection I have a Persian jambiya that has been dated to the mid 17th century.The handle is carved elephant ivory with many figures and Arabic lettering that is nearly worn off from use.The blade is hammer forged Damascus steel(several hundred layers)with gold incised lettering.The sheath is made from wood with some type of a skin(lizard maybe)covering and also houses a small companion dagger.The workmanship is incredible.

I look at this and wonder who it originally was made for;if it ever took a life or saved it's owner.But most of all how it managed to survive for nearly 350 years in such remarkable shape and how it came to me to be the caretaker.

Sorry to get off on a tangent but I guess I was born a hundred years too late.

 

Not to remove the subject of '32 Fords here...but I used to drive my '40 Stude coop daily in my job as commercial print salesman, (this of course, back in the early 1980's)...one day I was down on 17th Street in Denver (Denver's financial center) and parked at a meter...an old guy was walking by...he stopped, studied the car for a few minutes as I was putting money in the meter...he walked around it and named the car (something not a lot of people do because not every one knows what a Studey is). "Yes, correct." I said. He looked at me with a grin on his face and said, "I probably built that car for you." and went on to explain he worked for Studebaker in their plant...as a manager...and oversaw all of the building of cars in 1940 (and for a number of years previous and after 1940)... I shook his hand and thanked him.

R-

 

This topic is right on and I firmly believe that old tin has that feel about it,like it's got soul or personality.

 

i'm right there with all you guys. i sit and stare at my old diamond t and just imagine what it went through. i know it was a work truck on a farm and i wonder what it hauled and who it went to. i think about all the other people who must have looked out those windows, about the children that jumped on the running boards and hitched a ride across the field. i look at the dents in the fenders and bumpers and wonder how it happened, if anybody got hurt and why they didn't bother fixing them. i look at the faded yellow pinstriping around the cab and windows and wonder at the hand that laid those lines.

i really relate to safaruknut and the old knives too, my dad is a custom knifemaker so i've always been interested in those things and i have some old guns too. i have a WWII machete and think about the hands that carried that and used it to get through the brush. i also have a civil war era musket. it was made in lousiana in 1865, 2 years into the civil war, and i imagine carrying it through the heartland of our countrty, marching to do battle with fellow americans.

i really just love anything old, i have so many antiques and such and can't get enough of them. my girl and i are looking for a house and don't want anything built after the 50's because they don't have any soul. it's the history that makes us what we are and i celebrate it any chance i get!!

 

Not only that, it's like my Burb, it was an Army vehicle first. Makes me wonder if it might have been used over in Korea. I'm trying to find a site or someone that can help me use the VIN number to get some info on it.

 

And its all American!

 

now thats a cool story!

 

This Benz commercial shows life from the cars point of view:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rv2-DYgzcY
My '64 Pontiac 4 door has perfect surviver interior paint except for a wear-through mark on the top of the rear p***enger door sill. It's exactly where a kid would stick his elbow out the window ( I had my son test fit it ) How many miles did that kid ride like that to wear out a spot in the paint - dreaming of the future, flying jet cars, living on the moon........

 

it is really cool and whats funny is I build calibers,comp*** and patriot cars and what is really funny as I build em I think I wonder if this is some ones first car? or how many new babies will be brought home from hospital in this car and stuff like that or if this car will save someones life in an accident. I bet those old timers did too.

 

The ch***is that is now the basis for my ’32 five window was an untouched “barn find” when I got it. However, I was not the one who found it, so I did not get any verbal history wit it. But some of the history was there to see. The tires were recaps with an imprint that they met the War Resources Board approval, telling of a time when rubber was a restricted commodity. Perhaps that is the reason that the replacement ’37 engine sat on wooden motor mounts. The coating of oil soaked dirt was inches thick in some places, a badge that can only be earned by many miles on dirt roads. Yeah, these old cars were tough and they carried the folks who cared for them through some tough times.

 

I pick up alot of diffrent cars from around the place, so alot of the old boys see me picking stuff up in my country area so I have a bit of a reputation with them- most of them come into the pub so its not uncommon to spend an afternoon into evening talking to them about the shanagans and ratbagness of thier youth and the cars they used to have. I had one old bloke from kunno (country town) tell me how he got his first root in the back of a 54ford customline I told him I had seen one near kunno- he laughed and said to see if theres any scratches in the roof vyinl in the back seat, I got a chance about a week later to look at the car - it had big gouges in the back roof?. so I asked him how they got there-
he smiled and winked "the young l*** was wearing heels mate"
cheeky old ******s

 

Good thread! I just rebuilt my '52's 3-sp ******, and found myself stunned at the machine work on the mainshaft. I think of the quality of the steel, the many machining operations needed to make each shaft, and how they were turning out a 100's of thousands of these a year... I have an image of guys in overalls, with greasy hands, running the lathes and milling machines, earning a good living. All done without benefit of a single computer, or computer-controlled machining center. Probably using machinery built before the war. Particularly good to see? "Made in U.S.A." stamped or cast into virtually every part that had room to put it. Not because there was any question where a Ford part would be made back then, but because they were proud of it.