History Ever wonder about your cars first owner?

That is indeed very generous of you at that princely price I am guessing you would expect to have it delivered! (LOL)

 

I have a 41 Packard 160 Buisness Coupe. The car's loaded. Radio, deluxe bumper guards, sidemounts, Aero-drive (overdrive), electromatic clutch and heater. There's a leather seat in it too. May or may not be the original. Here's the thing, the car never strayed far from the Pittsburg area of PA. Being a biz cpe, I would think someone coulda got away with a lower priced car. This car was $400 more than a comparable Cadillac without the options. It was stamped for delivery on 12-24-40 and 1st titled on 1-3-41. Rich kid? Mob guy's girlfriend? Wealthy batchelor as a present to himself? I'm pretty certain it was ordered for it's lack of rear seating area for 1 reason or another. Coulda been a wealthy steel magnate and his wife bought it for him? Pennsylvania DMV records were lost in the 70s. I've owned more cars than I even want to remember, but this is the 1st one I would really like to find the owner history of.

 

I got my 41 Caddy from the original owners nephew. I haven't done anything with the car since I got it, so for now I seldom think about it. No real attachment or curiosity about it at all.

I'm also into the 67-72 Chevy trucks and I bought my 71K20 from the original owner. I have all the paper work since new.

 

My '65 Biscayne had all the paperwork and service receipts from the original owners. The car was purchased in Southern California, then they moved to Stockton, Ca.. The guy I bought the car from, bought it from the original owners and brought it to San Diego. He had replaced the original 283 with a 350, added a later model 3 speed, added a brake booster to the original drum set up and added power steering. He had the car repainted in it's original color and redid the interior to a two tone '66.

I bought the car and added a 454 and 6 speed. Hotckis suspension and disc brakes. New interior, new chrome and buffed the old paint.

 

I wonder if the original owner of my Tudor ever took a drivers course..every part of it had a dent, or more in it

 

people with those fiberglass cars should read this!!! mabe then they would understand why their cars will never be as cool as the real deal

 

Yeah, I think about it when I drive my car and wonder what it must have been like to buy a brand new car in the middle of the great depression. I assume who ever bought it was your average blue collar family man since it's a Ford and only a standard and not a DeLuxe 4 door. I also wonder where all it had been in its early life and around what time it was finally junked. I assume it was junked in the 50's because when I got it it didn't look like it could have possibly been on the road in the last fifty years.

 

The first owner of my '34 Pickup was my wife's great-great grandfather who bought it new in '34. It was handed down to my wife's grandfather and now my wife and I own it. It's been "farm-fixed" over the years and had a '39 Merc Flathead installed, but other than that, it's all original. It's a project, but we'll get her back on the road someday.

 

Agreed.

 

I bought the '63 Riviera I owned from the original owner so I knew something about him. He was an elderly gent at time, about 80 or so. He used to buy a new car every year or two until he bought the Riviera.
The only reason he sold it was to buy something smaller to drive in his later years.

 

Blades I didn't realize that the thread was that old. Disreguard the ettiquet thing. Maybe just the name and general vacinity is enough?

Weird? Because I look at cars going down the road and try and guess what the people that are driving them look like. Then when I pass them I look over to see how close I came. I've always done that and everyone has always said that it is weird (my mom and dad included). You haven't been around me that long and its already rubbing off on you.


And we are pals if you can't fight with your friends who can you fight with. Tell you what, just so I don't get ahead of ya next time I post something post the opposite of it (even if you agree with me) so I don't get ahead of you. Hell post something derogatory if you want, then I'll know that you really like me.


I actually get a little curious about who used to own my cars a lot when I am working on them. If they are kept well I say nice things about them and if they are screwed up I begin wonder if their parents were related and sometimes I make up stories about them.

 

So far as I can gather, the first owner was a collector of wood working files, smoked A LOT, and didn't have any friends because the only part of the seats that where ever really sat in was the drivers, giant ass groove in that. But have to love a guy that meticulously changes his oil and constant tune ups.

 

This post made me laugh. I may have a similar situation with my '51 Ford F1. Original Arizona truck but had lots of dents and the repairs were brazed in. I think that type of repair went out in the '50s or '60s.

 

My 33 pickup was my Dad's and he got it from a family friend of my mom. They bought the truck new for farm use and used it until 1952 when it finally died. They gave the title to my dad at christmas and he picked it up from them in the spring of 1953. Dad chopped it and did a few things to it but it sat in his 1 car garage. I was born in 1955 and grew up playing in the old truck. Dad never finished it and I got it from him in 2003, built a 32 chassie and got it on the road and took Dad for his first ride in it on his 81st birthday. I have taken the 33 back to the old farm it is only 16 miles from my house and while Clarence is no longer alive his daughters remember the old farm truck and have ridden in it when it was an old farm truck and in it as a hot rod.

 

i have the original buyers invoice that sez who bought it what options they wanted and how much they were also what they traded in for it.47 studebaker they got $701.36 for it total cost of the 55 pontiac $3001.36. it even has the salesmans name Ross Gaberiel.

 

I have actually been curious about my stude. Not so much about the original buyer I know it resided in texas for awhile because I found the fellas monthly bank statement with all his canceled checks.

I have figured out that it was probably highly optioned, it has factory turn signals, the fuse block has a provision for A/C with a fuse in it, it has 2 speed electric wipers. Form research I have found that those were available I if you had the cash to order it. But without the original invoice or build sheet it is all conjecture. I do know that it was a blown gas coupe for awhile before it someone bought it that was going to retore it then dismantled it and left it in a filed to rot.

I guess if I could do a car fax on something that old and find out who bought it originally I maybe could find the original owner and ask but I am not as cusious about he or she as I am about the history of the car itself.

 

My '53 Ford was built in Kansas City. Next it went to Oklahoma, then up to Northern Minnesota. I bought it from a man who I believe was either the 3rd or 4th owner in western Minnesota- it only spent a few years up there. I have the old registration slips from the 70's that show how little it was driven. I just turned 68k on the car a few weeks ago.

One thing that piqued my interest was when I saw a dealer name "ghosting" through the cheap quickie paint job that the guy I bought it from put on. It says "Northpoint". I tried to find a Ford dealership in Kansas City with that name, to little avail, and am curious if there may have been a dealership in Oklahoma by that name. It would sure be neat to track it down to where it had originally been sold and drive it down there someday if it still exists.

 

Not my car but cool story nonetheless...I was bs'ing with my neighbors the other night, an older couple who love cars. The Mrs. tells me her ex-husband called her this week after a guy who bought a '66 corvette for $139,000 tracked it back to them.

She and her first husband got 2 matching 427, 4-speed '66 vettes in 1967, I think she said she was 18? She drove hers for about 1 year, got tired of everybody trying to race and traded it into the dealer she bought it from, where it sat on the showroom floor then his personal collection until the dealer died recently. She was able to give the new owner some pictures, documents and original invoice for about $3K

 

Well my 53' was pretty much top of the line for the time.
Stock, it was Burgundy wiht the two tone brown interior.
Other then two rotted mid body mounts and the rockers being replaced, i dont know much about where it was from/sat. But i was told it was a Michigan car its whole life.
A tag was found hog-ringed to the front seats upright springs that just had "L.A. Young" on it, i dont know what that means.

But i'd sure like to know the history of that yacht.

 

We just got a 48 Plymouth coupe that was originally purchased by the government of Egypt. The only real proof is a plaque on the dash that is from AAA of Egypt. It has been repainted and different interior but under the trunk lid, the color is a military looking green.

 

Hmm. No, I usually worry what the next owner is going to give me for it.

 

I have a 1928 Buick and wonder if the original owners knew how to shift without grinding the gears each time. I'll bet the original owner has been dead for 50 years and never in his wildest dreams thought his car would outlast him by decades or that I paid more for a repro radiator cap than he probably got for the entire car when he sold it. I'm just the caretaker for it until I assume room temperature, and someone else enjoys it when I'm gone.

 

When I bought my '50 Shoebox (see avatar), the previous (2nd) owner gave me some of the car's original paperwork. I believe he was going to restore it, but never got around to it and stored it for several years. So, the original owner was the only one to really drive the car (through the 70's... maybe into the early '80's).

Here is the initial sales document for the car. It was sold in Birmingham, Alabama and ended up in Dallas, Texas. I Googled the original owner and found where she wrote a couple of books (see Amazon... cookbooks, etc.). A Dallas obit showed she died in the early '90's (probably old age) with what looks to be her maiden name (other documents referred to her as "Miss").

Also, one of the original brochures I received had hand written instructions on how to shift the column 3-speed. They probably gave that to her at the dealership the day she bought the car.

Kind of interesting stuff...

Regards,
X

 

Cool thread. I have a little history mystery going on at present.
I can trace the history of my 30 model A truck to the early 70s, and the guy who rebuilt it then, but he dosent remember anything apart from painting and driving it.
Heres what i've uncovered while doing bodywork.
The Wadsworth sign is the first i uncovered, after 9 layers of paint.
The second sign is only a part of it, due to me and the strip disc. This sign is on the trucks factory paint job, and is done in gold leaf, with blue drop shadow.
I've still got the other door to finish, so this may give me some of the last 81 years of history.

 

I was the second owner of my first car, '50 Merc, bought in '58, owners were real grouches, but they gladly took my $175...yes, that's what I paid for a '50 Merc back then...and sure, I sometimes wondered who first bought my other early Fords, or if they could imagine what they looked like after I finished with them??

I also wondered about the people who drove the cars that I got my engines from. In the mid-60s we were blowing up DeSotos at least once a month running on way too much nitro, so made made many trips to junk yards for replacements..one of them came from a thoroughly mashed '56, still some blood on the front seat, always wondered what happened to the driver...

 

That is the think when you own a car from the 20's or 30's. How MANY owners has it had? Where has it been? I was actually sitting in The Ghost putting weather stripping around the windshield today wondering that very thing while looking at the dash and cowl section (all that remains of the original Model A). Ya just wish they could talk.

 

I wonder if Phil sauer was the 1st owner of my merc when it was in Car Craft in 1957.I also wonder what he did,if he built it or where he had it built?I know Bemjamin Abrenillo had my merc in 1959 from the registration card I found in the glove box until his death in 2005 when the storage facility got it on a lien sale.They had it until 2007 when I purchased it.

 

I have every document that ever came with my 66 Corvette. I've owned the car for 30 years. It's amazing that all 3 owners kept all the paper and the car has never been any farther than 80 miles away from were it was originally purchased.

It also has an extensive SCCA sponsored auto cross history and photo's from day one. It also has it's complete original drive train and has 71,000 original miles. I bought the car for my 21st birthday.

I have a copy of the original title. About a month after buying the car I started wondering about the first owner. So I drove to the address listed on the title and the first owner still lived there. It was an amazing reunion and we have stayed in touch for 30 years now. I always let him drive it when he stops by. I'm very fortunate and lucky to have this car.

 

My '59 started as a cop car - have paperwork from 1964-present. I even have the docs when the state sold it in an auction(in 1964) to the owner that I bought it from he owned it from that day until 4 years ago when I bought it off him. Turns out the guy I bought it from used to drive it when he was a cop for that district- kinda cool.

 

I always wonder how many owners my 31 Ford has had