After 2 1/2 years my friend Charlie Sorensen of Bethel, Ct. is putting the finishing touches on his A pick up. Charlie is 77 years young and with the exception of the interior has done everything himself. The thing that I find so interesting is what he started with , to quote Charlie "junk" He has collected parts from all over the place. The cowl , bed and fenders all came from the recycling piles of other guys in the hobby. As Charlie says each part came with the question " what the hell are you going to do with that junk ?" But Charlie has persevered and the completed product is a neat piece. A real gentleman with patience and skills. He has been a "go to" guy for me as I was building my roadster. Thought I would post some pictures for him since he doesn't have a computer. Right now it's at the Upholstery shop getting it's top. Dave Palmer in Ridgefield, ct is stitching that up for him. Enjoy, Pete
Charlie started with a cowl that was rotted to the belt line and then scrounged every other part, what you can't see is he used an early chevy dash board, t-5 tranny, rebuilt the engine himself using the '32 head, converted the intake to downdraft. the bent/rotted [i hate to call it a bed] thing he fixed for a bed has been shortened front and back. he made the top from EMT, as petew wrote the parts he started with were BAD.
Congrats to Charlie !!! Looks great. My Dad turns 77 next weekend and loves old cars and meets my brother and I at cruise nights with my Mom all summer. Pretty cool, but I can't imagine him taking on a project like Charlie. Now that's really really cool !!!
charlie you did a beautiful job id love to learn a thing or two from you...but i live across the nation....enjoy driving it!
From the description of what he started with, those are some amazing results. I hope I'm building cars still at that age. She looks great, job well done.
Charlie has built a few hot rods, a vintage sprint car,two '34 ford pickups one flatty powered the other sbc, a model A roadster, a forty ford coupe, a T roadster with a flat head,all built, with the exception of the forty in the last 15 years. he is now planning out his next build, maybe a chevy this time.
Charlie painted the car in a tent in his driveway. in the cold month's worked on parts in the basement, and had to keep the car unassembled due to the fact he had very little room in the garage to work on it.
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