Most of you remember me telling you about a 35 5w coupe that I was chasing a guy down on. He was the one that had his own private auction going on it. I have a standing offer of $5500 and the guy said to call him if anyone came close to that. Well, of course thats just trader talk and I enjoy it! Anyway, I would call the guy from time to time and stop by. By my standards it was pretty rough. The Ohio chloride had gotten to the frame and every body panel. It was pretty much a 50s mild hot rod; merc engine, Columbia 2 speed and a few little dress up things. Right before I sent the guy the money for my Brookville body and gave BenD the go ahead, I told my wife I was going to go look at the 35 one last time and see if it was something I wanted to (could) tangle with. Well, I crawled all over it quite a bit and decided I wanted the roadster from El Paso more (faster results and probably less money). Since this is my first project, I wanted to get something on the road pretty quickly. So, I left him and told him to give me a call sometime and that Id stop by and see him and the car again. Fast forward about 3 months. I was out in the garage working on the roadsters center cross member and pedals. I stopped for a few and went inside to get a drink of cold water and I saw the light flashing on the answering machine. When I checked it, the owner of the 35 was on there telling me to call him. Whoooah! Most guys wont take time to call, they just usually sell when the opportunity presents. He told me he knew I was interested in the car and that he was now going to sell it. He had always referred to that standing offer when Id ask him to put a price on it. When I asked him how much it would take to put it on a trailer the last time I was there, he backed down and said, I dont think Ill sell it. When I had him on the phone this time, he said, I have to have $5k out of it. I explained how Id love to have the car but that I spent all my cash on the model A BUT I also told him I had a buddy that may be interested. My buddy is a meticulous restorer. I mean theres restorers and then theres this fella. He bought a 35 roadster that was just stunning. He tore it apart and made it, well, words just wouldnt do it justice. I talked this over with my grandpa quickly and we didnt want a street-rodder to get it, nor a person that would let it sit behind his shed and rot worse. As you know, theres doers and theres talkers. This guy is a doer! Anyway, here she is in all of here glory. The fella bought it from a guy in 59 and stopped driving it in 62. It sat in his ba*****t until about 1998 (not sure) until a flood came through. In the middle of the night, this ole fella took his tractor and drug this car up out of the water- along with a 57 Tbird- to save it from the flood. The restorer that bought this is considering my views for the car; leaving the merc in it, certainly the Columbia, dressing up the merc and removing the bottom half of the hood and putting fender skirts on it. I may have convinced him of this when I told him that he just purchased a real surviving 50s hot rod and that he needs to bring it back to its glory days. He liked that idea and he like the ideas because it wouldnt require cutting it up (no comments needed!). The ole fella that had the car took us back to some of his old delapitated sheds. He opend the door to one that looked like a good home for a family of snakes, and said I think those wheels and fenders are in here. Of course being 30 and more than half the age of all three of the other guys, I volunteered to go diving. Little did I know what kind of stuff I would find. At firt, there was just as bunch of rusted Ford generators, starters and some stuff that wasnt too important. But, as I looked up toward the ceiling (piled clear full of stuff) I noticed what looked like a 32 shell. After I looked into my wallet to see when my tetnus shot expired, I climbed on and started pulling stuff out. What, at first, appeared to be a falling down shed with a huge hole in the roof, turned out to be King Tuts tomb! I pulled out a pretty good 36 hood and two complete front fenders, two new old stock (he said but I know theyre not) 40-41 truck fenders, some type of Ford grille, model grille, 35 deck lid, 35-36 cabriolet top bows, a fibergl*** 32 shell (probably from the 60s) and I quit digging because it was like being in a mine trying and my legs got so weak (I know wussy!) from standing in that awkward postion for hours. Heres the crazy part, he has about 5 more buildings and when I asked about what was in them, he just laughed and said, More junk .. I was simply nasty. I was sweating like a you know what and I kept hitting that rotten roof with my head and all that nastiness kept coming down and sticking on me. I want sure if the guys I had went with would give me a ride back! Ill take a shot of the fenders, I dont know what they are ..nor the grille shell. I bought much of it but ran out of money. He said he wont sell anything and that hed call me when he opened up the others. Im sure he will because he said he is going to clean up the place and go into an ***isted living subdivision type thing. What a day! yesterday .even though the dates on the pics say tomorrow! Another one survives and it is in excellent hands!!!! Hey, I didnt proofread it, I know there are mistakes but Ive gotta go and I wanted to share this while its fresh! And remember boys and girls . Always be nice Always ask .. Always follow-up . EDIT: some side stories..... Youll get a kick out of these .. When we first got there, I threw a chain up over the rear axle. Just as my buddy was going to drop the trailer and pull it up out of the weeds, the next door neighbor came over. Yep, you guessed it. Hes just like YOUR neighbor. Its a good thing you guys bought this. Ole Jim and I were going to sub-frame it. My buddy and I subframed blah, blah, blah and he went on an on. After his rant the guy I was with looked at him and said, Thats why we bought it, to keep guys like you away from cars like this. That didnt even phase him, he went on and on. Id bet he used the word pro-street 50 times in less than 10 minutes. Im serious. It could have been more. After we go on our way, we were in a left turn lane when a big, new Dodge diesel truck pull up beside us and was yelling at our windows. I was in the back seat and the guy in front of me rolled down the window to see what he wanted. I thought one of our straps came loose. Nope, it must have been the neighbors brother! This guy was worse! First, he asked where we got it (mind you, we were blocking traffic) and what it would be worth. The guy that bought it said its a 35 Ford and itd be worth about 8-10k. Let me get to the point. We pulled over behind him up the road. He jumped out and ran back to our truck and showed us a pic of some tubbed out fibergl*** looking thing. Needless, to say we were disappointed. But this is where it gets good. He went on to tell us about some 700ci engine he had that made 1700HP on 87 octane. Then he asked if we gave 8k for the car and my buddy said, No, you asked what it was worth. With a sigh of relief, he said, Good because I can buy them all day out west for $2500. I take a 4 car trailer and bring them back. First off, he didnt even know it was a 35, let alone you cant buy them all day long .anyway .idiot. All the way home we kept laughing about subframes, prostreet, 1700HP and 87octane......good laugh all the way home!
Jeff, Looks like somebody mad a good buy! Musta' been a fun day. Keep us informed when the next building opens for viewing...............
Good story, great to see a survivor pulled fromt he weeds and saved from the hands of a street rodder. Any more pics of the car? RRR
No more pics. Like an idiot, I forgot my camera. We used the guy's that bought it and he said the ones I took with his camera didn't turn out..... I told him to send them to me anyway, but he left town early this morning. I'll bet he wished he didn't have a vacation planned the day after he drug a 35 home!?
Hey Youngin, Thanks a lot for takin the time to post that neat story.........And the trip home!! Man, you got the right vision........open sides on hood to show a nice flatty..........and low in the back with skirts. Somebodies gonna have a great new toy!! I have a plastic model 36 coupe that I built a few years ago just like that! I was wondering how you were doing on your roadster also.........I haven't heard much about it since you stole that new 32 radiator!
Been thinkin' about you! I haven't hardly touched it for about 3 weeks. I hit it for about 3 hours today but just as I really got into it, the better half's family decided to stop. The dag goned ******/pedal support is working me over. I'm too tight to buy a Tardell (plus I feel like I'm cheating since I cheated with the Brookville). I think I've got it now, however. I think the easiest thing to do would be to cut about 6" out of my legs, then it wouldn't be so tight!
cool story, sounds like the car is in great hands. my worst car story was about nearly getting shot (my brother too) trying to dig a 68 newport away from a horse shed. that scared the hell outta me. that was a bad day.
It's possible he accidentally included one too many zeros in his HP estimate. It happens to the best of us. LOL!
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