I have a good friend Cody who has been looking for a model A project all summer. He wants one with “patina” or “character” or whatever you want to call it. Cody specializes in signs, antiques and industrial made art so he wanted a car with the same charm as all the stuff he loves. He text me Wednesday and said “dude there is two model A roadsters at an estate sale in Yakima (200 Miles from us) tomorrow and one looks just like what I want”. He said he was working near there tomorrow and he was going to go look at them. One was complete, one looked like a bare body sitting on the floor of a very dirty barn. He started texting me pictures when he got there the next day and basically telling me he wanted the complete car. He told me the price for both after he negotiated and asked if I wanted the body. I said yes, so Saturday we both took our trucks and trailers and headed down. The deal was, we got anything for the cars included, and he and I got our cars, parts and some extra goodies. We had no idea who the owner was, but he apparently liked these A’s as people were stopping by he sale and telling us they had been trying to buy those cars for 40 years and he would never sell. That’s the sad reality, estate sales are bitter sweet that way. That guys whole life got sold and torn apart in a couple days. Anyways, here are some pics. Cody is really excited to get his car going as a hot rod but leaving it looking pretty much as-is. Me? I think a simple AV8 is in order. I am looking for a drivers door and windshield stantions if anyone had anything. “Alley Oop”
My car came with all four fenders, hood, grill, radiator, headlight bar, bare frame and some other odds and ends. I have an old Dago axle, split 32 wishbones, spring, spindles and tires and wheel. I also have a spare 33/34 rear end so this morning mocked the car up the best I could. I usually prefer fendered cars, but this car I think needs to be a good old fashion highboy. The fenders are pretty rough.
...Dayuum...score a rama...@Chris your fun is awesome to witness...thanks for sharing the adventure......It actually says Alley Opp...whatever the heck that means...OPP is our Provincial Police Force in Ontario... But that vintage song and spelling error is a more plausible reality...have fun with it... Right you are @Nobey no doubt this had a connection to the vintage text on Chris's buddys roadster...
Neat deal Chris, those don't come up like that too often. The Ford truck/Pontiac Super Duty hood scoop is pretty cool too!
Alley Opp was in the funny papers when I was a kid. He's was a cave man who traveled through time, one long continues story you had to read daily to understand. He was a bad dude. Nice find by the way.....
Guess the North West will never run out of A Roadsters, nice find. Check that flipper hub cap I think it is an original 1930's Cadillac item. Bob
Great scores, Chris! You and your pal Cody always find some cool stuff. Looking forward to watching the progress.
Great score, great story. Looks really good with the fenders on, I have to say. It is always kinda sad to see someone's lifetime collection get cleared out over a weekend, I've seen that happen so many times. But it's time to actually build those cars now, "someday" has arrived.
Great. Now I've got that earworm in my head for the rest of the day. Alley Oop, Oop, Oop-Oop. So do you have your roadster running around the block yet? It's been a while since you've had an A to drive. Too many late model F-100's.
It's a Merc crank, I actually got two of them. And I showed Cody how to tell the difference between a Merc and a Ford, and we found one for him too.
Nice find. When I was a kid there was a cherry orchard in Natchez with several TT and AA trucks, an old Seagrave fire pumper and a 32 Chevy coupe body on a CJ2A chassis. Went to WSU. Bought several old timers for next to nothing in Whitman and Latah counties. Big vintage Mopar yard in the Kapowsin area. Big GM yard in the Eatonville area. Big Studebaker yard near Roy. Or were. Been in TN since early 2011...
Right on. Glad they went to a good home. I've known about this stuff for awhile now (my dad knew the owner) but could never get around to checking it all out. From what I understood there was some great deals to be had at the sale.
Yes, the estate sale guy said anything left after Saturday would probably be scrapped unfortunately. I made a big pile of non model A stuff and he just priced the whole pile. They were there to sell.
Not yet, if fact I will probably knock it back down for storage as winter is right around the corner. I do have some parts I've saved just in case the right "early Ford" came into my life: that front end with dago axle, gumball headlights, Lincoln trans, 33/34 rear end, 16x5 wheels, bunch of brake parts, lights, etc. And a Merc crank flathead with edelbrock heads and Edmunds intake.
The Jalopy Journal
