My love of vintage iron started shortly after I was born in 1971. About 9 months after my arrival, my dad borrowed some money from a friend (until his tax return arrived) to buy a 1930 Model A 4 Door Sedan that was near where we lived in GA. Growing up, all of our family vacations were centered around travelling the country with the Model A Club. Usually once a month we were on some weekend tour in the southeast and every summer we would take a 1 - 2 week trip to stretch the old As legs a little more. This included trips to Dearborn, Michigan, Niagara Falls, an extended tour of New England and may other destinations. My fondest memories from my childhood were the adventures we experienced on these trips. My dad loved that car but had long yearned to find himself a roadster. When I was about thirteen (1984ish), he taught me an early lesson about marriage....'do something nice for the wife to ease the pain of what you are about to do'. So, he took her on a 2 week vacation to Ireland and Paris and soon after they returned, he started his search for the roadster he wanted. I recall sitting at the dining room table with him and the latest edition of Hemmings Motor News reading every ad for a Model A roadster and circling the ones that looked promising. Once we had a few 'circles' within driving range in the southeast, he, I and a friend of his from the Model A Club set out to track down the right one. After about 4 days of traveling through GA, AL and LA, we had looked at a half a dozen of them, but none fit the bill. I needed to be back in school so we headed back home. A couple days later, dad got a call about a Washington blue 1931 roadster for sale in AL, so he and mom set out to take a look. It was the one! He bought it and drove it back home in a driving rainstorm. As a kid, I loved wandering the car shows and looking at the Model As, but always tended to lean towards the hot rod stuff. I was never a big fan of the billet, chrome and neon colors of the day, and always leaned towards the simpler, more traditional stuff, which was always hard to find. I hope to some day inherit the roadster and do a minor post war hotrod look to it while keeping it the original color and feel that it has always had. So, in the meantime I will spending untold hours reading as much as I can on HAMB and laying out a game plan. Thanks in advance for your knowledge - Farrell. NOTE: My avatar is my dad and mom (since passed) in the roadster in Turn 1 at Road Atlanta
The Jalopy Journal
