Has anyone seen this writing on a passenger door before?

I have a 40 Chevy business coupe and it has 'KEEP P***ENGER DOOR CLOSED' on the top of the p***enger door, it was painted on over the original grey paint.

Some one suggested it may have been used for delivering mail, anyone seen it on other cars or have any ideas? I bought the car from Colorado, i guess it's been there all it's life but can't be sure.



Thanks.

 

or it may be a military thing..

 

Grey 1940 Chev would have airforce wouldn't it?

 

it's Chevrolet Kingston grey so a usual civilian colour but it could have been military too. is there anyway of tracing if 40 Chevy's were used by the military in the US?

 

There was no airforce until after 42. It was army air corp pry to the airforce and was od green.

 

Is there any way to trace who the car was originally sold too?

 

Air Force came about in 1948....it was the Army Air Corp before and during WWII

 

Navy vehicles were gray

 

More then likely it's U.S. Navy, up till early 48 U.S. Army Air Corp vehicles were OD green. After that early U.S. Air Force vehicles were blue. Hope this helps.

 

Here in Colorado the mountain bears would climb in open doors and demand a ride to town for groceries.Those pesky bears ! We call it BEAR CAR JACKING. Did you check the trunk?

 

Could be from a commercial fleet.

 

Give me that pick-uh-nick basket Boo Boo!

 

military vehicles usually had all kinds of funky nomenclature plates riveted to them, on the dash, on the firewall, etc. I have a couple ex Army late 50s chevy truck cabs here....they're OD under all the later repaints.

 

It's the why that's troubling me. Why does the p***enger door have to stay closed?

 

USAF as a separate branch was not established until 1947. Prior to that they were the USAAF - and used Army colors. If there are no extra metal tags with the typical military nomenclature, ie: Automobile, sedan, 2dr, platform, 30mm cannon.....well, you get my drift, then it was probably some civilian use, and Postal Delivery makes some sense, but there ought to have been more hints than just the 'p***enger door...' statement. The fact that stencils were used would indicate that it was probably not in commercial (private business) use, as they would have had the lettering done by a professional sign painter.

dj

 

If they couldn't afford to fix the door latch, why do you think they would pay a sign painter to let everyone know?

 

there's definately no sign of any riveted on plates anywhere, i thought that because it was stenciled and it's not even straight it's less likely to have been business owned but it puzzles me too that it states the door should be kept closed??

a lot of the rest of the car has been sanded back to bare metal then red primed over, i can't see any sign of writing anywhere else so far.

 

Also the military wasn't into coupes so much

 

It was painted by the owners old lady as a reminder to stop pickin' up the ladies on the way home from the saloon in his sweet ride!

 

Ex Area 51????

 

It would say "keep trunk closed"

(repoman?)

 

if that's the case my girlfriend might want me to re-apply it once i've done the paint

 

####---- Mother-In-Law Seat >>>>.

 

Back in 1947 right before he changed colors and after 8 beers ol bob told his buddies ..watch this, one day this is really gonna f**k with somebody

 

one thing for certain, until you find out why you'd better keep the p***enger door closed

 

Military cars had painted grills in those days. No chrome

 

Could it have belonged to a salesman or somebody like that who always had a mountain of books and binders, or stacks of boxes leaning in a big heap against the door? Maybe they got tired of people opening the door and having to pick up the mountain of junk that fell out in the street each time?

 

During WW2 there was an ODT. Office of Defense Transportation. They supplied vehicles, cars, trucks, buses, to critical industries and business's who had a need for vehicles, but could not go and buy them. Their color of all these was ODT gray, kinda like gray primer.

Who knows? maybe one of those? I could see our gov't stockpiling some vehicles before the war, cause they knew we were goning to be in it at some point.

 

This is on the dash of my truck.

 

If it was Military the easiest way to find out is to sand the remainder of the door. Should have some type of star and or stripes on it. Would have writing on the side of the hood also.