Art & Inspiration History lessons-learning where your car used to live

You talk about normal- have you seen Anthony’s avatar? Time for a change…

 

Yep, definitely cool when these old cars come with history. I don’t have all the paperwork for my 56, but do know it’s entire history from when it was bought new in Colorado, used to throw newspapers (which is why it has a spotlight), all the way up to when I got it. It was in the same family its whole life. The 50 Buick I recently had came with tons of history and was in the same town its whole life until I took it 30 miles south. The 61 GMC I just gave my son came with paperwork all the way back to when it was new and was also in the same town and family its whole life.

 

My 40 Ford "The Varmit" I bought as a field car. The title was issued in 1944 and from what I could tell was the second owner, in a small town in South Dakota. The man's name on the title passed away in 1976, even before I was born. Not sure how it got to Texas but I'm reasonably certain the car had been off the road since the mid 60s.

 

My 38 Chevy (avatar) has lived with us for almost 41 years, with a short 11 year stint from 1990-2001 where dad sold it but we always knew where it was. He bought it in 1971 in Des Moines as a roller, but somehow found out it was sold new in Phoenix, Arizona, at Fletcher Jones Chevrolet. We ended up moving out to PHX in 1985 so kinda like the car went back home for a while. Explains why the car has always been absolutely rust free.

 

One thing I did find when researching the wagon, was the location of Blanche Appel's grave. I was thinking about going for a picture...but, uh....haven't done it yet

 

I purchased my 55 Nomad from a Blair Ne. Chevy dealer in 1964 as a trade in, the paperwork showed it was sold new at an Omaha Chevy dealer & to my surprise the salesmans name was attached who happened to be a Horseless Carriage member in the very car club which I also belonged. I discussed the car with him & as he recalled it was classified as a slow mover as the odd color combination (Glacier Blue over Shoreline Biege) hindered prospective buyers.

 

When I was home on leave after Army advanced training in 1972 I bought a '63 Chevy 4x4 Carryall in Laguna Beach, CA for $300.00. It was reportedly previously owned by an archeologist in Mexico. The only thing I know about it was that sometime in it's past it was wrecked and repaired in Mexico as evidenced by over 3/4 inches on Bondo around the passenger side of the windshield and Hecho en Mexico etched on the passenger wind wing. It also had a plate over the speedometer so that it read in kilometers. I'm sure if the truck could talk it would have had some interesting stories about life in Mexico. And luckily the statue of limitations have long past about it's time when I owned it.

 

I can trace the history of my old delivery back to day one. First, my history with it. I bought it in 1978. I knew the car from seeing it race, and cruise in our home town as a kid. I fell head over heels in love with it back then! I sit at the traffic light on my bicycle, and I watched it doing burnouts. I made up my mind then, that some day I would buy it. So I bugged the owner into eventually selling it to me in 78. At that time I was told it was bought new in 1934 for an Ambulance in Covington Va. And that there was a picture of it on a wall there at a fire staton. But to me that was just a rumor? So after I bought it. I blasted it down to it's original paint, and bear metal. I found out that the original paint was white with green crosses, and lettering. The previous owner had bought it from the first builder, and also a drag raced it in the 60's. Then it was street raced, and drag raced at the Bristol Va. Drag strip, and other strips in the east. By the time I got it. It had been used, and abused. I want to thank all my friends who have helped me with it over the years too. The pictures are from the day I got it, then chopped it, and now.

 

I keep seeing that over in England between MOT and service history, previous ownership information is much more common than here in the US. Between resellers wanting to avoid new owners being able to contact old owners and Gov't privacy, it can be tough.

In this extreme, I bought a OT car without title a decade ago, with the price low enough that I wouldn't get hurt if it couldn't get titled. Had to go through the bonded title process, and have it inspected at AZ MVD (DMV in most places). Got the bond and then went in the office to get it background checked and the rest. The clerk did the search and was puzzled/amazed. It had NO history of ownership come up. It had been sold new in PA in 1980, but even that owner wasn't in 'the system' and no others either. He said he had never seen or heard of such a thing. Got the bonded title and a few years later, changed it out to a regular title. Still sits in the backyard.

 

I bought the 54 Dodge pickup from the guy that bought it from the original owners.
The original owners ordered the truck from the Dodge dealership in my town. May of 1954 was when Dodge first offered a V8 in a Dodge truck, and the original owners were the first people at our local Dodge truck dealer to order a V8 truck (as soon as the order could be placed). While they owned the truck, it saw service work around the farm they owned. In the 1960s, their oldest son got into drag racing. He bought one of the first Dodge Super Bee with the 440 Ci 6 bbl carb cars in the area. That car was metallic lime green.

The oldest son recruited the well worn 54 pickup to pull the car trailer the Lime green car rode on to the nearest drag strip (Byron Drag Way) which was about 70 miles from there. He outfitted the pickup with a 440 so it was up to the task, he raced the Bee for several years. When he quit racing, the truck was used as transportation until its age caught up with it, at which time it was parked.

A few years later, the guy I bought the truck from got the truck from the original family. During his ownership, the truck saw several transformations. It was a drag strip runner (pretty fast from what I was told by several that knew the truck), a hot street truck, and also daily transportation. That guy never had (or never used if he had it) the resources to bring the truck up to the condition it should have been in, given the performance history the truck had. At some point, the truck got parked in a garage of a friend of his.

I heard about the truck from the younger son of the original family, he knew all about the truck. The younger son connected me with the current owner, through his friend whos garage it occupied (there is a big riff between the original owner family and the guy I bought the truck from). The current owner's friend was pretty willing to encourage the sale of the truck because he wanted to tear down that garage to build a new building for his growing repair shop.

We had to cut part of the building away to get the truck out of it. The area around the garage door had started to collapse.

When I got the truck, it still had the original beam axle on the front with the remains of the original drum brakes. Everything was shot. Each leaf of all of the leaf springs had steps worn into the longer spring where each end of the shorter spring ended. The truck was pretty rough.

I had pictures of that full build, including getting it out of the building, but when I sold the truck, the guy really wanted all the pictures. All I have left are 3 pictures of the truck after I started driving it. We put 40,000 miles on the truck in 4 years. I sold it because I thought I just had to have that 39 Dodge business coupe. The truck went to the Pacific Northwest when it left here. That guy picked it up during a huge snow storm.

All 3 of those pictures were taken the same day, the color had a different tint as the light hit it (the rear 3/4 view is the tint you normally saw). That color was pretty close to the original color of the truck, but originally it was two tone with the aqua and cream colors. The truck was a very faded metallic lime green from a 69 Dodge when it came to me.

 

I've had my '47 Plymouth for over fifty years at this point. I have been told the man who built it died before that. Been told his name but I've never paid enough attention to remember it. Now the guys that remembered him are gone too.

 

My 64 Fairlane is an easy one, I bought it from the woman who got it from her grandparents who bought it new twenty one miles from here. Sixty years and only three owners.

I will add that the granddaughter I bought the Fairlane from had kept it in her grandparents garage across the street from my backyard. I had lived in the house for thirteen years and never seen it before the day I bought it. I had wanted a 1964 Fairlane 500 2 door sedan for over twenty five years and there it was. Getting a coat of wax so when I walked over I thanked them for waxing the car. I got a strange look, then I said it is for sale? Lol

 

I was sitting at a stop light in LA one day in my OT 2 dr wagon when the guy next to me rolled down his window and says,” OMG, that car is still on the road?” We pulled over and talked. Apparently, he owned a local repair shop and his sister bought the car new. He maintained it while his sister drove it to college, out of state. He put the distinctive euro wheels on it. I misread the odometer when I brought it, I thought it read 40,000 miles. He laughed and said, “no, that’s 400,000 miles!” Sure enough. She had driven it coast to coast and everywhere in between and he had meticulously maintained it. The engine and transmission had never been opened. The guy I bought it from only owned it for a few months and he found that driving a stick aggravated his old knee injury. I was just the third owner. I drove it daily for several years until I stepped up to a better wagon and sold it to a friend who drove it for another year or two. That cars history tracked me down.

 

do not know if my first car - '53 Merc -, before I had license, came with old paper work or not. but, my Dad bought it from a Cousin that used to live in Minnesota. the proof of origin was both lower rear quarter panels behind the wheel wells being rusted off. it needed some engine work, etc. but, I learned a lot about cars with it.

 

There’s also my first car. A 60’s Chevelle that’s a little too new to mention completely. I bought from the neighbor across the street. Funny thing is in the family album there are photo’s of me (about 12 years old) jumping my bike off a home made ramp (dad approved, mom not so much) and the Chevelle is in the background. It was purchased in my cities dealership.

 

I know most of the history of my Stude pickup. It was built in the early sixties by the Pisano Bros and was one of three similar pickups that Carman, Tony and Frank built back then. Sometime in 1969 or 70, the troublesome Pontiac fuel injection apparently broke the fuel pump drive and was torn apart for repairs.
I’m guessing that the brothers turned their attention away from the old Studebakers and to El Caminos at that time since they all had slick, lowered ‘68-69 models. Frank’s Stude had evolved into a race truck and Carman’s was left in a dusty corner at Wedge Engineering. Tony’s poor old Stude got pushed into a corner of his shop at Western Office Refinishing Co. where it stayed from 1970 until I bought it in 2022.

When Tony passed away I got the call that it was available. No one in the family wanted it and I had always shown interest in the trucks over the years. So I got it and it’s back doing duty as a parts chaser.

 

There was a Blanche Appel in AZ long before the car was built and made its way to the state. She was in the 1930 census as a resident of Pinal County AZ which I believe is between Tucson and Phoenix. This Blanche Appel was born 23 Aug 1908 but those two census docs are about all I can find on her.
In 1940, she was 31 years old and lived in Pinal, Arizona, with her husband, Henry, and 2 daughters.
She's buried southeast of Tucson so she seems to have been a rural Arizonan most of her life.,

 

They quit that years ago when they transitioned to digital storage and dumped all the paper records. We tried locating a 61 Impala my grandpa bought new and hit the brick wall right there. There must have been quite a few 32-34 pick ups in that area as my 33 came from the Prineville area too.

 

Well with Taboo I luckily have pretty much the whole story of the car from day 1 when it was new. Which I think is awesome and really helps with knowing the whole story since with a custom is kind of nice knowing the timeline of when changes/updates took place.

I know about 1-2 owners back on my 33 pickup and learned about some the crazy patch panel work they had to do on the cab corners at the time. Never learned who shortened the box, but the truck is different and has been in the family so long now, its not super important on its backstory.

The 55 Chevy showed scars of being a drag car at one point, but my grandparents never got the full story when they bought the car in the 70s, but it had gone from drag car to a show car when they bought it as so much stuff had been plated on it, again its been in the family so long now, not really interested in its history. Nothing on the car ever showed if it was named or who raced it to maybe find a photo.

 

Thanks, I had found this info last night, but haven't pursued it very far. The town she's buried in is where I live.

I think one of the daughters is also buried here

 

I usually only buy crappy vehicles with unknown history (a few lean sales, impound yards.....) and have been picked clean of paperwork or anything. The only ones I've ever had a story or a paper trail on are my '41 p/u because the guy bought it in the early 70s sitting in a field or my '56 panel truck because it had a folder full of paperwork with a short story from previous owners.....and newer owners cared enough to keep it safe and pass it a long.

My panel:




Old Maps from the early 80s

 

I'm the 4th owner of my avatar. I have paperwork where it was sold new in Walla Walla, Washington. My daughter and her husband live in Washington and about six months ago she called one night. She and Tim were sitting at the bar in a restaurant in Walla Walla. The bar tender told them that the building was originally a Ford dealer and the only one in town in 1951. If the bartender was stating the truth, my car was sold new from there!!

I was in Washington visiting in April and had a beer with my daughter in the same building in Walla Walla. The building now has been converted to a number of restaurants and bars. I toured the inside of the building and based on the architecture, layout and structure it was at one time a dealership with service department.

 

Great thread, my 1912 T, freshly restored in 1950, getting gas while on the Glidden Tour. It was the first old car I was ever offered a ride it when I was around 12 years old, Its been in my garage since 1983. Bob

 

Now it's just getting morbid....

 

Well I guess it's been awhile since I looked at the sticker. It was out of Reno Nevada.



I did find where Bud Traynor bought the shell in the late 40's and I did find an old employee that had passed away a few years ago. No zip code so the car likely wasn't too old at this time.

 

I had forgotten about my '63 Valiant Signet 2 door hardtop that I had given to me. The owner's card in the glovebox had my Grade 9 teacher's name on it. Thinking back, I remembered her parking it at school. Canadian Valiants from back then had Dodge Dart bodies from the firewall back with a Valiant nose. Later someone broke the back window and I discovered that the '63 rear window was a one year only item.

 

bought my 40 merc from a guy outside of Ottawa , he owned it , a tudoor and a coupe 40 merc. He was a big bear of a man in his 80’s and after having a hip replaced found it hard getting in and out of the 4 door.

it was purchased off the second owner who did the restoration / mods on it and it essentially sat in a barn/ museum for 20 years


It was originally a Canadian military car out of Trenton .

so yeah , pretty cool .

 

My roadster has a little history. It belonged to Dale Velzy, the surfboard shaper and surf icon. It was just a beater, never fancy or painted. He had several hot rods over the years. I couldn’t find out who built or owned it before him. Pat Ganahl had done some extensive research on the hot rods of the surf culture but didn’t have any info.
My friend, Bruce bought it and messed around with it until he found a smokin deal on a ‘32 roadster and offered me the Velzy car. I drove it for a year or so but it was in desperate need of TLC. Pat’s opinion was that it wasn’t historically important so do what you want. So I’ve been (slowly) turning it into a semi-clone of the Sam Conrad roadster from 1964.
The boys with the car in Dale’s carport. (where Bruce picked it up)

The car when I got it….

The unused front plate….

 

Man, that Merc 4 dr is beyoouteeful. All class….

 

My sedan was born and raised in Central Iowa. It was the 180th tudor off the assembly line in Des Moines in 1932. Not sure who owned it first off, but a body shop owner in Marshalltown was the sedan's owner beginning in the 50's or 60's. He was the one who began sanding down the rough spots on the old red repaint, applying black primer to some. He also had the original four-cylinder rebuilt by a local shop, but never had it running after that.

The next owner was a local hot rod hero who bought it from the ailing bodyman in the 70's. This hot rodder built many cars and was well known in the area. He was always saving the sedan for "someday" but passed from cancer before he got to this sedan.

Me father purchased the sedan and a five window coupe from the widow in the early 2000's, and it has been in my family ever since. We were the ones who butchered it, swapping late model parts (40 Merc engine and 39 trans) and generally ruining it for all time. Such a sweet old car, never to be original again. It's been in my care for almost ten years now.