A posting I just did on All Nudist brought this to mind. Sixteen years old with my Montgomery Wards 50cc bike (it came in a box, $150.00!), roaming the northern Illinois back roads, lazy summer 
day, happy as a clam. Ran across a 1928 Ford Model A sedan, totally covered with rust but solid, for sale. $200, a pretty big buck for 1966, but sooo cool. Interior entirely gone, springs poking out of the seats, but ran well. For a kid that grew up on Cagney gangster movies, who lived in the town that Baby-Face Nelson was killed in, this was irresistible.
I went way back home to get my Dad, so he could lend me the money to buy my first car, and what a car! We got back there and, it was sold. Probably the saddest day in my young life up until then, other than the belated realization that Becky Olson was never going to fall in love with me, no matter how many times I asked her to dance.
I still miss that car…
Instead, my first car turned out to be a ‘39 Ford Deluxe Coupe (a favorite of moonshiners for it’s speed and huge trunk), modified in the ‘50’s with a 371 Olds V-8 with a six-pack, custom headers and straight pipes, ‘39 La Salle 3 speed, silver and black tuck and roll upholstery, a slide up bar behind the seat, and bunches of toggle switches under the dash. A bonafide kick-ass, terribly fast (clocked at 150 at a local track), way too much car for a 16 year old. If I’d ever had decent tires, bet I could’a pulled a wheelie. Well, maybe not…
Somehow, I didn’t die. Also, nobody ever beat me road-racing between Barrington and Fox River Grove on Hwy. 14. Not even the guy with the fancy ‘Vette. Hell, blew the windshield wipers totally off once. The car was hot, sexy, fast and loud. But it never got me laid. Poo.
This kind of stuff is why we don’t trust our kids…
That’s all, memory lane.
June 28, 2009 at 8:18 am
I enjoyed reading about the ford coupe. Something about the 371 and 394 Olds engines. They went like hell. Knew a couple guys out here in the Great NW had them and had similar results. Most of us couldn’t afford Corvettes, so we built our own hotrods that would run the wheels of them and most of the cop cars in the country too!