JH

A Shoebox Ford was my first car. While pedaling my papers, one of my customers mentioned that they had a brother who had an old car he'd like to get rid of. He wanted $35 for it. I went and looked. It was a 50 Ford Club coupe. The interior was in nice condition, but the body had the usual Detroit rust--between the headlights and the grill, up the rib at the rear of the front fenders, rocker panels, and in the corners above the rear bumper splash pan. Also, the brake lines were bad, and the steering was a little loose.

My dad beat him down to $25. I was 15. When you make $10 a week on your paper route, that was a meaningful savings, especially back in 1959. We went to get it. When we were pushing out of the drive, my foot slipped off the clutch, and the key just happened to be on--it started right up, and ran just as sweet and smooth as silk. A pal who was 16 was along for the ride--he ended up driving it home--the emergency brake worked fine. It had a little over 50,000 miles on it.

I spent the next 6 months working hard on it, getting it ready for when I got my license. I made some patches for the rockers, the fenders, and the rear corners. I couldn't weld them in, so I screwed them in, dimpled the screw heads down, and covered the seams with some sort of auto body putty, then sanded it off. I painted it with spray cans--one of my customers was a manufacturers rep for Martin Seymour paints. He obtained enough cans of Zinc chromate gray prime for me to paint the car, at a really right price--free. The car really looked nice in that color. Remember--prime was a color back then. Only most guys used the flat black or red oxide. Mine was a semi-gloss color about matching battleship gray.

When I first drove it, I really noticed the half turn of loose in the steering wheel. Hit a bump and it shimmied, too. My dad wasn't sure how to fix it, so I took it to a local mechanic. He tightened down on the top adjustment until it wouldn't go anymore. That stopped the shimmy. Also, I could only turn one way. I ended up replacing the steering column for like $25. Later I learned the proper way to adjust those steering boxes--look in the shop manual for the exact procedure, but you loosen the screw on top, then you take up the one in the front of the box, the one few mechanics--including ones in alignment shops--seem to know about, and then tighten down the top. I wonder how many people replaced steering boxes when all it needed was a proper adjustment? I really wonder how many people paid to replace steering boxes when all they really got was an adjustment?

Unfortunately, getting shafted on car repairs isn't new. Over the next 2 years, I learned to replace brakes, repaired it when someone ran a stop sign and hit me and one other car--and both of them made a claim on me. My insurance company denied the claims, then cancelled me. I taught my girlfriend how to shift while I worked the clutch. I repaired the door post when it broke away from the rocker panel, by screwing a piece of L bracket to it. It was nice to have that big trunk. I could carry many of the instruments for the bands I was in. I took it to U of M. I was working in Detroit at night, and commuting back to Ann Arbor at 2 AM. It began to object to that kind of treatment. It started to like a quart of oil every couple days. Then you needed to clean and gap the plugs every week. It burned out a wheel bearing. I decided that I was making enough money that I could buy a new car. I started going around to dealers looking. I wanted a Mercury, but the dealer wouldn't even talk to me. I tried Ford. Same deal. I ended up at a Pontiac Dealer. They greeted me like a long lost pal. So I sold them the Ford and bought a Pontiac. I drove that car all through college until I got my government job.

Forty years later, I have another 50 Ford Club Coupe. I paid a whole lot more than $25 for it. I have more than that just getting 6 grill parts chromed. I have always wondered what would have happened if I had a place to keep that car all these years. Know what would have happened? It would be worth just about what it was back then, and I remember exactly why I got rid of it. John Harvey