The Ford Barn

daveymc29 · 01-27-2017, 08:08 PM

Around the middle of 1992 or thereabout, my friend, Sid King called me and told me he was having “buyer’s remorse” over a car he had bought. I asked what he had bought and he explained that he had gone to the Blackhawk Auction in Danville to watch the action. His wife had told him not to buy anything younger than he was. Then a 1933 Ford leaped out at him and he says he scratched his nose and ended up owning it. When he called me was the next day and he was at work at the fire station in the west end of Oakland. I asked where the car was and I went by and had a look at it. It was behind a fence, but I could still get real close and see that it looked very well maintained from the outside.
I went home and called Sid and told him if he felt that bad about buying it that I would gladly relieve him of it for what he had paid. Then he said he felt a lot better and we continued to discuss his purchase and what all owning an older Ford V8 could entail. He told me he had already been approached by a couple of people in the Early Ford V8 Club and a parts dealer, so he felt he wasn’t all alone with the only one of the old Fords still on the road. With that bit understood and my offer, he felt relieved and now was looking forward to enjoyment of his purchase. I told him to let me know if he saw another old Ford somewhere, and we could travel together some time. Then we sort of forgot that subject for a couple of months.
Sid is a bit of a collector of many odds and ends and one thing he wanted was a “one armed bandit,” the old slot machine. He had watched some Penny Saver or some such newsletter and saw that a fellow in Castro Valley had several of the slots for sale. He drove over and eventually bought one or two and in the exchange, then he asked about an old Ford near the back of the guy’s property. The gentleman told him he had acquired it recently and he needed to get rid of it. Sid asked about price and then called me and told me he had a car for me.
We went over, just to look, and I returned with a 1929 Ford, Murray bodied Model A, four door sedan, pretty much in original condition, with maybe one re-spray paint job. It ran okay and was a really nice old car, but the more I looked into it the more I felt restoring it to be something I shouldn’t get involved in and it was a bit too far gone to leave it as an original car. Nelda and I joined the Model A Club in Livermore and within a few months I was the Vice President, then President. Not that I was so clever, but that I hadn’t protested my nomination loudly enough and was therefore the only candidate.
So now we had a Model A and belonged to a club and so we went on the tours locally. What I learned was that I had a fairly unique car, not of great value, but it would be a shame to not re-do it correctly, and it did need work. So I was determined to sell that one and buy another that was pretty much all done already, but still a Model A. And because I had always had later cars, these were challenging and fun cars to drive about locally. I watched the magazine that the Model A Club of America, the national club, put out. There I found a little 1929 Roadster being sold by Allen Funt, of Candid Camera fame. I made contact with the man selling it for him and he told me that the car had already been sold. I told him to let me know if he had any others and he told me not to give up on this one. The guy that had bought it may just want to sell it again and he would check. So we exchanged phone numbers and email addresses, while he tried to get in touch with the guy he had helped buy the car.
A couple of days later, my new friend, Paul Sund of Pacific Grove, called to tell me that I could probably buy the car from the man who purchased it a few weeks ago, who happened to live in Santa Cruz. He didn’t want to get involved with pricing, so that would be between myself, and the new owner.
I called a number he had given me and a day or two later Nelda and I took my truck to Santa Cruz and happily brought the roadster home. The guy had loaned me a tow bar and insisted that I should tow it instead of driving it as I had planned. So we hooked it up, put the top down and towed it over the Santa Cruz Mountains to Danville.
When I made the last turn approaching my street, the bumper fell off the Model A and it rolled ahead through the intersection and into my neighbor’s high juniper shrubs. That was a total of about 300 feet from my driveway. I had watched helplessly as it buried itself up to the doors in the junipers and feared that the front end had been totaled. The left front fender had taken the brunt of the blow and that was the only real damaged part of the car. I pulled it out of the junipers and started it up and drove it home, totally bummed out by what had happened, but thrilled that it had happened there instead of going over the mountains or on the freeways. This was just bent metal and scratched paint; any other spot someone may well have been killed.
I discovered that there are two bolts that hold the front bumper onto a Model A. They are imbedded in a cast metal part of the bumper on the cheap reproduction that was on my car, even the bolt was just a threaded pot metal casting. Strange that it had held together for the 100 miles of so I had been towing it.

The rest of this story will be posted at a later date, or you may purchase my book, "From the Shadow of Coyote Mountain to the Base of Mount Diablo" from amazon.com or from me with a PM and your address.

daveymc29 · 01-28-2017, 04:39 PM

You mean to tell me not to post stories? Not one comment on How I bought my 2nd Model A.

JDupuis · 01-28-2017, 04:46 PM

Sorry daveymc29: I love the story. Jeff

Bill Wright · 01-28-2017, 05:06 PM

Great story. I feel for your runaway roadster. I lost a rear wheel off mine when I was on one of the first shakedowns !

Dennis Pereira · 01-28-2017, 05:16 PM

Lady luck was riding with you great story I know those roads well .

Tom Wesenberg · 01-28-2017, 07:40 PM

Sponsored Links (Register now to hide all advertisements)

In the 60's my cousin's husband was using a towbar to bring home his Model A from S.D. to Michigan. Near Cosmos MN he got on the shoulder of the road and sent the Model A rolling into the ditch. In the mid 60's shortly after it happened, we stopped by the body shop to see the car, and surprisingly it didn't look all that bad, but my Cousin never did go back after it, and the shop got a free Model A.

Good story, just too bad you lost it right near home. I assume the towbar was only clamped to the bumper bars, and not through the mounting bracket.

01-27-2017, 08:08 PM	#1
daveymc29 Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: Danville, CA Posts: 1,553	How I bought my 2nd Model A, (a long post) Around the middle of 1992 or thereabout, my friend, Sid King called me and told me he was having “buyer’s remorse” over a car he had bought. I asked what he had bought and he explained that he had gone to the Blackhawk Auction in Danville to watch the action. His wife had told him not to buy anything younger than he was. Then a 1933 Ford leaped out at him and he says he scratched his nose and ended up owning it. When he called me was the next day and he was at work at the fire station in the west end of Oakland. I asked where the car was and I went by and had a look at it. It was behind a fence, but I could still get real close and see that it looked very well maintained from the outside. I went home and called Sid and told him if he felt that bad about buying it that I would gladly relieve him of it for what he had paid. Then he said he felt a lot better and we continued to discuss his purchase and what all owning an older Ford V8 could entail. He told me he had already been approached by a couple of people in the Early Ford V8 Club and a parts dealer, so he felt he wasn’t all alone with the only one of the old Fords still on the road. With that bit understood and my offer, he felt relieved and now was looking forward to enjoyment of his purchase. I told him to let me know if he saw another old Ford somewhere, and we could travel together some time. Then we sort of forgot that subject for a couple of months. Sid is a bit of a collector of many odds and ends and one thing he wanted was a “one armed bandit,” the old slot machine. He had watched some Penny Saver or some such newsletter and saw that a fellow in Castro Valley had several of the slots for sale. He drove over and eventually bought one or two and in the exchange, then he asked about an old Ford near the back of the guy’s property. The gentleman told him he had acquired it recently and he needed to get rid of it. Sid asked about price and then called me and told me he had a car for me. We went over, just to look, and I returned with a 1929 Ford, Murray bodied Model A, four door sedan, pretty much in original condition, with maybe one re-spray paint job. It ran okay and was a really nice old car, but the more I looked into it the more I felt restoring it to be something I shouldn’t get involved in and it was a bit too far gone to leave it as an original car. Nelda and I joined the Model A Club in Livermore and within a few months I was the Vice President, then President. Not that I was so clever, but that I hadn’t protested my nomination loudly enough and was therefore the only candidate. So now we had a Model A and belonged to a club and so we went on the tours locally. What I learned was that I had a fairly unique car, not of great value, but it would be a shame to not re-do it correctly, and it did need work. So I was determined to sell that one and buy another that was pretty much all done already, but still a Model A. And because I had always had later cars, these were challenging and fun cars to drive about locally. I watched the magazine that the Model A Club of America, the national club, put out. There I found a little 1929 Roadster being sold by Allen Funt, of Candid Camera fame. I made contact with the man selling it for him and he told me that the car had already been sold. I told him to let me know if he had any others and he told me not to give up on this one. The guy that had bought it may just want to sell it again and he would check. So we exchanged phone numbers and email addresses, while he tried to get in touch with the guy he had helped buy the car. A couple of days later, my new friend, Paul Sund of Pacific Grove, called to tell me that I could probably buy the car from the man who purchased it a few weeks ago, who happened to live in Santa Cruz. He didn’t want to get involved with pricing, so that would be between myself, and the new owner. I called a number he had given me and a day or two later Nelda and I took my truck to Santa Cruz and happily brought the roadster home. The guy had loaned me a tow bar and insisted that I should tow it instead of driving it as I had planned. So we hooked it up, put the top down and towed it over the Santa Cruz Mountains to Danville. When I made the last turn approaching my street, the bumper fell off the Model A and it rolled ahead through the intersection and into my neighbor’s high juniper shrubs. That was a total of about 300 feet from my driveway. I had watched helplessly as it buried itself up to the doors in the junipers and feared that the front end had been totaled. The left front fender had taken the brunt of the blow and that was the only real damaged part of the car. I pulled it out of the junipers and started it up and drove it home, totally bummed out by what had happened, but thrilled that it had happened there instead of going over the mountains or on the freeways. This was just bent metal and scratched paint; any other spot someone may well have been killed. I discovered that there are two bolts that hold the front bumper onto a Model A. They are imbedded in a cast metal part of the bumper on the cheap reproduction that was on my car, even the bolt was just a threaded pot metal casting. Strange that it had held together for the 100 miles of so I had been towing it. The rest of this story will be posted at a later date, or you may purchase my book, "From the Shadow of Coyote Mountain to the Base of Mount Diablo" from amazon.com or from me with a PM and your address.

01-28-2017, 04:39 PM	#2
daveymc29 Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: Danville, CA Posts: 1,553	Re: How I bought my 2nd Model A, (a long post) You mean to tell me not to post stories? Not one comment on How I bought my 2nd Model A.

01-28-2017, 04:46 PM	#3
JDupuis Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2017 Location: Maryhill Ont Canada Posts: 834	Re: How I bought my 2nd Model A, (a long post) Sorry daveymc29: I love the story. Jeff

01-28-2017, 05:06 PM	#4
Bill Wright Member Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: California Posts: 76	Re: How I bought my 2nd Model A, (a long post) Great story. I feel for your runaway roadster. I lost a rear wheel off mine when I was on one of the first shakedowns !

01-28-2017, 05:16 PM	#5
Dennis Pereira Senior Member Join Date: May 2010 Location: Georgetown Divide Kelsey ca Posts: 868	Re: How I bought my 2nd Model A, (a long post) Lady luck was riding with you great story I know those roads well . __________________ Dennis in Kelsey ca

01-28-2017, 07:40 PM	#6
Tom Wesenberg Senior Member Join Date: May 2010 Location: Mpls, MN Posts: 27,582	Re: How I bought my 2nd Model A, (a long post) Sponsored Links (Register now to hide all advertisements) In the 60's my cousin's husband was using a towbar to bring home his Model A from S.D. to Michigan. Near Cosmos MN he got on the shoulder of the road and sent the Model A rolling into the ditch. In the mid 60's shortly after it happened, we stopped by the body shop to see the car, and surprisingly it didn't look all that bad, but my Cousin never did go back after it, and the shop got a free Model A. Good story, just too bad you lost it right near home. I assume the towbar was only clamped to the bumper bars, and not through the mounting bracket.