Diamonds in the Rough
If you are like me, then you love old crap! You like finding it in odd places. You like digging it out from under inches of dust, and you will get as dirty as you need to find that diamond. I have been searching out and saving cars for the last decade of my life, and I don’t have any plans to stop. I love a good hunt. This hunt is essential to my mental wellbeing. I get excited about going up to houses that have all kinds of old junk sitting outside it and knocking on the door.
If I couldn’t seek things from the past, then I would almost want to take a pass on looking to the future. It is simply amazing the amount of joy it brings into my life, as well as some of my friends. Young and old, I have friends that still get excited about things that were before their time; or for some of my older friends, perhaps it was things they remember when they were young. Items from decades ago are still bringing excitement and happiness into our lives.
Finding an old car is like Christmas morning when you’re ten years old! Those fond memories where you remember what was going on, and you can think back to what you were given on that fine day. Unwrapping a new find from the decades of dust and dirt trumps all things about past Christmas mornings, other than Jesus himself. When you put in work to get to these places and network through people or channels, and you are finally on the property, that is the best feeling and one that many of you know well.
Almost everything I have rescued or saved has had a little history. But some things you find almost makes your tummy ache, wanting to know what happened with it and who did this? How the heck did it get here like this? What is the story?!
This specific weekend was one of those times where I heard about a place not far from my house. A three-story brick building that was used for making hand-drawn carriages! I literally could not sleep. I spent all night on Friday going back and forth on whether or not there was going to be anything good there. Finding anything early Ford makes me pretty happy, but I have been on many adventures that ended up with an empty trailer and no takeaway. Since this was close to my house, I decided to load up my son to go take a look!
I was extremely happy that I did go just to see the building alone. There was a huge elevator that was hanging by a rope and a couple of big gears. This was big enough to put a horse-drawn carriage on, so you can imagine the size. It was also big enough to put a full-size car on, but it was a little sketchy. Since the horse-drawn carriage days, this building had a few tenants in it, so there were all kinds of things in there. Telephone towers, school equipment, and vintage furniture were some of the items on the 3rd floor. There were 2 huge Baptist church signs the owner gifted to me that I can’t wait to hang up in my shop! There were also early Ford parts like frames, banjo rear ends, and T-bucket bodies!
This was amazing because at some point, someone did a lot of work to get all of these things up on the 3rd floor of this building. As we were looking through everything, the most glorious pickup cab I have ever seen was just sitting there with layers and layers of filth on it. To date, I think that this cab has been my most favorite thing I have ever found! I was ecstatic about this; I have to be honest, when no one was looking, I hugged it. That’s right. I hugged it, dust and all, because I knew it was coming home with me.
What I found was a '30-'31 Model A Town Sedan that had been cut into a pickup truck and had to be done way back when. I am guessing 1940-50ish era just by the welds and all the rust that had formed on these welds. Also, the nature in which the cab and back half of the Sedan were mated together was not the way we would go about doing it today. Not in a bad way, but just not the way I would do it, and that is okay.
I fell in love because of the history of this thing. It is not the same as finding an old Model A body or anything. This could have been a wartime vehicle chopped down to receive more ration stamps! Who knows, but I am so excited to build it and see it run down the road! Those angled front pillars and pitched roofline look good as a pickup truck. It’s almost a shame these weren’t produced back then!
There is barely anything I want to do to this cab. As I mentioned, it has a lot of history. It was made and preserved by both Mother Nature and Father Time, so I won’t do much to it aesthetically, however, I will be adding a 1932 Style Model A Dash from Speedway Motors. This dash will allow me to mount my gauges just how I like and give the interior a fresh look, which I think anyone can enjoy!
To me, this was a super fun find with some friends. The opportunity to own something like this is always on the top of my list, and I can’t believe I got something that’s this ugly and shines like a diamond! A true diamond in the rough! Stay tuned while I document the full build!
