More Dumb-ass tales

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I hope you are enjoying these

simple drawings as much as

I am

During my younger years I had a passion for vintage and veteran cars and at last I thought I had found the perfect chance to indulge this passion.

When we bought the Service Station at Rosewood I had the workshop facilities, space and time to indulge it, we usually had a few hours from late morning to mid afternoon that were fairly quiet, ideal thought I for restoration projects.

I searched around and finally found not one but two suitable cars, the first was a 1928 model
Dodge Tourer Victory 6

The photo is not of my car
(I couldn't find any of either
of the cars I owned)

This car with most of the body
work intact and restored to a
primer coat of paint making it
easy to see where any
remaining dents or ripples
might be, made it ideal for me

(it was minus the canvas hood and the side curtains.) The previous
owner had not touched the mechanicals at all but said he had driven it
home when he bought it some years beforehand.
This was an excellent base for me as my expertise was mechanical
rather than body work.

The other car was a 1934 Ford Sedan which was minus the V8 engine
and transmission, not being constrained by a “Purist” nature I saw this
in my minds eye as a
“Hot Rod” rather than a
restoration, once again the
bodywork was in pretty good
shape and as I didn’t plan a
radical “Chop and Channel”
job it should be within my
capabilities.

Again this is not my car

Thus far I had made two

fairly serious errors, I had bought two cars which were to vie for my
attention and I had done this when my day time job was fixing motor cars… (we did selective mechanical repairs as well as the normal “Lube services” and had a good trade in tyres) but it still left the “knock of work to carry bricks” syndrome, the combination of these two mistakes was to mean that neither car got the attention that it needed and both were eventually sold as still un-completed projects.

In the meantime however the Ford in particular got quite a lot of work done to it, I bought an early Fairlane wreck and grafted the motor, automatic gearbox and hydraulic brakes from it into the 1934 chassis when I first got this running there was an adventure which may well have meant that holtieshouse never came into existence.

There were no seats or interior trim in this car, nor was there a petrol tank, so I had rigged a 4 gallon drum with a brass fitting silver soldered into the base as my fuel tank AND drivers seat. Again you know where this is headed don’t you?

Yeah, I was driving it very slowly fortunately from the back yard into the workshop when the leg of my overalls got caught up in the exposed tailshaft and started to wind me into position that caused me to tip my SEAT over and saturate me with spilled petrol. Just to add a little interest to the situation I was a smoker at that time and had the inevitable cigarette in my mouth.

I was most fortunate that I had a friend on hand that evening who quickly but carefully removed the cigarette from my mouth and extinguished it, mean while I was sprawled crosswise busily applying the brakes with one hand and getting the auto into neutral and the ignition turned off with the other.

All of the above took probably 4 or 5 seconds to happen but believe me as I contemplated a fiery death it seemed forever, while this didn’t sound the death knell for the projects it did alter the course a little, a fuel tank was purchased and fitted post haste and the floor panel was replaced to cover the tailshaft, I kept my seat but it was no longer filled with petrol, and I never fell off it again.