You can read about my very first Model A in the Restorer May - June Issue The next one is the first on that I actually owned that I could drive.
We Buy a Model A (Part of a chapter from my book) Click on this site if interested, (free)
http://bit.ly/FromtheShadows or check amazon.com David <. Mc Arthur
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.
I fixed the dent and repainted the fender over the next few days and got busy trying to get the car in my name. The gentleman I had bought it from had made no effort to change the title and had given me all the paperwork that he had received. I took it all to AAA and got a temporary title and registration and a list of things that I needed in order to clear the title change. I called my friend Paul Sund, and asked if I could get the title signed correctly, if I brought it down to him. He told me sure, bring it down and he would take it over to Funt’s and have it taken care of. We arrived at a date and time and Nelda and I drove down and met Paul in person, nicest guy down there. He told us that he’d handle this while we went to lunch and that in an hour or so we could come get the papers and be on our way.
After a great lunch in Monterey on Cannery Row, we went back to pick up the papers. Mr. Sund was a bit solemn as he told me that the Funt’s attorney had told him, “We have done all we will do with that title” which turned out to be that they had done nothing with the paperwork. The title was still signed incorrectly and there was none of the other paperwork I needed for Motor Vehicles to transfer it. This was the first of three trips to the Monterey area to get the title straightened out and the car registered in my name. I did however have temporary title that worked and insurance. I even had a personal plate that read 29 SMILE. Funt had had SMILE 29, which I had been told I could use, but was then told “No, they [the Funts] may want to use it on another car someday.”
I really was stunned that there was no apparent way for me to get the title. I thought about it for a couple of months then wrote a letter to the attorney for the Estate of Mr. Funt, informing him that since they wouldn’t enable me to get the title in my name, I was just going to keep driving it in the Funt name and since that was the case I would save myself the added cost of insurance. About a week later, I received a pink slip with the car registered to me, and everything in my name. No explanation ever was offered and I still have the original “SMILE 29” plates that came with the car.
I did get the chance to put about 2,000 miles on it and drive it to Bend, OR in 2013 for the NW regional meet before completely tearing the body down for a full restoration. I hope to finish it within the next 3 years.
