To start, your nice comments and warm welcome are very much appreciated. Get yourself a cup of coffee or a cool beverage, and I'll give you a synopsis on my '34 Ford. If my horn gets stuck, just let me know as I have a propensity to ramble when talking old Fords.
Back in Feb. of 1934, my grandfather Dee was one of the lucky ones to have a job. He was an engineer at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite Valley and was driving a '29 Ford Roadster, which he had bought new. He was an orchestra member in Fresno, so he drove the car with no heater once a week to band practice. My dad would ride along and he always talked of how cold these trips were. Well, Dee was eyeing the new Fords and when the '34 made its debut, to say he was hooked, is putting it mildly. So in Feb. of '34, he drove his little roadster to Gaestell Motors in Merced, CA. With a $205 trade-in he was the proud owner of a new Ford V8 and a payment book. The first week Dee and Dad drove the car to Sausalito, CA to my great grandmother's house and took her for a ride to see the new Golden Gate Bridge under construction. Dee let Dad at the tender age of 13 drive the Ford back to Yosemite. Dad attended Green School in Coarsegold, CA grades 1-8 and when Dee drove the car there, they let the whole school out so that the kids could see the new Ford. Dee had brought his flute along and gave them a concert as an added benefit. As you can imagine, this was quite an event for the time.
Dee with his '34 left Yosemite in late 1936, when he went to work for the Warner Co. in Fresno. The '34 would not return to Yosemite Valley again until 1985.
(The War Years) Dad, his brother Stan and all my uncles were scattered out in both theaters. Dee worked until 1944 and after a short illness, he was gone. Dad returned to Fresno in 1945, and drove the car as a daily commuter. My uncles came home from the war, one by one. Dad would loan them the car, until they got on their feet. (Times were tough, then.) Anyway, they all drove the car for a month or more, they served their country and now the Ford was serving them. They all said the same thing about the '34 then, and my two remaining uncles still say this to this day that that car used to go like HELL!
It had a short life as a drag racer at Hammer Field in the early '50's, but that is another story. Anyway, for some reason, it was just plain fast.
I was born in 1946 and rode in the Ford almost daily until 1953, when Dad decided to pull the engine and store the car at his ranch in Coarsegold, CA where it remained untouched in the barn until the decision was made in 1979 to restore Dee's old Ford. We decided to go Concours which meant rebuilding everything. It took a long time and with the help of the guys from the Early V8 Club of Fresno, the car became what you see today.
It's been in a lot of shows and was in the 1992 movie, The Parsley Garden along with my '34 Ford 1-ton.
Dad is gone now, almost 2 years and I can't look at the car without seeing him just like he couldn't look at the car without seeing Granddad Dee.
That's it for now, Rich
P.S. New engine sure doesn't go like the original!
