My 1937 picture
- Thread starter 3738
- Start date
joe plumber
Well-known member
Nice looking vehicle .
Lawson Cox
Well-known member
Super nice survivor. Keep it that way and drive the wheels off of it.
Mike in AZ
Well-known member
what Lawson said.....very nice car....enjoyyyyy....Mike
3738
Senior Member
History -
Always a Calif car, which spent most of it's time in Washington Calif. Story goes everyone in town knew about it and everyone wanted to buy it. When the owner was about 90 years old, my uncle, (a real character who used a dredge and a gold pan to scratch out a living in town) was the guy the owner chose to sell the car to ~1980. It was stored in a dark out building and had not been on the road for many years. Uncle Cleo put a fuel pump in it and a battery and fired her up. He left the car in storage for about a year, never restoring anything, then sold it to my father when he needed the money.
My father drove it up the Sierra Mountains over Donner Pass to North Lake Tahoe, (with the factory stock 4:44 rear end), where he parked it, never restored it and kept it stored up until ~ 1994, at which time, knowing that I told him I wanted it if he ever sold it, and he sold it to me.
When I got it, the head gaskets had failed, water was in the oil pan and rusted some pin holes thru the pan leaving oil on the floor. My dad and I pulled the engine, cleaned up all the internals, soldered the oil pan, put in all new gaskets/seals and reassembled the engine. It purrs like a kitten. I also cleaned up the engine bay before we put the engine back in, then I trailered it back down the hill to my home in San Jose, CA.
When I started to preserve it, the blue paint looked kinda like flat blue primer. I taped pin stripe tape over the factory pin stripe to protect the stripe from being rubbed away and hand rubbed the original paint with Mirror Glaze fine cut cleaner, followed with wax. The car had been driven most of it's life on back dirt roads that had been oiled. (At one time, the original owner had removed the rear seat so he could go out in the woods, cut fire wood and pile it in where the seat used to be.) When I opened up the door panels, there was a fine reddish/tan dust about 12" deep inside each panel. (I keep a jar of this in the glove box to show people. The lower portions of the body and the undercarriage had oil/dirt specs stuck all over it. I knew I was going to preserve the car rather than restore it, so I soaked these areas in WD 40 and carefully removed the stuck on grime with a plastic bondo paddle. This careful cleaning revealed portions of the undercarriage still showing the factory paint.
Over the next year or so, I continued carefully cleaning each part of the car. I showed it at the Early Ford V8 Club Rohnert Park Western Meet, taking the Rouge award for Drive train , Paint and Interior. The car always draws a crowd at shows and everyone likes to see the V8 60. Someone always asks "what are you going to do with it?", and I tell them "It's done!" I could spend $10,000 - $20,000 restoring it and I wouldn't get a lick of more fun than I have preserving it in it's unrestored condition.
The original mileage is a little over 77,000. I have most of the vehicle registration cards going back into the 40's as well as a few sets of earlier plates that were on the car. I chose to keep the last set of plates issued to the car to use as the current plates. I have (8) cars and a (1) car garage with a grease pit. The 37 gets the garage, the 69 AMX gets the Costco 10' X 20' enclosure and thanks to our mild no humidity weather, the rest hold up very well under car covers.
Always a Calif car, which spent most of it's time in Washington Calif. Story goes everyone in town knew about it and everyone wanted to buy it. When the owner was about 90 years old, my uncle, (a real character who used a dredge and a gold pan to scratch out a living in town) was the guy the owner chose to sell the car to ~1980. It was stored in a dark out building and had not been on the road for many years. Uncle Cleo put a fuel pump in it and a battery and fired her up. He left the car in storage for about a year, never restoring anything, then sold it to my father when he needed the money.
My father drove it up the Sierra Mountains over Donner Pass to North Lake Tahoe, (with the factory stock 4:44 rear end), where he parked it, never restored it and kept it stored up until ~ 1994, at which time, knowing that I told him I wanted it if he ever sold it, and he sold it to me.
When I got it, the head gaskets had failed, water was in the oil pan and rusted some pin holes thru the pan leaving oil on the floor. My dad and I pulled the engine, cleaned up all the internals, soldered the oil pan, put in all new gaskets/seals and reassembled the engine. It purrs like a kitten. I also cleaned up the engine bay before we put the engine back in, then I trailered it back down the hill to my home in San Jose, CA.
When I started to preserve it, the blue paint looked kinda like flat blue primer. I taped pin stripe tape over the factory pin stripe to protect the stripe from being rubbed away and hand rubbed the original paint with Mirror Glaze fine cut cleaner, followed with wax. The car had been driven most of it's life on back dirt roads that had been oiled. (At one time, the original owner had removed the rear seat so he could go out in the woods, cut fire wood and pile it in where the seat used to be.) When I opened up the door panels, there was a fine reddish/tan dust about 12" deep inside each panel. (I keep a jar of this in the glove box to show people. The lower portions of the body and the undercarriage had oil/dirt specs stuck all over it. I knew I was going to preserve the car rather than restore it, so I soaked these areas in WD 40 and carefully removed the stuck on grime with a plastic bondo paddle. This careful cleaning revealed portions of the undercarriage still showing the factory paint.
Over the next year or so, I continued carefully cleaning each part of the car. I showed it at the Early Ford V8 Club Rohnert Park Western Meet, taking the Rouge award for Drive train , Paint and Interior. The car always draws a crowd at shows and everyone likes to see the V8 60. Someone always asks "what are you going to do with it?", and I tell them "It's done!" I could spend $10,000 - $20,000 restoring it and I wouldn't get a lick of more fun than I have preserving it in it's unrestored condition.
The original mileage is a little over 77,000. I have most of the vehicle registration cards going back into the 40's as well as a few sets of earlier plates that were on the car. I chose to keep the last set of plates issued to the car to use as the current plates. I have (8) cars and a (1) car garage with a grease pit. The 37 gets the garage, the 69 AMX gets the Costco 10' X 20' enclosure and thanks to our mild no humidity weather, the rest hold up very well under car covers.
Byron Warwick
Senior Member
That brings back old memories. I remember a 37 when I was a pre-teen, it was owned by"Second gar Gunning" (His last name). I don't ever remember him going into high, it just roared into town and when he had his groceries from Dad's General Store, he roared back home about 1/2 mile outside our village. I later worked for him unloading fruits and vegetables from local farmers, at his shed for shipment to other markets. His car was grey. Byron
i agree.. 38s stand alone just too cool....nice 37 as well!!!!!!!!To 38 Coupe -
Yes I have a 38 Coupe as well, one of my cars that survive under a car cover in the driveway.
38 Standard Coupe (love the Art Deco design of the front sheet metal/trim), 85 hp, an older almost stock amateur restoration.
Here's a poor night time pic...
ora masters
Well-known member
wish i knew how to post pictures can any one help
~~Walts37~~
Senior Member
Nice Cars & nice story Thanks for sharing ~~Walts37~~
Byron Warwick
Senior Member
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