The car of my youth

  

The functional car of my youth was the 1955 Chevy.

(Not my photo.  Not my car.  Mine was all blue and wasn't this shiny and nice.)

 

I loved it.  A V-8 and a Hearst floor-shift installed by my brother Tom.  I imagined it was fast, but with that small 283 cubic inch engine it couldn't have been that badass.

 

The car of my heart was the 1932 Model B Ford two-door sedan.  Dad found it for $75 and fronted the money.  The car didn't run then and never did, but it had most of its parts.  It sat in the driveway and I puttered with it off and on.  I bought an old Chevy V-8 engine, and rebuilt it to go in the Ford, but before I got the new engine put in the car I got distracted and joined the Army.  When I got home from overseas the 1932 Ford was gone.  That shape and style still calls to me every time I see it though.

(Not my photo.  Not my car, but this is generally what I had.)

 

While we were at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge we spotted a Model A sedan.  The owner was kind enough to chat with me a while.  It is a 1930 model A; a little harder lines; but not entirely different from my '32.

 

 

 

I always thought my car was a Model B, but I find out later that there were different versions of that car produced in 1932; the Model B, with an updated four-banger engine, and a Model 18 with a newly released flathead V8.  I had the V8 Model 18 with a whopping 65 horsepower compared to the 4 cylinder 50 hp!

 

(Again, not my photo.  I don't know if a photo of my actual car survives.)

 

Were I to have this experience to repeat, I wouldn't be looking to soup it up with a Chevy V8.  I'd be fine with that old flathead ford and a car that ran like the original.