Bought my first from Zip Zeff at his family's junk yard--needed my own car
to drive to work right out of high school. He showed me a bunch of his
"specials", prewar and postwar (that's WWII, the "big one" for you
young'uns) Plymouths, Nashs, Dodges, even an old Hudson Terraplane, all
priced from $25 to $38.
When I didn't see anything I liked, Zip said, "C'mon boy, I'll show you
something nice!"---it was a 41 Chevy two door with totally faded paint under
a pile of old tires in an old wooden shed. But it had a newer, bigger
Powerglide stovebolt engine (235 cid in place of the old 216 cid), so I
bought it for $65.
Even had an old Nash radio with flexible shafts for the volume/tuning
controls (that ended up later in my 57 Stude).
That 41 Chevy with the bigger engine could out run a lot of supposedly
faster cars--maybe because of weight reduction--the inside fender wells and
trunk were totally rusted out. But it was possessed by evil spirits---the
starter motor would lock-up at the worst times, had to crawl underneath and
unbolt the starter motor--real fun at subfreezing temperatures after
midnight miles from home.
Even though the Powerglide Stovebolt was in great shape, good compression,
no oil burning, ran strong, it would refuse to start at absolutely random,
and embarrassing, times even keeping the ignition system in top shape. Never
could figure out the starting problem. So I carried a jug of acetone in the
backseat--a shot of that stuff down the carb usually helped.
Sold it back to Zip Zeff for $15 eight months later when I had to go on
active duty---bought a 54 Stude Starlite coupe for $750 the next year.
Lot of more interesting cars since then, but just ordered a new Chrysler
300C with the Hemi and all-wheel drive, it will replace the wife's boring
Lumina--looks like a 3-month wait for delivery though.
Lance
----- Original Message -----
From: "Keith Turk" <kturk@ala.net>
To: <land-speed@Autox.Team.Net>
Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004 7:09 AM
Subject: First car?
> Okay I'm bored... what's up with you guys.... how bout your first car?
>
> Mine was a 56 Chevy 2 door wagon... worked my butt off on it and it was
still
> very average... but I paid for it myself and did I mention it was average?
>
> Keith ( hey the other side of this is that we could bench race your
favorite
> problem...)
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