“I recently joined the ’77 Grand Prix family with my new old baby, a two-tone SJ,” says Old Cars reader Frank Knowles. “It is in great shape and actually has a smoother ride than my 79 Lincoln Mark V. I am in love with this great 70’s beauty!”

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“I was on assignment to take a photo for our business magazine of an engineering firm doing test drilling at a site where a flood had washed out a huge section of road,” says Steve Isola. “The location was quite rural (in northern Minnesota). I had to backtrack and take a separate road to the site. Long story short – I spotted this Mercury station wagon sitting in a yard. I knocked on the door of a house that said ‘trespassers will be shot’ and a few other ominous signs. No one answered. I listened for barking dogs or gun barrels poking through curtains (I had left the car running with the door open). Nothing. So, I framed my shot and then shot out of there. The car was too good a photo opportunity to pass up. And too far away to drive up there again…. The car has been sitting for years. Note the license plate: 1971.”

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There were no winners in this collision between what looks to be a 1951 Chrysler and a 1950 Studebaker. The Chrysler took a broadside hit and wound up on its side, but didn’t roll completely over thanks in part to a tree. The mishap occurred in New Jersey on July 10, 1953, and this photo was part of the Leigh Hopper collection.

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The post Wreck of the Week: 1951 Chrysler appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

A rare amphibious Ford GPA will be among the most noteworthy
vehicles up for bids when Chet Krause’s collection of Jeeps crosses
the auction block Aug. 13.

Chet Krause knew how to keep Jeeps running from 1943-46 as an Army soldier during World War II. Many years later, he was still so fond of them that he made sure he surrounded himself with Jeeps. In fact, he made it his mission to collect every type of authentic Jeep the military produced for WWII, the Korean War and the Vietnam war, assembling perhaps the most complete fleet of such Jeeps in the country in the process.

“I knew World War II Jeeps because I worked on them when I was in the military,” recalled Krause, 86, a resident of Iola, Wis. “But Korea and then Vietnam — I didn’t know what was all built for the military then. There are no books you can open up that tell you all that. I originally thought that there were 11 Jeeps.

“But I eventually became quite well-versed in Jeeps … and I kind of collected one of every Jeep built for the military. I finally stopped at about 24.”

And those 24 quarter-ton MVs, along with a handful of other WWII-era MVs, are all scheduled to find new owners when Aumann Auctions sells off Krause’s collection Aug. 13 at the Iola Old Car Show Grounds — site of the well-known Iola Old Car Show and the Iola Military Vehicle Show. The sale will feature many rare and top-condition vehicles, from early prototypes to Vietnam era machines carrying 106mm recoilless rifles. The Jeeps range in years from 1941 to 1970, while the non-Jeep offerings are all from 1939-’41.

This will be the second go-round for Krause when it comes to waving good-bye to a collection of his MVs at auction. At one time he estimates he had 40 to 50 WWII vehicles, including a Sherman Tank, that he sold off as a collection a few years back. At the time, however, he did not part with the Jeeps. Those Jeeps then grew into his current collection.

“One thing about the Jeeps is that they were a small thing to collect,” said Krause, who has also been a noted collector of old cars, coins and paper money, among other things. “When you collect any kind of vehicle, they take up so much room. Now, I’ve always operated out of warehouses, but there’s hardly been a time when the warehouse wasn’t chock-full.”

1967 Ford M825 with 106mm Recoilless Rifle

Krause is widely known in many different hobby and collecting circles as the founder of Krause Publications, the nation’s most prolific publisher of hobby and collecting magazines. Among his many interests and areas of expertise was coins and paper money, and in 1952 he started his publishing empire with the founding of Numismatic News. The company eventually included publications such as Old Cars Weekly, Military Trader and Military Vehicles.

Krause’s military collection has been a staple of the Iola Military Vehicle Show, held each August in Iola, and his fondness for vintage MVs seems as genuine today as it’s ever been. And his taste in Jeeps and other MVs certainly ran toward the high end of the collecting spectrum. Not just any vehicle made it into his collection.

“This bunch of Jeeps is a cut above what you normally find out there,” he said. “I have one that I’ve restored, but the others I was just able to find the better Jeeps — better than you would normally find on the market.

“I don’t know if there are any other collectors out there like me. A lot of guys are just into particular Jeeps, or the Vietnam stuff.”

Krause figures his ultra-rare 1943 Ford GPA amphibious Jeep will probably draw the most spirited bidding. He estimates there are no more than 20 such Jeeps remaining in the U.S., “and it takes six figures to buy one these days.” The unusual GPA is the only one in the collection that Krause has had restored. The ground-up rebuild was finished in the spring of 2008.

“That cost an arm and a leg to restore, and there just are not many of them around,” he said. “They are an open car and they would sit out in the rain and get full of water, and unless you let them sit out in the sun for a couple of days you just couldn’t get the moisture out of them and they all [rusted out]. We basically reconstructed it from the frame up. It’s the best one ever restored, or at least in existence today.”

The auction will also include a 1941 Bantam BRC prototype, a 1941 Willys MA prototype and a 1941 Ford GP prototype. “Those generally bring pretty good money,” Krause said. “I think there will be buyers who come in looking for the rare-type Jeeps, but there will probably be some people who just come for the everyday Jeeps that are in the collection, too.”

Other Jeeps scheduled to cross the block include:
— 1942 MB Willys “Slat Grille”
— 1942 GPW “Ford Script”
— 1943 MB Willys “Stamp Grille”
— 1943 GPW Ford
— 1950 Willys CJV35U
— 1950 Willys M38
— 1952 Willys M38A1
— 1952 Willys M170 Front Line Ambulance
— 1956 Willys M38A1-C1 Recoilless Rifle
— 1960 Ford M151
— 1960 422 Mighty Mite
— 1961 422E1 Mighty Mite
— 1962 422A1 Mighty Mite
— 1966 Ford M151A1
— 1966 Ford M825 Recoilless rifle
— 1966 AMC M718 Front Line Ambulance
— 1967 Ford M151 Mine Sweeper
— 1969 AM General M718A1 Frontline Ambulance
— 1970 Ford/AM General M151A2
— 1970 Ford M825A1 Recoilless Rifle

Other non-Jeeps scheduled for the auction:
— 1940 Dodge VC1 Command Car
— 1940 Dodge VC2 Command Car
— 1940 Dodge VC3 Weapons Carrier
— 1940 Dodge VC4 Personnel Car
— 1940 Dodge Open Cab Weapon Carrier
— 1940 Dodge VC6
— 1939 Ford Marmon-Herrington
— 1941 Dodge WC17 1/2-ton Carryall

Krause says he will be on hand during the auction event, and although he doesn’t expect to shed any tears about closing the door on his MV collecting pursuits, he does liken the auction experience “to a funeral.”

“I have given a lot of thought to what I should be doing with them, whether to sell them one at a time, or to sell them at an auction,” he said. “Having an auction is really like a funeral. It’s final.

“But I don’t think it’s going to be a sad day, and the reason I say that is … for the last three or four years I have gradually been liquidating my estate, including a large portion of numismatics, so I’ve been parting with my ‘pets’ for a long time, and the Jeeps are just another of the pets.”

For more information on the upcoming Krause MV Collection Auction, visit www.aumannauctions.com.

More Resources on Military Vehicles

• The Story of Jeep
• Standard Catalog of Jeep CD
• Standard Catalog of U.S. Military Vehicles, 1942-2003

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The post MV hobby luminary set to auction off stellar fleet appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

Old Cars Weekly reader Bill Burns of Brownsville, Texas, spent
many years slowly restoring his father’s unique 1935 Ford Deluxe
Tudor.

Bill just figures his old man loved his gray Ford so much, he couldn’t resist giving it a few tweeks and do-dads that made it different from any other car on the road. Either way, the unique old Ford has been a beloved member of the family since the day Bill’s dad got it new as a going-off-to-college gift 73 years ago. The elder Burns died 48 years ago, but thanks to his son’s undying affection for the car, the venerable Ford has never looked better — well, at least not for a long time.

“The car was originally purchased by my dad — given to him new when he went to college,” recalled Burns, a resident of Brownsville, Texas. “It was his personal vehicle his entire life, and he died in ’61. He and my mom dated in the car. My brother and I dated in the car … The car has quite a family history to it.

The car features many pieces of airplane gadetry, which
were inspired by Gilford Burns’ job repairing aircraft instruments
during World War II.

“Dave loved that automobile … I mean, he drove it from 1935 to 1961. He loved the car, and that’s why we kept it.”

One of the reasons Gilford loved his Ford was because of all the fun little things he was able to do to the car, thanks to his fondness for gadgetry and his job as an instrument technician for Pan American Airways. Some old Fords from that era got flames and scallops, some went without fenders or hoods. Gilford Burns’ car cruised around with various airplane parts bolted all over it.

“Pan American Airways, during World War II, they had an instrument repair shop, and they sent airplane instruments there to get fixed,” Bill said. Gilford ran the shop, and “would occasionally modify something and put in on the ’35 Ford,” according to Bill. “Instrumentation, spark plugs, a water injecting system for the carburetor … I could go on and on. It had some rather unique features on it.

“The car didn’t need ’em, but he was just dealing with these instruments and he loved that car and just had to put something on it… He had altimeters and, of course, temperature gauges and pressure gauges…”

“He latched onto a couple of aircraft landing lights that were about the size of the fog lights that were on the Deluxe model Fords. Well, we used to travel in Mexico for weeks at a time when I was a kid. If you ever travel down there, you know the roads aren’t normal, and if you meet a truck down there on the road, they’re not gonna dim (their high-beams). Well, man, I’ll tell you, those lights lit up the countryside. Those truck drivers would be hustling to get their lights dimmed.”

Most of the changes of the aeronautical variety were cosmetic, but not all of them. Bill found out the hard way it was best to be careful with the oversized airplane spark plugs his dad decided to use as an experiment. “Those spark plugs were really long — they probably stuck up twice as high as regular plugs,” he said. “That car had one whale of a spark, I wanna tell you. I was helping him one night in the garage and I bumped into one of those things, and it knocked me halfway across the floor!”

Oversized plugs and headlights that you could see from space were clearly not standard equipment on the 1935 Deluxes, but the mildly restyled Fords did have their share of accessories and refinements that year.

Ford claimed “Greater Beauty, Greater Comfort, and Greater Safety” for 1935. The narrower radiator grille lost its sharply veed base and four horizontal bars helped accentuate the 1935 model’s new lower and more streamlined appearance. The fender outlines were much more rounded and the side hood louvers received three horizontal bright stripes. In profile, the Ford windshield was seen more sharply sloped than previously. The parking lamps became integrated with the headlights and the headlamp shells were painted body color. For the first time, Ford offered a built-in trunk for its Tudor and Fordor models, and all Fords had front-hinged doors front and rear.

Deluxe Fords had a set of horizontal bars running down the center section of the dash. External distinctions included bright windshield and grille trim work on the Deluxe models, and dual exposed horns with twin tail lamps in back. A convertible sedan was new, and the Victoria model was discontinued.

The engine was the 221-cid L-head V-8, which produced 85 hp at 3,800 rpm. Alas, the engine in Burns’ car was damaged by what Bill termed a “rare freeze” during winter and replaced with a “a late-’30s ‘85.’”

The cars rode on a 112-inch wheelbase with 6.00 x 16 tires. A sliding-gear, manual-floor-shift transmission was standard on the ’35s.

“In the mid to late-’50s, when I was a teenager, I used to drive the car a lot and it had an 85-hp V-8 in it, and I’d drag race that thing,” Bill said.

“Of course, Dad would have killed me, but it really got up and went.”

Wire wheels could wear optional whitewall tires. Other options included a radio, antenna, heater, cigar lighter, clock, seat covers, spotlight, dual windshield wipers, greyhound radiator ornament, luggage rack and a banjo-type steering wheel.

Ford was the nation’s top-selling car maker for 1935 and offered five different Standard body styles and 10 different Deluxe models. The Burns’ car was one of 87,336 of the Tudor trunk sedans built, making it the third-most popular car in the 15-car lineup.

When Bill got the car following his father’s passing, he knew he’d eventually give it a loving and well-deserved restoration, but the process wound up taking longer than he planned. “I took it down basically to the frame and I started over with it, but I got transferred for my job every two or three years and it took a long time to get the thing finished up… I’ve lived in various places around the country. We moved a lot, and all these companies I went to work for, my main stipulation was, ‘If you want me, then the car is coming, too.’ For so long, the car was in various stages of restoration during all these moves. There was probably more money spent on it moving than the car was ever worth.”

Bill finally finished his restoration in early 1980s, preserving as many of his father’s airplane modifications as he could.

The transmission and rear end are original. The underside and body panels were sand blasted and painted with zinc chromate and black paint.

Fittingly, the car wound up on display for a number of years in the Confederate Air Force Museum in Brownsville before the family took it back seven or eight years ago — still with only 74,000 miles on the odometer.

Bill has now turned over the keys to the family heirloom Ford to his own son, Greg. At this point in the car’s life, it wouldn’t seem right for it to ever leave the family.

“I restored it because of the love my father had for it,” Bill says. “And it got me started in antique cars. I’ve had two Corvettes and T-bird and few other things … I’ve had my toys, and this car was his toy.”

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Arlington, Mass., resident David Hajian has had at least one
1965 Mustang convertible for the past 30 years, including a
a Twilight Turquoise example (top) and a Caspian Blue GT.

Like most other pony car fanatics, David Hajian could probably name a myriad of reasons why is is so fond of first-generation Mustangs.

Great, sporty styling. Availability. Variety. Mystique. Cool Factor.

There’s probably as many reasons to own an early Mustang as there are cars and owners. But Hajian points to a trait that might not be so obvious. “They’re just great cars to work on,” he said. “There’s no electronics. Everything is mechanical and you can really figure things out.”
Of course, if you favor convertibles, as Hajian has for the past 30 years, there are some other obvious perks as well. “I guess there is nothing like putting the top down on a nice day and going for a drive,” added Hajian, a resident of Arlington, Mass. “Unfortunately, living in New England, you can only do that for part of the year.”

But Hajian, an architect by trade and Mustang hobbyist and married father of two, is used to waiting for sunny days so he can drop the tops on his two convertible pony cars — he’s been doing it a long time. He bought his first 1965 Mustang convertible right after college, and he’s had at least one ever since. For the past five years he’s had two droptop ’65s, and his stable grew to as many as three at one point. “I’ve only had three, and for a while I had them all, and my significant other [Mary] wasn’t too happy about that,” Hajian laughs. “I can’t have any more. Three was too many.”

But two seems to be just about the right number, and Hajian is plenty fond of both of his 44-year-old Fords. He bought his Twilight Turquoise car about 10 years ago for a seller in California. “It came from Sacramento. It was a San Jose [built] car,” he said. “I was looking for a convertible. Well, like most car guys, you might still be looking, even if you are not in the market for a car… I was just struck by the color of this one. I started to learn more about the color — it’s just not a color you see that often — and that was sort of the push that I needed.”

What Hajian got was a well-preserved “driver” that had been used frequently by previous owners but was not driven into the ground and still had plenty of potential. “I learned a little history on the car, and found out it had been in a garage adjacent to a car that had caught fire,” he said. “I’ve always noticed that the chrome had a slight coloring to it that I never could understand, but that helped explain a couple of things.

“[The previous owner] had it restored, but not fully. I’ve re-done a lot of the interior stuff and some of the engine components. I had it repainted and replaced some things, like the seat cushions, the vinyl … I’ve basically repainted the whole car.”

The “teal” car, as Hajian calls it, has the optional 289-cid, two-barrel “C-code” engine, which produces 200 horsepower.

If Hajian wants to travel in more muscular style, he can jump into his Caspian Blue ’65 Mustang GT, which he picked up about five years ago.

“I bought it with the idea that I could fix it up a little bit and sell it, but now, hopefully not,” he said. “I had always been keeping an eye out for a Caspian car, and this was an ‘A-Code’ engine, which has the four-barrel. All I need now is a ‘K-Code” [a rare hi-po model], but that might be a little out of my range!”

As was the case with his Twilight Turquoise car, the darker blue ’65 has grown on its current owner to the point that it might be around for the long haul. “It definitely is a bit of a brute in terms of power. You can really tell the difference between the two-barrel and the four-barrel,” Hajian said. “It needs more work than the other one. In fact, I’m meeting someone next week to look at the exhaust system. But it’s pretty much all original. It has been repainted at least once, but I am trying not to replace anything.”

Both of his current Mustangs are significant leaps forward from his first pony car, which he held onto for about 20 years before selling it to make room for another. “My first one I bought just out of school and the brakes were in the back seat — it was one of those,” Hajian said. “I had to tow it. My apartment mates were not happy seeing that car show up. Nobody could drive it.”

“I was sad to see that go, but it was also an automatic and a six-cylinder, and the others now are manuals and V-8s, which is what I wanted.”
Ford cranked out a total of 559,451 Mustangs for model year 1965, including 73,112 convertibles.

After a hugely successful debut in 1965, the Mustang did get a few upgrades and a few more option choices for its sophomore year. Front disc brakes were one new option. So was the GT package, with racing stripes as a standard, but deletable, feature. The standard equipment list for 1965 also included a heater and defroster; dual sun visors; Sports-type front bumpers; full wheel covers; vinyl upholstery; seat belts; padded instrument panel; automatic courtesy lights; cigarette lighter; front and rear carpets; foam-padded front bucket seats; self-adjusting brakes; Sports steering wheel; and five 6.50 x 13 four-ply tubeless black sidewall tires.

Certainly, the “Gen I” Mustangs are among the most popular of all hobby cars, and the Hajian clan has all become card-carrying members of the Mustang nation. If David’s children Isabel, 12, and Caleb, 9, get their way, he may eventually be handing over the keys to his beloved ’65s, but at least they will stay in the family. “Yeah, the issue now is I have two Mustangs and two kids, and they’ve both claimed one,” he laughed. “My son wants the blue one, and my daughter wants the green one.

“It’s really become a family thing for us. We go to quite a few car shows in the summer months… If you have young children, it’s a great way to bring them into the fold, so to speak. Both my daughter and son are interested in cars, now.

“I do get a little bit of grief in the winter months, when my wife’s car is out in the driveway in the snow. We have a deal, I have to keep [the driveway] clear, and the Mustangs get the garage.

“But, come on, that’s so worth it!”

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J.C. Absher’s 1932 Studebaker street rod sports the rare St. Regis
Brougham body on the outside, and a 429-cid engine and
transmission from a 1970s Lincoln.

For starters, there were only about 25,618 Studebakers built for the ’32 model year, and there aren’t many left, regardless of series or body style.

And Absher was able to get his hands on a St. Regis Brougham body, which is particularly scarce. Exact build numbers are sketchy, but the St. Regis cars are notoriously hard to find these days — just ask the Studebaker buffs who are always on the lookout for them. Add to that the fact that Absher’s ride is propelled by a big 429-cid Ford V-8 with a C6 transmission, carries plush Buick seats and new-car cockpit gadgetry, and floats along on modern day running gear, and you’ve got a “look at me” retro ride that can tackle just about any road trip and cruise 80 mph all day.

Sure, it’s not all original — Absher has some of those Studebakers, too — but it’s a pretty cool ride, and not your run-of-the-mill street rod. And frankly, Absher doesn’t really care if anybody else likes it. He’s having too much fun to notice.

“I get criticized sometime over my modifieds,” admits Absher, a resident of Chistiansburg, Va. “I tell ’em I like their cars anyway, even if they don’t like mine. I’m easygoing, I don’t mind.

“But if a car is in nice shape I wouldn’t cut it up. I wouldn’t modify it.”

Absher has owned his share of original cars and trucks, including a handful of Studebakers, but he was in the mood to tackle a hot rod project about five years ago when he came across an advertisement for an unfinished ’32 Studebaker Series 55 street rod. The car was for sale in Pennsylvania and had been owned by a farmer who was killed in a tractor rollover accident. The man had already done some street rod frame and bodywork on the Stude, but Absher said much of the car “was in boxes,” or missing altogether.

“I’ve had several Studebakers, and I was looking for another one, but I never dreamed I’d find a St. Regis, because they are pretty rare,” he said. “I went to look at it and we haggled around for a couple months. It cost more than I could afford, really, but it was the only way I was ever going to get one.

“It had sat for three years before the widow decided what to do with it. The guy was going to street rod it. The frame had already been set up for a street rod. It was a stock frame, but has a custom-made front end with rack-and-pinion steering and four-wheel disc brakes. The rear end had been narrowed, so I didn’t have to do anything to that.”

Absher was not targeting a prewar Studebaker when he decided to take on a new rodding project, but he certainly managed to get his hands on the remains of a interesting and unique car.

The 1932 Studebakers were distinguished from the previous edition by their slanting windshields and more rounded corners. For the model year, the bottom-tier Model 55s received a longer, 117-inch wheelbase. The visor over the windshield was gone, and a new single bar front bumper was added. Standard features included freewheeling and a key-operated starter.

There were 12 body styles offered that year on Studebakers, with the St. Regis Brougham bowing as a debut model. The St. Regis Broughams were refined-looking coupes with two huge doors and a small backseat area. The body style was unique to Pierce-Arrow and Studebaker, who both experimented for a few years with the European-influenced configuration. The cars were basically akin to squarish, Victorian-like two-door sedans with small rear quarter windows. The bodies are particularly interesting to collectors and hobbyists today, but they weren’t a big hit when they were new. By 1935, the St. Regis Brougham offerings were history.

Under the hood, all the Model 55s carried the same 230-cid L-head six-cylinder that produced 80 hp.

Absher was certainly no stranger to the Studebaker nameplate by the time he tackled his latest street rod project. He also owns two 1-ton Studebaker trucks — a 1963 and a ’64 — and previously owned a customized ’46 Studebaker coupe. He also has two more trucks, a 1949 and a ’52, that he hopes to eventually restore.

“1990 was the first time I owned one [a Studebaker],” he said. “I bought a ’46 coupe that was street-rodded.

“People gave me such a hard time and picked at me and I had so much fun I ended up being a Studebaker man. I had been basically a Ford man, but I have a lot of fun with them and it gives you a lot to talk about.”

Abasher pieced his ’32 together slowly, saving what he could, figuring out what modern parts he needed, and making parts he couldn’t find. “I have a friend up the street that is a machinist, and he makes parts for me. He’s into tractors and I make parts for his tractors, and he makes parts for my cars,” Absher laughed. “That really helped out a lot.”

“I really just made it up as I went along. I’d run into missing parts and so forth and you can’t hardly find them for these cars. By not going back to strictly stock — I made it look stock — but going strictly stock would have been a lot harder. That’s the best thing about a modified car, you can do whatever it takes.”

Eventually, the car received front seats from a 2002 Pontiac Bonneville, a rear seat “from some SUV, I’m not even sure what it was” and a steering column from a 1986 Thunderbird. The dash was trimmed with engine-turned aluminum and given aftermarket gauges.

Absher believes the engine and transmission came out of an early ’70s Lincoln. In the stern is a 9-inch Ford rear end and 2:75 gearing.

Coilovers handle the suspension duties.

“And I wanted air conditioning it, because I was going to ride it, and I put in the best I could find — Vintage Air,” he said. “It’s got electronic controls and works and drives just about like any other car.”

Absher hasn’t had to paint the plumb-colored car yet, and hasn’t had to do much to the exterior. “It could use some paint, but I’m going to ride it for a few years before I do that,” he said. “The paint has been on there probably eight or 10 years. Most of what I’ve had to do (on the exterior) I caused myself when it fell off a jack stand and I messed up a running board and front fender. I had to fix that.”

Absher finally got the car back on the road in the fall of 2008 and took it on a lengthy road trip to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for the ’09 Studebaker National Meet, where the car earned a second-place nod in the modified class. By the time J.C. and his wife Kathleen returned home, they had rolled up 2,000 miles on their Studebaker, which passed its first big road test with flying colors.

“I build to ride ’em, and we’ve put 4,500 miles on it,” Absher said. “So it’s doing all right.”

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The post Stude’ Cruiser appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

At least that’s the way John Blizzard of Alexandria, Va., sees it. He insists that he’d be a whole lot worse off if he hadn’t spotted a 1966 Ford Galaxie 500 convertible for sale in a serviceman’s parking lot at Fort Belvoir one day back in December 1998.

Blizzard, 74, served in the U.S. Army for 20 years, then put in another 20 years as a civil servant with the Postal Service before entering retirement. Not being employed was not all it was cracked up to be, however.

“I sort of went down after I retired. I wasn’t doing well — I didn’t have nothin’ to do,” said Blizzard. “So I went back to work part-time at Fort Belvoir, and that’s when I saw the car. That really brought me back to life! I got the bug again like I had when I was 17 with a ’49 Ford convertible.”

When he spotted it, the Galaxie was showing its age, but it was almost entirely original, right down to its working eight-track tape player. It was red with a black ragtop and immediately got Blizzard’s attention.

“I told my grandsons then and there that I was going to buy that car,” he said. “I jotted down the phone number and wrote ‘sold’ on the ‘for sale’ sign so no one else would call. I know, that was a bit deceitful, but I really wanted that car.

“The owner was a warrant officer with orders to go to Germany. He had no place to store the car and therefore was selling it. I arranged to meet him at the car. My wife and I took the Galaxie for a spin around the post. It was a bit rough riding, it rattled and made some squeaking noise, but it felt so good to me. It had the original eight-track tape player, AM radio, clock, heater, defroster, two-speed wipers and washer …. [Everything] worked wonderfully.

“My wife asked me, ‘Are you sure want to buy this piece of junk?’ but I didn’t see it that way.”

The Galaxie 500 occupied the intermediate trim level for 1966 and included all the Custom trim plus a chrome hood ornament; Ford crest in the feature line on the front fender; stamped aluminum rocker panel moldings; and a stamped aluminum insert between two chrome strips on the vertical section of the trunk lid, with Ford in block letters spaced evenly across. Two-tone vinyl trim was used on the inside of the doors and on the seats. Simulated wood appliques were used on the instrument panel trim pieces.

The Galaxies came with both six-cylinder and V-8 engine choices for ’66, ranging from the 223-cid six all the way up to a hi-po 427 that cranked out 425 horsepower. Buyers could pick from four different body styles: four-door sedan, four-door fastback sedan, two-door fastback coupe and two-door convertible. The convertible was the least common, with 27,454 examples leaving the factory carrying a base price of $3,041 for the V-8 model, and $2,914 for the six.

With a little TLC and not much investment, the Blizzards could have had themselves a nice cruiser and “driver,” but John has turned the car into far more than that in the past decade. One step at a time, he has replaced or restored almost every part of the car, from the brakes, to the interior, to the paint and chrome, to the original 390-cid Thunderbird V-8. The car was originally equipped with a few popular factory options, including the 390 4V power plant, Cruise-O-Matic transmission, and power steering and brakes, so it was plenty nice when it left the factory. The black top has been replaced with a flashy white version — which was a factory option for the ’66 Galaxies — and Blizzard has gone on to add every other factory add-on he could find.

“There was no chrome on it when I got it. It was bare,” he said. “I put all NOS chrome on it that I got up at Carlisle. It was very expensive, because it was NOS stuff, but it’s what I wanted.”

The continental kit in the stern was an aftermarket item that Blizzard couldn’t resist. “I had no idea about doing that,” he said. “I saw an advertisement for them in Old Cars Weekly, and went ahead and ordered it.

“Then I couldn’t get anybody to put in on for me. [The local bodyshop] wouldn’t do it because they didn’t want to be responsible for the paint if the car got scratched. So I had to do it myself, and it went perfect. Now the car is 21 feet long.”

“Once I got it pretty well safe to drive, I started taking it to shows … and being around the other cars made me want to keep going and do more things. I just kept adding to it and I started winning trophies at the car shows. I’ve just kept adding to it for 10 years. I went up to Carlisle and got third place, then third place again, then second, then I won. I’ve got first about three times up there, and there is a lot of ’66s up there. Then I started getting “best of show” at some shows.

Under the hood are shiny chrome valve covers and a matching air cleaner cover. There are twin spotlights and outside mirrors, twin rear antennae and rear fender skirts. The paint is several coats deep with two layers of clear coat. It basically has everything but the kitchen sink on it, and if a kitchen sink were offered by Ford in 1966, Blizzard would have one.

“We just love it, and we drive it everywhere,” he said. “The kids really go crazy for it, and it’s got a wolf whistle, and I blow that and everybody just roars.”

The odometer on the bright red Ford shows 80,000 original miles, and Blizzard says he has no plans to ever make the car a trailer queen. These days, the Galaxie also shares a garage with the couple’s 1957 Fairlane 500, “but I bought that one in showroom condition,” Blizzard says. The Fairlane will have a hard time stealing away Blizzard’s affections from the car that gave him a new direction in his retirement, however.

“I’m very proud of bringing [it] back to life, for myself and for the people that are happy to see a great car from the past, and for the youngsters who may never have seen anything like it before,” he said.

“It took a heck of a lot of work and a lot of money. But it’s worth every penny. Mostly because it makes me feel so good.”

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