Motion Pictures Where have all the old bodies gone?

Jive-Bomber submitted a new blog post:

Where have all the old bodies gone?

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Many were indeed sacrificed to the racing Gods.

 

Many.

 

I'll be moving to a condo in a couple of years, Hastings, MN. with my avatar.

 

Hate to admit this but I sold a 32 sedan body to guy cause I made a big profit on it.($400) which was a bunch in 63 and I was 16. Found out later that he made it into stock car jalopy. The good news was I used the money to buy another hot rod.

 

even though they were cheap and plentiful back in the old days I don't think I could ever have just destroyed a 30's Ford at the race track. I felt bad sending my 76 Volvo to the junk yard when the motor blew.... like sending a cat to the pound.

 

My old body is in the garage trying to get other old bodies into shape slowly.

 

As a young pre teen lad I can remember when my dad took me to the jalopy races in Birmingham Al and they ran figure 8 races. It was exciting as all get out. I loved it but even then I hated to see those beautiful coupes getting beat up like that. I remember thinking how in the world those guys kept from getting killed hitting each other and going airborne over the fence. Thousands of old coupes were lost to that sport. You could still see the remnants of a lot of them stashed behind old service stations and in the woods up until the late 70s but I never see any now days.

 

The year was 1960. Bought a really nice '30 Model A tudor for $100 and sold it about 6 months later for $125. At that time Southern California was awash with running Model As. Always thought I could pick up another one anytime but never got around to it.

 

Arguably the two best American race car drivers began their careers behind the wheel of 32 Ford hardtops. AJ Foyt in an Ardun powered 32 5W in, of course, Texas and Parnelli Jones In the California Jalopy Association in Southern California. Parnelli drove a 32 Vicky with a flame paint job supposedly by Von Dutch. 32's served both well as they went on to complete their road to fame.

 

About 1951, I was 8. We used to go to Madera to the hardtop races every weekend. My Dad's cousins thought they were racers. Remember them chopping up perfectly good early Ford coupes to race and a few weeks later hauled to the wrecking yd-then do another one. A great uncle had left a very nice 36 3 window coupe that my Grand mother drove now and then. Came home one day from school and it was all cut up and made into a jalopy and wrecked shortly after.

 

ditto the model A's , 2 doors were $100. When I bought my first 36 in 1962, a fellow who owned the Ford dealership in Seminole, TX. had already seen the light and was gathering all the 36 bodies he could find to save for use on future restorations. He sold me a pickup load of stuff for my car for $50.

 

1959 Central Valley Ca. There were alot of early Fords cheap-like $100 for a running A and a real nice old 34 Ford sedan for $200 that was promptly cut up and made into a Rig to chase coyotes. Also a very nice 40 Zephyr coupe met the same fate. We would go up in the hills around Mariposa and get old Ford for $75-$100 and then bring em home and play with em. Bought a 37 pickup there for $50 and towed it home like that with a chain!!! Dumb!! Dad helped me put a good flathead in it and I drove it to work for 3 yrs.The coolest coyote chasin rig was an old 48 Caddy with the top cut off-that one lasted a long time before it was scrapped. In 64 when I went away to work for the Utility my Dad did me a big favor and had the junk man come to the ranch and cut up a couple of 29Roadsters and a T coupe for scrap and gave me $40. There was a bunch of old flathead stuff too that went.

 

A sign that reappears in the video is for Lou's Garages. Lou's was a cut rate shop, sort of the Earl Sheib of mechanics. He advertised on local LA TV. He would grind your valves, expand your pistons, clean and inspect all gaskets, and so on, for $59.95. What a deal!!

 

What a favor!

 

I know--he had no use for old stuff-he meant well. The roll top desk Im sitting at was gonna be hauled to the dump. Had been in the family since near the turn of the Century. Thankfully my Mom called and I went and got it-had paperwork from the turn of the century (some from the Indian Territory) up thru the 40's in it which I still have. Also was an old Hawken style 52 caliber plains rifle and a Winchester 73 in the rafters that had been in the family since new that he had no use for-had been in the rafters since before the War-still have those too. Also in the desk were some Civil war pictures and a California vehicle registration from 1914 which is a metal tag with a number on it-never seen another one. Also a couple photos group is a bridge const crew in Indian Territory-the other is a relative killed on the way to the Mexican War per the note-all was going to the dump!!

 

When the price of scrap iron jumped a few years ago a lot of stuff got hauled off. A friend of mine was a custom combiner for many years . He told me of a couple places in Montana that every car the family ever owned was parked in a pasture . He tried to buy cars for years . Nope not for sale . Then one year he went up there all the cars were gone. The kids sold every thing to scrapers . For pennies on the dollar . The younger generation just saw a quick buck.

 

Noticed a couple T's whizzing around out there. The red one is really interesting. A coupe top mated to a roadster maybe? It IS painfull to watch all that rumpled steel going on... but here's a positive excecise you can do. Step 1: Look up some figures that compare dollar values of the past compared to today's. I did this recently to rationalize my old guitar buying habit. $200 bucks back in '59 would be somewhere around $1800 now I think. Step 2: run out and buy something cool and old while telling yourself "these are the good old days!" It works like a charm.

 

The old man started hauling me to race tracks 'bout as soon as I was out of diapers. Dirt, or oiled clay mostly. I got to see the 'coupes' run in the late '50s, usually as the 'thundering herd' division. Hardtops were the 'new' car division. By the mid '60s the coupes were pretty much history. Glad I got to see 'em.
Who'da thunk back then.....well, you know.

 

Tough to see all the vicky's and 3 windows! Never understood why it was the ford coupes, since so many look to have been swapped over onto newer heavier chassis. Was it a class thing? It seems with as popular as the early fords were as hot rods, they wouldn't have been as likely to be chopped up!
I'm from the tail end of the 55-57 chevy into the early camaro stock car era. My uncle ran 3 dirt tracks, so I spent many a summer night sitting along the rail avoiding the flying dirt clods! Saw many RS/SS/Z28's get get cut up for their body tin in that era! several SS chevelles as well!

 

In the late 70's early 80's it was 55-57 Chevys at Lakeport and Ukiah speedways-Petaluma too.

 

Many a classic body style gave the ultimate sacrifice, in their respective era's, to the dirt gods. But hey, if ya gotta go, why not in a balls to wall, open header screamin' cloud of dusty glory!

 

No wood in the bodies ??

 

Back in the mid 70's...I would drive up into the mountains and haul out an old sedan or coupe on every trip into the mountains behind our house...there were tons of them up in the Colorado/NM mountains, but I don't see them no more! If I was at least 1/2 smart then, I would have hauled them out and kept them. Damn, there were some complete, cool cars, just lyin' in the bushes or on the side of the roads, on those old logging and garbage dumping roads!....I went 4-wheelin' on several familiar old roads last year, and not a single piece of metal anywhere, no matter how far back I went....cryin' in my beer at the end of the day was my reality!

 

In my mind, the real question is not where did all the old bodies go........but how did so many survive to this day, given all the reasons many were destroyed or recycled as scrap. I never cease to be amazed at the quantity of late '20s thru the '40s that have survived. Happy about it though!

Ray

 

Excellent point, Ray.

 

In 1974 I bought a 32 5W from a guy in Conroe, TX for $250. It was an old drag car and rough as a cob. The rails were pretty good and were boxed, it had an Olds rear end and a chrome front axle. I had just seen American Graffiti and was going to build a rod just like John Milner drove. I was a scatterbrained 19 y/o kid but smart enough to realize that this project was way, way above my talent level. I piddled with it for a few months or so and had a little of the bodywork done by a neighbor. That was about it. I sold it to the guy who owned Jim's Honkytonk in S. Houston for $300. In retrospect, and knowing how fast 32 Fords climbed in value, I should have just rolled it into my dad's garage and kept it. I probably blew the $300 anyway.

 

Hard to believe that my Uncle Bill had a 40 Willys coupe for the dirt races. Then he was going to prep it for Pikes peak in 1958. He passed in 59 and the car sat in my Dads garage until 1968 when it was given away to the scrapyard.

 

It really floors me to think of how many of these cars were actually built. I mean countless numbers of them were scrapped, raced, wrecked, and even turned even to hotrods over the years. Yet even to this day, some 80+ years later, you really don't have to look too hard to find any of these cars or parts, even nice original stuff, can still be found relatively easily.