Ben Alexzander Webb's 1st partner was a very large Ford Dealer in LA. He restored a model a pickup using all nos parts. He died shortly after he left Dragnet. brasscarguy
Ben Alexander was not Friday's first partner. Barton Yarborough started the series as partner Ben Romero. He died suddenly early in the series and for a few episodes Webb tried other actors and finally settled on Ben Alexander who was great in the role. The character name Frank Smith was to honor a relative that Webb really liked.
That was an Imperial with straight 8.and the LWB body. Lots of LWB DeSotos made great taxis for years.
Dang, just had to repost this one ... What a flash back. I had that exact same model and in same year 64 that has the skeleton on the box ... it was called the " Little Coffin " ... had some of the other ones as well with the chrome options and that 3 in 1 kit too. Man can still smell the glue and paint. Revelle around this time was real big into fighter planes, bombers, tanks as well etc and it was just before Tonka Toys started to take hold with kids younger than us.
There are exactly ZERO 'Shotbang' hits from either Findagrave or familysearch.org. I encountered that on one other such search- I wonder if these Farm Security photos label them with 'alias' names to protect privacy or something like that (not that I believe that was a going concern in the '40s). Either that, or they're phonetic spellings of offbeat 'ethnic' names. Maybe it was "Shutbangt" and the photographer wrote what he heard. Weird. I bet she's mid 20s; she doesn't have 19-year old ankles.
this sat 4th, but car is ex chitwood, peters sold to light. was from lebanon & currently talking with his son-in-law in lebanon cnty. spoke to his wife several times before she passed away last year or early this year. have other pix if car after acquired by light. he was my boyhood idol, would see his cars go by my house. mlight9