if you all are interested in "The Rest Of The Story"......Carl Hoganson of Eugene heard about an old Chevy that was for sale in Veneta,OR. He goes out to look at it and some young guy says he just wants it out of his shop...Seems he had this old coupe that he was going to put on a 4 wheel drive chassis and when he started sanding on the body, he got into some huge LEAD areas....well he was scared to death,thought he was going to die or something....Carl got Erik Sanders to go over to look at it with him (Erik had been a hot rodder and early Ford guy since late 50s) Erik recognized the car as Dick Bertoluccis and told him he needed to buy it....(I believe an article on Bertolucci had been out a few years earlier in Rod& custom with some early pictures of the 38).....The car was moved to Eriks shop, I stopped in one day and saw it sitting back in the corner, it was like seeing a ghost ship, is the only way I can describe the feeling......it didn't have a motor and the front axle was??a trailer axle??....anyway the Packard grille, the chop, the filled side panel, headloghts in the fender, and fadded purple,and on the dash...wellback to the story.......Erik tells Carl, this is a piece of history, we gotta get ahold of Dick Bertolucci and see if he has any interest in it before you do ANYTHING with this car....Erik calls Dick up and explains that he believes his old 38 is sitting in his shop in Oregon...Dick asks,"Why do you think it's my old chevy?"...Erik says,"well, it's still Bertolucci Purple and the biggest give away is the brass timing tag on the glove box, 'Bonneville Salt Flats with the year and the record speed"....Dick and his buddy from Sacto came up a few days later....I did get to meet them and Erik and I talked a bit as Carl was dealing with Dick on price....Erik told me that Carl had big dollar signs in his eyes and that the deal would be up to Carl but that he had told Carl that he needed to be fair and that this really needed to go home with the rightful builder/creator.....All of us motorheads that hung out at Eriks all leaned on Carl to be fair with Dick......I have no idea how much Carl gave for the car and I have no idea what he sold it for, nor do I care. ..All I know is that a piece of history got fixed and that's PRICELESS !!!!
Die is right...IF he HAd put that car onto a 4WD chassis, A bolt of lightening would have come down from the sky! Cool story tho' - thanks
I have a friend that grew up near the area were that car was sitting for years. For about 15 years he would occasionally tell me the story about the cool chopped 38 chevy with the Pontiac hood sides and the jimmy six. The last time he told me that one and we were talkin how we should go get it, it finally clicked in my dumb ass head whos car it was. Right then and there I made some calls and got Dicks number and called him up. He had found out about it and had it back already. Im glad he did.
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