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Last updated: April 04. 2007 3:42PM
American Classics
If everyone has a story, then every car must have its share of tales, too, as timeless pieces of history - with much to say
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Seems the vintage model had sat discarded and forgotten in the yard behind an old farmhouse. Years passed. The house burned. And the yard gradually grew into woods. Years gave over to decades, and the top and the undercarriage of the old car decayed to allow rain and sunlight through, and a seedling took root. That young sapling grew and grew, eventually carrying the hulk along with it on the tree’s slow journey skyward.
A teenager at the time, Everson got the old Ford down by climbing aloft, disassembling it one piece at a time and then lowering each panel to the ground. He stacked the parts nearby to reassemble later and restore, but there was just one hitch. The property owner decided he didn’t want to let the vintage car go after all. “All I got out of it was a bunch of briar scratches … and a good story,” says the now 54-year-old Everson, laughing at the memory. “I could tell you so many stories about the cars I’ve had.”
He may not have gotten that particular car, but for Everson and thousands of car enthusiasts like him in the region – those who collect, restore, reconfigure, rebuild, soup up and trick out antiques, hot rods and muscle cars – the love affair with cars runs akin to love of good storytelling.
“Every car has a story and every person has a story,” says Irving Smith, 69, a retired general contractor and former electrical and computer engineer who spent his boyhood with grease under his fingernails in his father’s auto garage. These days, you can find Smith in his shop off Market Street in Wilmington, working on any number of old automobiles (he’s partial to Fords). Often, fellow collectors and hot rod builders stop by to peer under the hood, swap advice and trade old tales.
“I grew up around these old cars,” he says, scanning three pre-World War II-era models in his shop, all in various stages of repair and restoration. But among all these vehicles sits a 1932 Ford 3-window coupe – a car with a love story to tell.
More than 50 years ago, when he was dating his future wife, Jeanette (then 16 years old), she was seriously injured in a car accident. He made a promise to her while she recovered in the hospital, and then presented her with an accompanying gift – a handmade wooden model car, decorated with ‘Sweet 16’ hand lettered on the door panels. He pulls the five-decade-old model from a shelf at his shop, protected under a plastic case.
“I promised her that someday I’d build her a new car,” he says, smiling. And a new car is what she’ll get. Smith figures he’s been working on his current project – his ‘Sweet 16,’ a 1932 Ford 3-window coupe for more than a year and has another two years to go. “This is a street rod, not an antique,” he says, looking at the vehicle. When it’s done, it’ll be a beauty. Along with a modern 330-horsepower Chevy V8 (Ford introduced the first V8 engine, a 60 horsepower, in 1932), every nut and washer, hose and bearing will be new.
Whether they be old stories or new ones, classic cars speak of bygone days, and classic car and hot rod enthusiasts tend to speak of their cars as part of larger personal narratives.
Of course, every good story must have a beginning.
Historians organize technological development of the automobile into eras. During the earliest, the so-called Veteran era, the first true automobiles – steam-powered, self-propelled – were invented and demonstrated in the late 17th and into the 18th centuries in Europe. But the mechanical curiosities never found any sort of meaningful application. By 1801 and through the early decades of the 19th century, steam carriages enjoyed notable popularity in Great Britain, especially with such innovations as hand brakes, multi-speed transmissions and improved speed and steering control. The new technology, though, would soon run into trouble.
Public backlash against the noisy, fast contraptions resulted in the 1865 Locomotive Act, which required self-propelled vehicles on public roads in the United Kingdom to be preceded by a man walking ahead waving a red flag and blowing a horn. This pretty much smothered automobile development in the UK for the rest of the 19th century.
The first gasoline-powered car was invented in Vienna in 1870, “The First Marcus Car,” by Siegfried Marcus. Marcus’ “Second Car” had a low-voltage magneto ignition and rotating brush carburetor. The first automobile in the United States, powered by steam and demonstrated in 1804 by inventor Oliver Evans, could also travel on water with a paddle wheel.
Almost simultaneously in Germany, different inventors all working independently came up with the first automobiles with gasoline-powered internal combustion engines. Karl Benz was granted a patent in 1886 and began production of automobiles in 1888. Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in 1889 designed a vehicle specifically as a car rather than a carriage fitted with an engine. They also invented the first motor bike in 1886.
True automobile production was launched in Germany and France in 1888. The first company established solely to build automobiles was Panhard et Levassor in France, in 1889. Peugeot followed two years later. The first American automobile manufacturing company was formed in 1893: The Duryea Motor Wagon Company.
Almost immediately, hundreds of new technologies were developed in Europe and America. The gasoline internal combustion engine finally achieved dominance over steam and electricity during the second decade of the 20th century. Many modern advances were developed during this time of frenetic competition, including gas/electric hybrids, multi-valve engines, overhead camshafts and four-wheel drive. Virtually all were abandoned for a variety of reasons.
Innovation was feverish, but standards for basic vehicle architectures and controls were virtually non-existent. Some cars used a tiller rather than a steering wheel. Most had a single speed. Chain drive was more prevalent than driveshafts, and most cars had open bodies. Despite rapid innovation and production during this time, automobiles were still regarded as a novelty with limited usefulness. Breakdowns were frequent, fuel was scarce and new designs quickly rendered older cars worthless.
From 1905 to 1914, what auto historians mark the Brass or Edwardian era, automobile design saw significant standardization, including front-end engines and rear-wheel drive, planetary transmission, electric ignition, throttle control and leaf-spring suspension. Also, the majority of car ownership shifted from tinkerers to the average user – thanks to that well-known inventor, Henry Ford.
As the founder of the Ford Motor Company, Ford made his name as the father of modern assembly lines used in mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry, which would launch the United States into creating some of the classic cars that are so treasured today.
The Vintage era lasted from 1919 to the Stock Market crash of 1929 and saw continued technological advancement, growth and consolidation of the number of companies producing automobiles. Pre-War era car design began in 1930 and lasted until around 1948, which ushered in the Post-War era. The Modern era of car history typically refers to the 25 years preceding the current year.
“I guess I was born with a car gene in me,” says Wayne Everson, who grew up poor and eventually worked his way up to become a developer and business owner. He bought his first car for $175 when he was only 11, an old 1936 Chevrolet that he and a 10-year-old buddy pulled out of the weeds with his dad’s tractor. “I got my first ticket that day, too,” he says. A state trooper had been following behind as Everson and his friend towed the wreck home, the tires blown and the car dragging dirt and weeds. Vines and saplings fell all over the road and bees were flying out. The trooper was furious. “He gave us a warning ticket,” Everson says. “But it scared me to death.” The trooper made the boys walk back the way they had come and kick the debris off the pavement.
Today Everson has an unusual collection, such as a 1976 Greenwood Corvette station wagon (that’s right, a ‘Vette station wagon) and a 1928 Ford delivery van. He tried to give up cars once, he says. “I just couldn’t do it.” He keeps his shop behind his house in Castle Hayne. “I’ve got my whole life hanging on nails out there in that old shop,” he says.
For Joe Canady, cruising and racing were central to social life as a young person growing up in the Wilmington area during the ’50s and ’60s. “People recognized you by your car,” he says. “You could run a tank of gas without ever leaving town. You ran for bragging rights. It was your duty to get back out there if you lost a race.” Still, he forgot about cars and drag racing for a number of years but resumed the old hobby when his son, now grown, showed an interest as a boy of 12.
Today he runs for smiles, he says. People beam when they see him driving his street rods to car shows and swap meets and charity cruises.
The club he participates in, Sun Coast Cruisers, sponsors ‘cruises’ to raise money for charities and to socialize with fellow car enthusiasts. Crowds tend to stop what they’re doing and watch when they see dozens of restored cars hit the road. And the popularity seems to be growing. His club’s membership has grown steadily since it organized in 1999, when it spun off from the Coastal Cruisers club, whose members still meet.
Sales of classic and muscle cars have surged nationally as well. In 2001, sales at a Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Auction hit a 10-year high of $27 million. In January, collectors paid a record $5.5 million for an 800-horsepower 1966 Shelby Cobra “Super Snake,” once the personal car of racing veteran Carroll Shelby.
Canady recently told fellow club members that he was amazed to see the size of a recent three-day “swap meet” in Georgia that drew some 5,000 vendors and more than 3,000 cars. He visits 25 to 30 car shows and swap meets a year.
Automobile enthusiasts as a group don’t always fit neatly into categories. Generally, however, car collectors appreciate rare, unique models or authentically restored antiques whereas the average hot rod builder creates something unique from old frames and bodies.
Collectors often look at a car as an investment whose value might appreciate or as a unique work of industrial and engineering art to possess.
Of course, it’s not about the price. For car collectors, it’s hard to pin down just what makes a car valuable. For example, it’s doubtful a Ford Taurus, once the best-selling car in America, will ever become a collectable. But a Dodge Magnum station wagon, introduced in 2005, might someday be sought after, for its aggressive body styling, according to Phil Skinner, collector-car editor for Kelley Blue Book. Then again, many collectors don’t keep the cars for the price they could bring in. Instead, it’s about the art of the vehicles and even about a collection itself.
Car collecting surged for a while in the late 1980s, mostly as investments. Car collecting faded for many years but has seen recent growth from nostalgic aging baby boomers. For the average hot rod builder, much of the appeal of their machines is about getting their hands dirty.
Canady’s yellow 1932 Pontiac street rod turns heads. You don’t see many Pontiacs of that vintage. Of course, the Pontiac has a 350 horsepower Chevy V8 with a rear end out of an old Nova. The hood panels have been borrowed from a ’31 Ford and ’29 Ford, but the cool stainless louvers on the bonnet came out of a Cris Craft boat. The coil springs came off a 1948 truck. Anything to get that hot rod running.
“I like seeing something come up out of the junkyard,” says Canady, who last year served as president of the Sun Coast Cruisers. “I don’t have a lot of money, so I’ve got to economize.”
In addition to his ’32 Pontiac and a 1970 Mustang, Canady also owns a rare, running factory original 1939 Buick sedan. Top of the line in its time, it featured turn signals and individual coil suspension. In the trunk lies the original spare tire made by the Riverside Highway Company, which was taken over by the federal government to make tires for the military in World War II. Canady slides in behind the bone handled wheel, turns a key to unlock the steering column, flips a toggle on the dash and presses the gas pedal (electric ignition), and the engine rumbles to life in a low, smooth, throaty idle.
As rare as it is, though, Canady plans to add lumbar support to the seats for comfort, install safety belts, replace the engine with one from a Chevy truck in his yard, beef up the suspension, add A/C and tour the country with his wife when they both retire in about three years. Maybe it could be worth more restored to its original condition, but Canady wants a car that runs safely and comfortably on modern highways, at modern speeds.
And others agree. “I want to drive my car,” says Larry Parker, who also prefers a well-built, street-worthy hot rod to a nicely preserved antique. For example, Parker has a 1930 Ford that’s been in and out of his family’s barn since the 1960s, through more rebuilds, paint jobs and retrofits than he can remember.
“I’ve always had a passion for cars,” says Parker, a retired roofing contractor whose two children are grown and married with their own families. “But I had to wait 50 years to do it the way I wanted to.” He now spends much of his time in his shop with a paint booth, lifts and an upholstery machine. He’s got his own den there, too, comfortably outfitted with a couch and TV and memorabilia from his personal life as well as great dirt track hot rod legends of the past like Davis Raper and Cale Yarborough.
Indeed, hot rod and muscle car owners outnumber true antique collectors among the 100 or so members of the Sun Coast Cruisers.
Common belief holds that hot rods got their start after WWII. Commercial auto production was put on hold for the war effort, so cars were scarce by the time GIs started coming home. As they worked to rebuild their personal lives, they also culled junkyards and old barns for the materials they needed to build their own cars.
But auto historians generally place the birth of hot rods even further back, during the Great Depression, when those with a mechanical bent built cars from scrap out of necessity. Many built gutsy, fast machines for status. And often enough, a hot rod builder just wanted to prove he was equal to the wealthy. In that respect, the hot rod phenomenon, in addition to racing competition and the thrill of speed, represents a social statement about self-reliance, ingenuity and independence.
At the time, old Ford Model Ts and Model A roadsters were cheap and plentiful. And they were lightweight and simple to strip and modify. Gear ratios on the rear ends were raised to boost speed, big tires were installed and bodies and windshields were raked to cut wind drag. Ford flathead V8 engines, mass-produced in the millions after their introduction in 1932, were cheap and plentiful. Their simple design allowed easy performance enhancements.
When World War II ended in 1945, hot rodding quickly gained popularity in America. But fast cars, night time racing – sometimes deadly crashes – got associated with juvenile delinquency and rock and roll, and hot rodders drew bad press.
The first Hot Rod Exhibition in January 1948, in Los Angeles sought to address the negative image by emphasizing positive qualities like craftsmanship, engineering and safety. The show drew some 10,000 spectators. The National Hot Rod Association (NHRA), founded in 1951, advocated cooperation between hot rodders and police and helped organize legitimate drag strips to replace street racing. As hot rod popularity grew and competition became fiercer the average car enthusiast soon found that they just couldn’t compete anymore with junkyard parts.
By the 1960s, hot rodding began to decline in popularity, around the time of the introduction of the muscle cars, Detroit’s answer to performance cars in mainstream design. These monsters were loaded with huge engines like the Chevy 396, 409 and 427; the Ford 390 and 427; and the Chrysler 440 and 426 hemi, so-coined for its racing-engineered hemispherical combustion chambers.
Later in the decade came smaller pony cars – Mustangs and Camaros – which arrived just in time for the gas shortages and price hikes of the early ’70s. Enter the ‘econoboxes’ from Japan and Europe.
Exit the golden era of hot rodding.
Gary Henderson is a retired airline pilot who happens to believe that, no question, the coolest car of all time is a 1957 T-Bird. He recalled a drive to Sanford not too long ago in his own ’57 T-Bird, when it started running rough. He didn’t have tools or parts with him, so he pulled into a shop. All it needed was simple points and a condenser, he says. “They didn’t have the parts in stock and they didn’t have but one person who knew how to install them.” Cars today, so finely engineered and computerized, are nearly impossible to work on in your own shop or backyard, he says.
The automotive industry, since its earliest days, has always fueled technological innovation. Larry Kennedy, a product engineer for nearly 40 years with General Motors, Delco and German automotive supplier Behr America, thinks innovation over the next two to five years will likely be driven mostly by the need to improve fuel economy.
This need is driving all sorts of interesting design innovations to reduce what he calls ‘parasitic losses’ on engine performance. For example, novel electro-mechanical designs that incorporate a newly developed controllable magnetic fluid – magneto-rheological fluid – are being developed to squeeze greater efficiencies out of torque transfer devices that drive accessories like fan clutches, alternators, A/C compressors, air pumps and power steering pumps.
Long term, alternative fuels will likely lead technological innovation as well, Kennedy says. Battery technology, hydrogen – and don’t rule out nuclear power – loom large in guiding future development.Global competition, especially the emerging Chinese influence, is certain to shape the cars of tomorrow, including how we regard the automobile and incorporate it into our social lives. Maybe Americans will follow their European and Asian neighbors and decide to adopt a great rail system, says Kennedy, who is proud of the 1965 Chevy Corvair convertible he restored. “But I believe our love affair with the automobile is here to stay. The American consumer will always want some form of independent transportation.”
For Larry Parker and car lovers like him, the automobile represents more than simple transportation. It’s a form of expression. Sure, modern cars might not be suitable for backyard mechanics as they were in his day, but young people still find ways to feed their passions. Take car electronics, video systems, GPS mapping and audio systems. “Young guys are going to find a way to express themselves,” he says.
Maybe, says Lynn Yanyo, an engineer and marketing executive with Lord Corporation in Cary, who helped develop the unique magnetically responsive fluid technology for the automotive market. But technologies come and go with cars, and today, that’s especially true with consumer electronics, which seems to be moving out of the car and home and into people’s pockets. No, mused Yanyo, a Porsche fan herself and amateur go-cart racer. That just doesn’t seem to explain the deep personal relationship people have with the automobile. “It’s about driving,” she says. “It’s about the ride.”
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