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A little road trip to gather more poor financial decisions
Many of you know I like projects. :LOL: Growing up my dad worked constantly and it was always on everyone else's vehicles. As I got older I was building things at shops I rented or places I worked as we didn't have a shop on dad's place any longer. In 09 I built the shop at Dad's place but he was still working. He had begun to have medical issues and has been retired for about 4 years and is still plagued with medical issues. With that being said, I always wished we could have built something together. We have worked on plenty together, and he has helped me a lot on my builds, but we never really built anything start to finish together. I decided I'd like to build each one of my kids a car or truck by the time they turn 16. They can pick what they would like and we'd find something in that realm. So far I have a 40 Ford for Izzabelle, a 70 Camaro for Clint, and now we have Colt's car. Here is the story on it/them so far.
My first car was a 39 Chevy sedan that I worked off/bought from my Uncle Jerry. That car never got finished and I got discouraged and sold it. Fast forward to last year and I thought I had a 72 Nova trade arranged for Colt. That deal fell through and we began looking for something else. My wife told Colt he would look good in something pre war. I thought ok great. Those are so easy to find these days. :LOL: I then remembered the guy I sold the last 2 39 chevys I had to, still had them. He has the nicer body panels stored in a barn and the cars are still setting outside behind an old service station. I drove down to see if they were still there and they were. Unfortunately he wants about triple what he gave me for them and now one of the frames are bent and someone stole the dash out of one. I decided to just look around for something better.
One night I was cruising marketplace and up popped this 39 Olds coupe for $500. I thought no way, that's too could to be true. I showed Colt it and he was pretty excited about it. I told him we would just put a 39 Chevy front clip on it and we could make it cool. I went ahead and bought it but I told Colt it was sold. He didn't believe me so I showed him the add that said sold. He didn't take it well at all. His birthday is June 6th and I had planned to give it to him for his birthday so I wanted to keep it a secret. A couple of weeks had passed and Colt started to develop some behavior issues and was in a bad mood all the time. He wouldn't say what was wrong with him. One day we went to my parent's house and he saw a 72 GMC I bought for parts on the trailer and he asked where it came from. I told him and he instantly snapped at me yelling, " Oh you can buy that piece of junk but you couldn't get my car." I told him he better watch his mouth or he'd begetting nothing talking like that. At least we knew what he was mad about now.
I had been planning my trip to go get the olds though. It was in Sedalia MO but there was a catch. The guy that sold me this one had a guy reach out to him and let him know that who ever bought it, he had a front clip for the car he'd sell. I got in touch with this guy and he for sure had a front clip. It was on another 39 olds shell and frame. He said $200 for the front clip, and another $100 for the frame and bare shell. I thought about it and was trying to come up with a plan to get both in the same trip. Luckily my aunt's trailer was at my parent's place since we used it to haul hay. It's around 30' long and I figured I could get both on it hopefully. I borrowed a tow rig since my truck wouldn't haul 3 kids nor be as comfy and I set the trip up. I didn't tell the kids we were going either.
The day finally came and we left. For what ever reason, I selected economy on the nav, but it switched to fastest and I didn't catch it until we were getting into southern Iowa. It literally took us down recently paved goat paths. I'm not going to lie and say I wasn't nervous on that first road in Missouri. It was barely wide enough for 2 semis to pass and the hills were insane. Some were straight up with not much top and back down and some had curves in a hill part way down. Not cool when you're as long as we were and not knowing whom is coming around the corner. We made it alright though. We stopped at a Casey's in Brookefield? so Ivvy could go to the bathroom. That was roughly an hour from Sedalia. Setting across the street was a pretty cool 51-53 Chevy sat on top of a square body 4x4 dually frame. Colt got out and took pics and we kept going.
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Who are the late 30's GM experts here?
I'm not even going to pretend like I know because I don't. I've never had any coupes from the late 30s or even the early 40s. Can anyone tell me if all the 38-42? Chevy/Pontiac/Buick/Oldsmobile/Cadillac coupe roof lines are the same?
Finding deck lids seems really hard to find. On the fords of the same year ranges, the front doors are four door car doors. On these GM's that isn't the case. The doors are coupe specific. I've found a 39 Cadillac in Indiana I'd consider buying but only if I can use parts off it for our oldsmobiles. The deck lid is the main piece I'd like.
