11 Cars 1 – Fords, Barracudas

Cars 1 – Fords, Barracudas

I always maintained our cars (and motorcycles), acquiring the tools along the way to support my skills, both real and fancied. My watchwords were “faster” and “better”, and my motives were simple, and only two: there was less down-time, and it was usually much cheaper. My efforts mainly focused on engines (of course) but also electrical, suspension and steering, brakes, wheels and tires, and interior; there was almost nothing I wouldn’t do, although I disliked exhaust and body work, and I couldn’t paint. For most vehicles I got a service manual, sometimes from the manufacturer (complete, detailed and expensive), but usually a book by Haynes (my preference) or Chilton, from a parts store.

My first car was a 1946 Ford (dark grey, with 239 cubic inch V8 flathead engine) bought for $85 at a camp in Ringgold GA soon after I got my driver’s license at age 16. It had a semi-reclining front seat (not by design). I “cleaned” the engine’s cylinder heads and tried to put dual points on the ignition distributor in an effort to “soup up” the car. Once joyriding with my cousin Ted on “Thrill Hill” in Brainerd, the hood flew off, and we retrieved it from the road; another night we drove the car at 95 miles per hour (as fast as it would go) at the lake; still another time the brakes failed at the stop sign beside Sunnyside school, hitting another driver’s car; I finally took my car off the road, and sold it to a scrap dealer for $15.

My mother bought three Fords in succession. Her first was a 1949 “Custom” coupe, green. On a vacation ride in the Smoky Mountains this car had a front tire go out-of-balance, which had to be replaced; other than that episode, it ran very well.

Her second car was a 1955 Ford, also a “Custom” coupe, light blue. I was learning to drive, and backed the car into the side of Baylor’s commandant’s Pontiac, which was parked in the paved quadrangle near the top of the hill; he was understanding and gentle. Without her say-so I thought I would “hot rod” this Ford, so I installed dual exhaust manifolds and pipes off a “Fairlane” model from an automobile junkyard near Baylor, and “glass-pack” mufflers, which made it very loud; we used this car for outings with the ‘Shepherd Hills Hoods”, and sometimes drove the Shallowford Road tunnel though the ridge just to hear the noise.

Her third car, bought in my senior year at Baylor, was a 1960 Falcon, black with four cylinder engine, which we called “the Fal-coon”. This was her first car with an automatic transmission, which had two speeds; she always drove automatics after, as I did later. I hot-rodded this car also, trying to install dual points on the distributor, but I didn’t know that the oil pump was driven by a hex key off the distributor gear, and I ignorantly dropped the key into the crankcase. On a test drive downtown the engine overheated and quit. I pulled the car into my mother’s favorite garage, had the problem diagnosed, and the bearings were replaced on the spot while I waited. Another time I drove this car into a 2’ deep cut-out across the road, unlit on a rainy night, and ruined the front suspension on my mom’s car and had to have it repaired. Then I went off to college at Emory in Atlanta GA.

While I was away (maybe in the Navy, or newly married in RI), she bought what would be her last car, a 1969 Plymouth Barracuda “fastback” coupe, light green with 283 cubic inch V8 engine. After Mom’s death in 1985, I drove it home to RI with our older daughter, a pre-teen; en route the “Bacca-roota”, as my boy cousin dubbed it, attracted a lot of interest. On the day after we arrived, my daughter took the car out of “Park” in our driveway, and it coasted downhill, smashing the open door against a tree; I found another Barracuda (darker green) at a junkyard in Coventry RI, and replaced the door, so the car could be driven again. It was sporty, fast, and fun to drive, so since it was my tangible gift from my mother, I took it back and forth to work at CTI. I bought a very leafy and dirty Barracuda coupe at a lake in RI (slant six cylinder engine and not a fastback, but the most nearly alike I could find); with a friend I towed it to our home. That fall our oldest son wrecked my mom’s car on a utility pole near our local town hall, en route to his job (he also worked at CTI); he couldn’t see that chilly morning, because the windshield fogged up due to a heater leak. After that, I had both Barracudas towed away, giving them to a local junkyard.