By Gary Callander
I've been interested in antique cars as long as I can remember, though I can't really explain why. Maybe it started when I was a little gaffer, and there was a neighbor down the street with what I think were two unrestored Model T's in the backyard. We kids would crawl all over them and pretend we were driving them. Anyways, I often drew pictures of Model T's and always enjoyed seeing antiques on the road, especially hearing the ahooga horn. When I was about ten, an unrestored Model A coupe arrived at another nearby house and I liked to stop and look at it often.
They tried to drive it once, but there was an earth-shattering ka-boom from the engine, and that was the end of it. It never ran again after that. For 2 years it sat derelict across the back alley from our house, so I asked Dad if he would be interested in buying it and to my surprise he said to go ask them. However, they weren't interested in selling.
I continued to pester Dad to get an antique car and he agreed to look elsewhere. We first looked at a Model T from an ad in the Herald, but it was a real basket case and we decided to keep looking. The next ad we responded to was for a '28 Model A Tudor. It wasn't much better than the Model T, but we were already getting impatient and so Dad bought it. I was about 12 at that time.
We joined theAPAC and soon heard about the new Stampede CityA's club. We joined a year later when I was 13 and began to make many new “A” friends. The restoration was started on the Tudor and about 6 years later it was finished. It was a good father-son project. We did almost all of it ourselves, including the bodywork and painting.
This car has served us very well and is still a reliable car with many tens of thousands of miles on it since then.
After moving out and starting my own family, the tours began to get crowded with all of us in the Tudor. I decided it was time to have a Model A of my own. Fellow club member George Edworthy had been trying to persuade me to buy his '28 sport coupe, so I took it for a test drive and decided to buy it. I've been partial to coupes ever since that one arrived in the neighborhood years before. I had fond memories of riding in George's rumble seat in the early years of belonging to the club, so there was already some sentimental attachment to this car.
My sport coupe was made onAugust 31, 1928. It appears to be a fairly low mileage car that was never fully restored, just kept running over all those years. I have decided not to give it a full restoration, but to make it a good “driver”. I have replaced the roof and headliner, rebuilt the engine, transmission and front axle, powder coated the wheels, put an original horn on, and done numerous other repairs. It is now a pretty reliable and fun-to drive car.
I have been a member of the club now for 28 years, and have held every position on the executive. forward to many more years of model “A”ing with this club.
