Stepping Off

Our town does its parading on Memorial Day - actually the Sunday before Memorial Day. The Fourth of July is generally celebrated with family picnics or parades in other towns. Some 30 years ago, America's automakers did a disservice to the nation by discontinuing the production of convertibles, ever useful for parading lovelies and luminaries. For years the only convertible in our parades was a well-used 1967 Plymouth. Happily all that has changed. It's the 21st Century and convertibles are back.

Our memorial observances this year began with singing of the Star Spangled Banner, followed by raising the flag - then lowering it to half mast. The Silver Cornet Band played "God Bless America" and then the parade stepped off. The High School Band furnished mellow marching tunes, and Grand Marshal Chelsea Bateman, a winning essayist, was chauffeured in a red '58 Chevy Impala. There were no fewer than three fife and drum corps, one from as far away as Moodus. Boy Scouts from Troop 12, of which my son Edward is an Eagle alumnus, represented our side of town and our two fire departments had their best equipment in line. New this year was an emergency unit from the Salvation Army.

Convertibles there were aplenty, most carrying bevies of beauties. Interestingly, most were imports: Saab and BMW, but Mustang and Chrysler showed the flag for our home country. Jeep can be considered a convertible, and we had two, counting the sailors and Barbie. We always have a few antique cars, this year represented by a Model A Ford and a '55 Ford Victoria. For some reason, the lone '62 Chevy had its top up and no dignitaries aboard. A sweet '41 Ford coupe showed just a hint of rodding, a trait more prominent in the '38 Chevy behind it.

Memorial Day, of course, remembers our soldiers, and we had a pair of HMMWVs representing active duty and a convoy of historic military vehicles, from World War II WC Dodge to Korean era M37 to Deuce and a Half.

A parade is not a parade without floats. Sometimes they're less than inspired, but this year in addition to the traditional patriotic themes we had an innovative flying machine and a float that really floats, complete with rowing hands.

But not all was mechanized. Bringing up the rear was a mounted division, with their own motorized detachment for emission control.

Village Green

The summer I turned seven my parents bought their first house. It was old and run down, and among other things needed a new driveway. My father hired Foss Webb, owner of Webb's Trucking, to deliver some gravel.

Mr. Webb had two Ford dump trucks, of the type at the top of this page. Knowing I was fascinated with cars and trucks and machinery of all kinds, he invited me to ride along on one of his many trips to the gravel bank. When I asked the year of the trucks, he told me the one in which I was riding was a 1945, the other a 1942. This surprised me on two counts, because I hadn't realized that the style had been introduced before the war, nor that Ford built trucks in 1945, which I knew was a war year.

My friend Jim Wagner, Ford truck guru and author of the definitive book Ford Trucks Since 1905, explains that the new style, with high front fenders and "waterfall" grille but retaining cab of the 1940-41 type, was introduced for 1942. Headlamps, which were fender mounted in 1940-41, were faired into the "catwalk" area next to the grille, in contrast to Dodge, which still had bug-eyed lights, and Chevy, GMC and Studebaker, who only partially faired them. The only American light truck manufacturer, aside from Ford, offering fully-faired lights was International. Cab-over-engine Fords retained the 1938 cab and 1941 nose.

Although production of civilian cars and trucks halted early in 1942, trucks for the military services were delivered right through 1943 and into '44, by which time a few civilian deliveries were again authorized by the government. In the spring of 1945, civilian truck production resumed in earnest and the 31 millionth Ford, a pickup, was completed on May 3rd. The style remained in production until replaced by the new F-series trucks in January 1948.

One thing that intrigued me about Mr. Webb's trucks was that while his 1945 dump truck was the very common Village Green with Tacoma Cream trim the '42 was painted in a reverse combination, tan cab with dark green trim. I have since wondered if this was a pre-war offering, as I've never seen another. Jim Wagner says that while '42 Ford trucks were offered in seven passenger car colors, tan was not among them. By 1945, trucks colors were Niles Blue-Green, Fathom Blue, Moselle Maroon, Village Green and Newcastle Gray. At various times, Vermilion Red and other passenger car colors were offered, but after October 1946 Village Green was made standard. Throughout this period, however, special fleet paint jobs, like this Railway Express truck, were common. That explained why most Ford trucks of that era I had seen were green. It also suggests that Mr. Webb's "reverse" painted 1942 dump truck had either been supplied as part of a special fleet order or repainted by a subsequent owner.

There are plenty of "waterfall" Fords around, though some are in pretty precarious condition. They remain some of my favorite trucks, especially in Village Green. The sound of a V8 climbing a hill in an intermediate gear is music to my ears.

American Archeology

Over at the Hemmings Blog, one of the more inspired forms of journalism to emanate from southern Vermont, they've been obsessing of late about the fate of abandoned AMC dealerships. You may think this is the ultimate fetish on a famous forgotten marque, but it's an important part of an underappreciated sub-culture, automotive archeology, the industrial and commercial remnants of our favorite industry.

The blog has featured numerous sightings of ex-AM stores by readers and staffers, and the call has gone out for further examples from a lengthy list compiled by Eddie Stakes. Our area has its own AMC history, more convoluted than most and thus an apt topic for intensive CarPort investigative reporting.

Our American Motors dealer in the 1950s and '60s was C&S Motors in New London, Connecticut. Operated by Constantine Patterson and Sam Ptashew, C&S had been in operation at 128 Huntington Street since at least the 1940s, and when I first knew it still had a Nash wrecker that all the local enthusiasts tried to buy at one time or other - to no avail. In the 1970s, Constantine and Sam sold out to the Falvey family.

The Falveys had a service and used car business on Ocean Avenue. A bit earlier than their buyout of C&S they had acquired the Golart Motor Company, a Renault-Peugeot dealer formerly of Ledyard Street, and moved it to their Ocean Avenue location. After the C&S takeover they continued to sell AMCs and Jeeps at Huntington Street, but eventually moved that business, too, over to Ocean.

The odd thing was that across town there was another Jeep dealer, Linder Motors, which also sold Dodge (and Simca!). This was decades before the AMC-Chrysler hookup, and for years I puzzled over how it came about. One day while browsing through some old New London City Directories I found the answer. In 1955, Linder Motors was the Kaiser-Jeep dealer. When Kaiser ceased to build cars, they took over the Dodge franchise of Schaller Motors, formerly of 155 Montauk Avenue, and kept Kaiser's Jeep line. Falvey's Car Sales sold AMC-Jeep-Renault-Peugeot on the south end of the city, and Linder did fine with Dodges and Jeeps at the north. After 1987, Renault petered out in the US, and since there were already Chrysler-Plymouth and Dodge stores in New London, Falvey's concentrated on Jeeps and Peugeots.

Fast forward to 2008. The Linders are still selling Dodges and Jeeps on Broad Street in a 1926 building originally a service location for the Southern New England Telephone Company. The Falvey dealership on Ocean Avenue is now devoted to Chrysler-Jeep, since the former Chrysler dealer has defected to Kia. The C&S location at the corner of Huntington and Federal Streets is still in the car business but selling low-end used iron. The Ledyard Street lot is also still in play, with slightly more prestigious pre-owned imports. The building at 155 Montauk, later a Lincoln-Mercury-Triumph store, now houses medical offices.

The only historic sign I found on my archeological tour was the Peugeot standard that still hangs over Falveys, though they haven't sold a new one in 15 years. The Rambler Used Car sign that heads this item is from my own collection, where it keeps company with my long-slumbering Rambler convertible.

Time to Mow

As April turns to May, apple blossoms follow forsythia and it's time to mow the lawn. When I was growing up, lawn mowers were made of cast iron and had to be pushed. When I was seven, my parents bought an old house whose lawn had grown to hay. Instead of a real lawn mower Dad bought a Simplicity garden tractor, complete with cultivator, snow plow, weed cutter, cordwood saw and, most important, sickle bar. Until our wilderness was tamed that sickle bar was our only mower.

Eventually it was supplanted by a succession of rotary mowers, all of which had to be followed on foot. I longed for a riding machine, like my cousin's Tiger tractor, the Beaver that cut the lawn at my school, or one of the ubiquitous Bolens tractors in town. The big estates had Locke gang mowers, which I coveted, though when I got a job at one I was relegated to a Jacobsen professional machine, which I still had to walk behind. I remember Dad telling me about the Coldwell mower, which was water cooled, but I never saw one.

With a home of my own, I, too, acquired a series of cheap rotary mowers. At one point we experimented with a Flymo, the British hovercraft mower, but it was electric and prone to cut its own cord. Finally we bought a Lawn Boy, at what seemed like an astronomical price. With the grass catcher it does a nice job, but after nearly 25 years is wearing out. Parts are expensive, if you can find them, and the equivalent model today costs nearly $700. To be sure, we have a riding mower, too, a generic Wal-Martian, but I prefer the Lawn Boy in the garden and orchards, where the big machine is hard to maneuver. It's best suited to the back forty. So is the Gravely, which I seldom use for mowing. I still have the Simplicity tractor and sickle bar, but have never had grass tall enough to use them.

So how do we replace the Lawn Boy..? We're going electric without the cord. I'll let you know how it works out.