I
bought the sedan from an old school mate, Kevin Valder, in 1965,
when I was 16, just after I sold my 33 Ford fordor sedan. It was
a genuine Left hand drive sedan & was painted green, but needed
a bit of body & rust work done as Kevin had been working as a
fisherman. I paid 80 pounds for it, got it on the Friday night, then
drove to Auckland the next day, to go to a Hot Rod show in Campbell
Buildings. It was my first left-hand drive car and I drove around
town for 3 hours on the Friday night so I could get used to it.
After
a while, I decided it was time to do something to it so sent it off
to Terry Furness and Tom Jones at Mount Panelbeaters, (Terry’s
business) and they worked wonders on the bodywork, then another hot
rodding mate, Terry Mulqueen , mixed up our own tone of Blue iridescent
metallic paint, which got sprayed on to the vehicle at 12-15am one
night, just before one of the Hastings shows.
The
car was never intended to be a show vehicle and was used on the street
for heaps of years. It also doubled as a “taxi” when
other members of our club had their cars in the shows on display. I
did over 300,000 miles in it during the time I had it, which was mainly
clocked up with continual cruising and weekend trips away to different
hot rod events all over NZ. One particular trip springs to mind, when
I towed Ross Simon’s show-chopper, Iridescent” down to
Hastings for a show at the Tamona Showgrounds. It was at the same time
that the film “Easy Rider” hit all the big screens around
the country.
Anyway,
we had the chopper on the back of a trailer covered only by clear
plastic, towed behind my left-hand drive Ford. We pulled up at some
traffic lights as we drove through Napier, and a young kid said to
his mother “ Look Mummy, Look, Americans”.
I never forgot that.
I
could write a book on this car, “Blue Heaven,’ with
all the experiences and good times I had with it. For some reason it
seemed to have an infinity with the local nurses home & on party
night , you could cram 15 people in it. On one of these nights, it
was driven through one of the local shopping arcades, and as far as
I know, it still holds the record as the biggest car to go through
it. In those days, we made our own fun, but made sure that we didn’t
hurt anyone or damage anyone else’s property in the process,
and always had a certain amount of fear & respect of our elders.
Being
a typical teenager, I had a heavy right foot and after blowing five
or six 59A motors up, due to using NZ pistons in them, (they couldn’t
take the high revs and used to take the tops off around the top ring
land.), I had a 8BA motor done up for the car. This gave me excellent
service until I tried to see if I could pull the elusive 75 mph in
2 nd gear, that side-valve V8s were reputed to do, down the main road
in town. Can’t remember what speed I was doing, but when I pushed
in the clutch to change gear, there was an almighty bang and the car
shook like hell.
INSTANT
V5 !!!!!.One piston had gone halfway through a cylinder head, another
piston & rod was sticking out the side
of the block and the other had exited through the sump.
I
managed to turn the car around and drive back home to my place where
it finally gave up altogether, just as I pulled into the drive-way.
I was sitting on the back bumper, trying to think what to do next
when this kid came down the drive on his push-bike, saying “ Mister,
Mister, your’ve dropped something !”, and in his hand he
had the remains of a con-rod. I didn’t know whether to laugh
or cry and guess he must have followed the trail of water & oil
back to my place.
After
this I fitted it with another 59A motor, but this time used genuine
Canadian pistons in it and it never missed a beat.
I
also blew the gear-box up a few times and as it used a LH Drive casing,
I had to buy a normal RH Drive box, dismantle it, then change all the
gears into my casing.
As
you can see, the car never had a quiet life and was always driven
to it’s limit, but we had many a good time
together.
About
this time, (late 70’s early 80’s ) I also had a
couple of 59 Fords, had just purchased a 49 Mercury, had a 1960 Ford
Fairlane, and also a Mercedes, so wasn’t driving the car as much
and about the same time, I was endeavouring to fit a Jaguar over-drive
gearbox into my 60 Fairlane, when I dropped it on my chest, causing
major problems. This virtually put paid to my days of working on cars,
or at least doing all the work myself.
“Blue
Heaven” sat for sometime and I guess this really
started it’s demise, as it started to develop rust around the
bottom of the door pillars etc. Not long after this, my mother passed
on and again the car was stored while I shifted house, as the family
house got sold. It ended up in a lean to (carport) at my new abode
and sat there for quite a number of years. As I couldn’t work
on it at the time and it was still deteriorating , I sold the car to
another friend, Ray Lloyd, who is also into fat-fendered Fords. It
sat for sometime under a cover, after he got it, then he eventually
sold it to another well-known rodder, Ray Fenton, who also on-sold
it. It went through various owners before becoming a basket-case, and
it is now owned by Auckland rodders, Terry & Kaye Brunton who live
in Papakura.
I
didn’t do the car justice, seeing it had served me so well,
and I wish that I had never parked it up now, because it was a great
car and I know this started it’s demise. Once the rust started,
none of us took the time to deal to it in time and so now a great cars
life has come to an end. (See Hot Rod Magazine article Dec 2002)
Everyone
thought it was a 46 model but it was actually made up in Holland
just after the war years, and was assembled in April 1947, being
made from parts shipped over there from Canada, which is why I had
trouble trying to trace the proper parts numbers for it. It was brought
to NZ in 1952, by an Ardent Walter Middleberg, who had been a vet
for the Dutch Government. He later sold it to a Thos Haines from
Rongotea and then it went through a string of owners before it ended
up in my hands.
R.I.
P, “Blue Heaven”, you served me well.
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