First, I want to say that I was bummed that I didn’t make it up to the ASRA Midwest Vintage Weekend meet, in Riverside, MO this past weekend. I had originally planned on driving up early Saturday morning, and coming back that night, but I wound up getting another offer that I couldn’t refuse.
Off to St Louis!
There have been many people who have been large influences on me over the years, and I would be remiss if I didn’t give a lot of that credit to my Aunt Betty Jo and Uncle Bob. Uncle Bob acquired my ’40 coupe, by “hauling it off” for a lady down in South St. Louis, back when I was about 5 years old. At that time, he told me that it was mine. Aunt Betty Jo gave me the title for my 16th birthday. I am sure that she would have preferred that I had “restored” the ’40, but she is happy that I am using it.
Then…there’s the “other ’40″…
Some time in the mid ’70’s, Uncle Bob and Aunt Betty Jo found a really nice ’40 Ford 1/2 ton Stake Bed truck. The truck is mostly stock, although it does have a full chrome grille and ’40 Deluxe headlight rings. I learned to drive a “standard” transmission in this truck, hauling junk around on their warehouse properties down in north St Charles. One Saturday evening, after cleaning up and burning some brush piles, while Uncle Bob was working the phone and emptying beer cans, he told me that I had to drive us home. At 14 years old, I got to drive the old ’40 Stake Bed 9 miles back to the house.
Aunt Betty Jo has been wanting me to come up to St Louis, so that she could take me down to the garage where she has her truck and ’26 Model T Touring car stored. I finally got an opportunity to get up there, and that starts the “real” part of the post…
Aunt Betty Jo has been a long time member of the Antique Auto Club of America, and has a ton of contacts because of her active involvement. The guy that is storing her cars has quite the collection and setup!
I didn’t take pictures of his family’s collection, because I wanted to be sensitive to their security, but I did snag a few pictures of a couple of their cars that are out on the internet. Who needs to go to a museum when you can see rare cars like this (and several other cars, too) in a guy’s personal garage??? The cool thing about these cars, too, is that they actually drive them!
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The other part of the trip was Dickie Carroll’s Annual Waffle Breakfast. Each year, Dickie has invited me, but it was always scheduled on New Years Day. This year, they rescheduled it, and moved it out to a park in St Peters, MO. What a cool event! There were around 50 rods and customs that showed up. Unfortunately…I did more eating and talking, and wound up not getting pictures of everything. It was great to talk to many of my hot rod mentors! I also got to drive Dickie’s newly finished ’56 Ford F-100. SWEET truck! (Dang it…one of the pictures that I did miss!!!)
Freshly washed, and ready to head to breakfast.
(ok…I know this is a ’49, but as Ted Theodore Logan would say…”Dude, I am in love”, what’s not to dig about this stock body/trim Merc with a throttle body injected Desoto Hemi???)
The FBI (Fat Boys of Illinois) showed up in their roadsters!
After the breakfast, I ran over to catch the end of Pastor Jerry’s sermon, ate lunch with Dad and Marian, and went up to Rodger & Margaret Bell’s house. Rodger has built so many cool cars over the years, and wanted to show me his ’40 Ford Standard coupe that he’s finishing up. It is sure to be one of the slickest around!
The ride home was a long hot one, but I did take a couple of opportunities for some photo-ops. The weather app on my phone said that it was 98 degrees, when I pulled into Springfield, around 7:30pm last night.
Phillips Petroleum station in Cuba, MO
Just put in all of the starting/stopping places into Google Maps, adjusted routes, and came up with about 580 miles of round trip, in the ’37.
Bret Chrismer
bret@streetrodder.net
The FUN is in the RUN!!!
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