by Tom Cotter
Brian and I strategizing on how to remedy the seized air conditioner compressor issue. Use of a smaller belt eliminated the a/c unit but would cause another issue two days later.
We turned into the driveway to have a closer look. A man who was standing there greeted us. His name was Huey Roberts.
I told him we were looking for old cars, and would he mind talking with us about his old Ford. The car was partially covered, so I wasn’t quite sure which body style it was.
“It’s a ’56 Crown Victoria,” said Huey. “It belongs to my sister, Pam. I’m going to restore the car for her.”
The car was pretty solid, and partially disassembled. I called Pam, who lives in Newport, Tennessee, and asked her about the car.
“My father-in-law, Bud, has owned two Crown Victorias since he was in his 20s,” Pam said. “One of them has the glass top. He finally decided that he was never going to restore both of them, so he gave one to his son, my husband, Tony. We’re having the car restored in its original pink and white paint job and will give it to my daughter, Page, who is 15 years old. She’ll drive it to high school.”
Pam mentioned her father-in-law had another old vehicle at his home in Tennessee, a 1953 Chevy five-window pickup truck.
“Bud gave that to Tony, who will fix it up and give it to my nine-year-old son, Harley.”
Pam grew up in the West Virginia Mountains but moved when she got married. I asked her if there were any old cars near where she lives now.
Thankfully we made it to an auto parts store where they let us test fit several belts.
“There are antique cars all over the place around here,” she said. “But nobody sells anything. They’d rather just let them rust into the ground.”
Unfortunately, we’ve all heard those stories too many times. I told Pam that if we ever write another Barn Find Road Trip book, we’d definitely consider checking out her area in Tennessee.
Soon after crossing into Maryland, the Woody started to give us a problem. At first I heard an irritating squeak. Then there was a smoky smell.
Success!
At a traffic light, smoke wafted up from under the hood. It was time to pull over and see what was going on.
Yuck! The smell of burning rubber when I opened the hood was pretty awful. I realized that something was going on with the rubber serpentine belt. Once I started the engine, it became apparent that the air conditioning compressor pulley was not spinning, obviously seized. Thank goodness we were in a small town that had a couple of auto parts stores.
We limped the car to one of the local stores and appraised our options.
Brian and I decided that if we were able to install a smaller belt, we could eliminate the air conditioning compressor altogether. Thankfully, the folks in the store agreed to allow us to test fit a number of belts before purchasing.
Brian dove underneath the Woody, and I worked on the top side. We removed the serpentine belt and began the custom-fitting process. After 20 minutes of trial-and-error test fittings, we decided on a belt of the correct length. This wasn’t a repair job with the speed of a NASCAR pit stop, but at least we got back onto the road without too much drama.
A few more miles down the road and we were in an area where we could drive back and forth between West Virginia and Maryland, the state line was that well defined. We drove into West Virginia for a few minutes, but that town did not seem to hold any automotive treasures. So we crossed back into Westernport, Maryland, and for some reason I felt compelled to drive down one particular road.
Whether you believe in a Greater Being or not, I felt attracted to a church that sat in the middle of a residential area. And son of a gun, in the church parking lot were two old cars, a 1969 Mercury Cougar and a 1971 Mustang Mach 1. Who would’ve thunk it? I knocked on the door of what appeared to be the preacher’s house, and a young woman came to the door. I asked about the cars.
“Those are my father’s,” said Christa Hammond. “His name is Greg, and he is the minister. It’s the First Assembly of God, a Pentecostal church.”
Christa came out to the parking lot to show us her dad’s cars. Accompanying Christa were her two sons, who had 600 horsepower of energy! The boys names were Austin, who was six, and Cooper, who was four. Christa’s hands were certainly full with these two young guys.
In a case of divine intervention, we were mysteriously led down a certain street in Westernport, Maryland, to discover these two muscle cars in a church parking lot.
Turns out that Pastor Greg Hammond loves to soup up cars and burn rubber! He has great plans for the Mach 1 and Cougar.
Austin and Cooper… seems there was an automotive influence when they were named…
“My father was a mechanic for most of his life,” said Christa. “His occupation is mechanic, but his calling is the ministry. But he’s always loved old cars. When he was 16 years old, he had a Mach 1 Mustang. He’s in his mid-50s now. I know he’d like to repaint the Mustang red metalflake.”
After the trip, I was able to interview Christa’s father Greg on the telephone. Before joining the ministry, Greg and his father had an auto repair shop. Then he worked at a Chrysler dealership for 20 years.
“I bought the Cougar from a friend,” said Greg, who has been a minister for 20 years, 10 in the town of Westernport, Md. “He had originally bought it as a gift for his girlfriend, but she was cheating on him, so he sold the car to me for $2,000. It’s a sleeper; it has a 351 Windsor with about 400 horsepower, but I’m thinking about installing a big-block in it with a four-speed.”
He said he’s already burned out two automatic transmissions because he likes to power-brake. This is one hip minister!
No word on whether Greg runs holy water in his cooling system!
Soon after acquiring the Cougar, he was on a pastoral visit to a woman’s home and noticed a Mustang Mach 1 in her yard.
“It belonged to her daughter, and she had an attachment to it,” he said. “She said if she decided to sell it, she’d call me first. Well, about 10 years go by, and I forgot about it, when she called me. I bought it for $2,000 as well.”
He plans on restoring the Mach 1, although the engine will be modified.
“It’s not in my DNA to leave engines stock,” said Greg.
One thing Greg misses most is a garage to work in.
“I need to find one before I start modifying the Cougar,” he said. “I once fixed up and painted a pickup truck in the church parking lot. Never again.”
It was nice to see a man of the cloth who was able to maintain his love of muscle cars.
Just a few minutes after leaving the Hammonds’, we passed a very cool looking old Buick. I had to stop. It was so art deco, red and white and just looked so period correct.
I knocked on the door and asked about the car. The man who answered said it was his son’s car. It was a 1953 two-door hardtop, and his son’s wife’s uncle gave it to them.
“I bought it with my income tax return check,” Milburn Viler Jr. said. “It runs good. I’m going to put it on the road and take it to some shows around town this summer.
“A woman has already asked me if she could use it for her daughter’s wedding!”
— DINNER AT UNCLE JACKS —
We checked into another Hampton Inn in Frostburg, Maryland, and asked the desk clerk where he would recommend we have dinner. He said there were a number of restaurants in the area—TGIF, Applebee’s, etc.—just a mile away.
I told him we were not big fans of franchise restaurants, and asked where we might find a nice pub in a downtown setting. He recommended traveling east to Cumberland, about 30 minutes away. That was a little bit further than we would have liked, but who knows; we might get a good lead on our next old car discovery from one of the locals.
Just a couple of miles from Pastor Hammond’s church, we came across Milburn Viler’s 1953 Buick two-door hardtop. There was just something about the look of this car that attracted us to it.
So we climbed into the Wood
y and drove to Cumberland. We cruised around until we found Uncle Jack’s Pizzeria & Pub. We took our place at the bar and ordered a few local beers and pizza. (Boy, did we eat a lot of pizza on this trip!)
We started chatting with some of the other patrons. One guy told us of an abandoned house in nearby Short Gap, West Virginia. He said there were a bunch of old cars, including an old Porsche and an old Saab.
“It’s right off Knobbly Road, on Dirty Foot Road,” he said. “It’s the house on the right. The guy who lived there died, and they want to sell everything.”
Wow, what a deal. We thanked him for the lead and told him we’d check it out in the morning.
The bartender overheard our conversation. She introduced herself as Amy Turner, at which point all three of us started to sing “Amy,” the old Pure Prairie League tune.
“That’s my favorite song,” she said. “I never get tired of hearing it.
“I’ve lived here my whole life. I grew up in a junkyard and a used car lot. But my father died in 1988, and now there is nothing left.”
We had a great pizza, said goodbye to Amy and her co-workers, and fired the Woody up for our 30-minute drive back to Frostburg. We already had a lead for tomorrow.
Amy, our bartender at Uncle Jacks, wanted to see the car that was causing all the excitement inside the pub!
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3
DAY 8
We started our adventure last Friday, so this is the beginning of our second week on the road. We’re still having fun (at least I am), and so far Brian’s and Michael’s snoring has not kept me awake too much.
First thing we wanted to check out was the West Virginia lead we got last night at Uncle Jack’s. When Brian and I heard there was an old Porsche, we both began to imagine that perhaps it would be an RSR, or a Spyder, or maybe a Turbo race car. Or at the very least, an early, non-rusty 911.
We used our Atlas and GPS to find our way to Knobbly Road, and then Dirty Foot Road. This was rural West Virginia, and street signs were not too helpful, but eventually we found the house.
We were disappointed.
Yes, there was a Porsche, a very nice 944. The Saab: a late model. There were a couple of other cars, like a couple of 1990s Chryslers, but nothing that fit our description of a barn find. So much for finding a vintage Porsche 356 with a four-cam Carrera engine, and maybe a nice, old Saab with a three-cylinder, two-stroke engine. Oh, well, the definition of “old car” is not the same for everyone.
This find did not meet our high standards.
As we were leaving Dirty Foot Road, we noticed two old cars, one in a driveway and one behind the house—a Buick and a Cadillac. I knocked on the door and met Cheryl Fields. She and her husband, David, live in Short Gap, West Virginia, and own these two flat-black hot rods.
Cheryl and David Fields of Short Gap, West Virginia, have a couple of cool rides running, and another one in construction. This 1946 Buick has a 383 stroker engine and troublesome Jaguar headlights.
The Fields bought this 1942 Cadillac as an original car for $1,200 and installed a 500-cubic-inch Caddy engine and disc brakes. They have driven the car to many street rod meets. Their 1947 Chevy panel is still under construction.
“We found the Cadillac in a barn,” she said. “The guy needed to move it because he ran out of room. It had the original flathead eight cylinder in it when we bought it. Now it has a 1977 500 [cubic-inch Caddy] engine and disc brakes. It’s a 1942, and one of the last 100 Cadillacs built before passenger-car production ended before World War II.”
The car had been in Burlington, West Virginia. Cheryl and David saw a note posted about the Caddy limo at a car show in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
“The man who was selling it said, ‘I have to get my money out of it,’ so I asked, ‘How much is that?’ And he said, ‘$1,200,’” said Cheryl. “We thought he might want $5,000 for it, because it ran. We’ve had it for 12 years and it runs well. We did the work ourselves.”
The Buick also had an interesting history.
“The Buick is a 1946, and was one of the first 200 to be built after the war,” she said. “It has a Fleetwood body as well. It has a 383 Chevy stroker engine.”
Cheryl said they bought the car about eight or nine years ago from a friend. It had a purple paint job when they bought it.
“The Buick had 1977 Jaguar headlights, but I couldn’t find new bulbs, so I had to get new lights.”
ALMOST HEAVEN, WEST VIRGINIA
We weren’t trying to spend more time in West Virginia, it’s just that the Maryland/Virginia/West Virginia state lines were so close to each other in this area that we crisscrossed from state to state without even realizing it.
That, and there are just so many old cars in West Virginia. It seemed that no matter what road we drove down, we stumbled across vintage tin.
Another thing: when we asked car folks in Virginia or Maryland about where old cars could be found, they said, “There are no old cars around here anymore.” But when we asked West Virginians about old cars, they said, “There are plenty all over the state.” In fact, most people were saddened by their state’s beautification programs that were responsible for entire junkyards being crushed.
It seems that old cars are an accepted form of yard art in West Virginia. Plus folks just enjoy tinkering with old machines, whether they are cars, trucks, tractors, or whatever. There is a real appreciation for vehicles that were built to be serviced by the owner.
Looking at the two cars, it was amazing that these two old GM cars were so similar in style, but were in fact separated by four years and a world war. There was not a lot of automotive design progress made in Detroit while we were fighting in Europe and the Far East.
Cheryl said they also have a 1947 Chevy panel truck, which is getting finished.
“My husband got sick and can’t work on the truck, so we’re having someone else work on it,” she said. “It’s almost finished.”
Might these two cars be for sale?
“We haven’t really discussed it,” she said.
Before we left, Cheryl gave us instructions to a road where more old cars could be found.
James Jackson occasionally sells special-interest cars at his used car lot, including this odd but functional Plymouth coupe, which sits on a later-model chassis. It sold for $2,500.
A few miles down the road from Cheryl’s on Highway 28 South we passed a used car lot with a few old relics on display. Of course we had to stop. The name of the dealership was Jackson Auto, and we were quickly greeted by Sherry Mondshour and her son, Phillip Studli. Sherry said we could look around, but her husband, James Jackson, would have to answer our questions, and he was not there at the moment.
“Don’t worry about the guard dog,” she said. “I’m here, so he won’t bite.”
So I walked to look behind the fence and…OUCH! That darn dog bit me!
Jackson Auto Sales also had a ’64 Impala, a 1961 Desoto, and this solid-looking Falcon Ranchero.
“Oh, I’m sorry, “said Sherry. “But don’t worry, he has all his shots.”
Thankfully, his teeth did not pierce my blue jeans, but his teeth clamped down hard on my kneecap, which I thought he ripped off. It left quite a dent in my skin, and I was initially worried that my running days might be over, but the pain subsided over the next few days. I was limping for a while, though.
When I called James after our trip, he said he enjoyed selling old cars.
“I don’t sell many of them, but I like them,” said James.
I asked about an old Plymouth that was for sale at his dealership. It was an odd combination of modern and vintage parts.
From the rougher-than-we’d like department, this Falcon has rebuilt brakes and engine but more than its share of rust.
“I just sold that for $2,500. I still have a couple, though: a ’61 Desoto and a ’70 Chevelle.”
Then our cell phone signal went dead. Not surprising since he was driving through the rural West Virginia mountains.
We left Jackson Auto and continued driving on roads that went back and forth between Maryland and West Virginia. As we entered a town called Keyser in West Virginia, we came across a couple of old cars in a yard adjacent to a body shop: an early Falcon and a first-generation Bronco.
These two cars were rougher than I would normally like, but they were old and we were writing a book about finding old cars, so…
They were owned by Rob Haines, owner of Rob’s Body Shop, which was across the street.
“The Falcon is a 1960, the first year, I believe,” Rob said. “I’ve had it 15 years, and my uncle had it 10 years before that.
“I started to fix it, but there’s never enough money to spend on your own stuff, so it just sits. But it’s new from the wheel cylinders up; rebuilt motor, new brakes. It has the 140-cubic-inch engine and vacuum wipers. It did run good, but that was a while ago.”
Parked near the Falcon at Rob’s Body Shop is this rough Bronco. Owner Rob Haines said he was taking monthly payments toward its sale.
He’s owned the Bronco for 10 or 12 years.
“It’s a 1969 or a ’70, I think. I actually sold the Bronco. I’m taking monthly payments from an old boy. He owes me about six more months of payments before it’s his.”
Rob said he probably won’t sell the Falcon.
“I’ve got to go pick up a 19641/2 Mustang this week,” he said. “It was also my uncle’s, and he gave it to his stepson, then when he passed away, his wife gave it to me. It’s been up on jacks inside the garage for 15 years, so it’s in a lot better shape than the Falcon.”